2020 ANNUAL REPORT Our Response to COVID-19
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2020 ANNUAL REPORT Our Response to COVID-19 During the COVID-19 pandemic, the health and safety of our employees has always been our top priority. We continue to deliver our essential products to consumers and focus on business operations in the face of the pandemic. Those efforts include continuing to keep plants operating, employees safe, and position Whirlpool Corporation to win in the eventual recovery. ► CARING FOR OUR EMPLOYEES Employee safety is our number one priority at Whirlpool Corporation, and we responded early with a Global Coronavirus Task Force that met daily to assess developments, communicate health and safety guidance, and address employee questions. We increased safety measures at all manufacturing plants and expanded flexible work policies for all employees able to work from home. Our plants were quick to make adjustments in the face of COVID-19—in some cases within 24 hours. Through the World Class Manufacturing system, it was possible to quickly institute COVID-19 protocols. This was reinforced with a continued commitment from our people within all our plants around the globe to exercise safety protocols on a daily basis. These measures still consist of regular temperature checks, six-foot social distancing, increased routine cleaning in work and other areas, and an emphasis on individual accountability for all of our employees. CARING FOR OUR CONSUMERS We established plans to ensure our consumers had our trusted appliances to improve life at home with their families, knowing they depend on our home appliances more than ever to clean, cook and provide proper food and medicine storage. Service and support continued with strict health and safety processes in place, along with contactless delivery in most regions across our operations. CARING FOR OUR COMMUNITIES Our consumers and the communities in which we work and live are at the forefront of everything we do as a company. At no time in the 109-year history of our company has this been more apparent than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did we have a responsibility to continue making the appliances that help keep people’s lives running during this global crisis, but as we have done since we were founded, felt a sense of responsibility to provide aid and assistance to our local communities in any way possible. During 2020, we continued to support organizations such as United Way® by contributing to its COVID-19 relief fund, and we stepped up our support of local food pantries and homeless shelters that saw increased needs as families around the globe found their resources spread thin. We also contributed funding and much-needed supplies such as personal protective equipment and appliances to hospitals and other health care facilities worldwide to aid them during the crisis. Our employees never stopped innovating, as we designed, engineered, built and donated thousands of Powered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPR) to health care workers on the front lines of the crisis in the U.S. and Brazil. We made face mask extenders with our 3D printers for hospitals near our manufacturing centers, and looked for new ways to use our appliances to combat the spread of the virus. MEDICAL DEVICES DONATED APPROXIMATELY Powered Air Purification Respirators: Whirlpool Corporation, 16,000 Dow Inc. and Reynolds Consumer Products Inc. collaborated face shields in Brazil to provide much-needed respirators. Together, we designed and built headgear and a respirator system, critical in helping A VIRTUAL TEAM ensure the safety of front-line medical workers who are often was able to go from design to in direct contact with COVID-19 patients. approved PAPR in just Mechanical Ventilators: Whirlpool engineers based in 7 weeks Cassinetta di Biandronno, Italy developed a mechanical ventilator and PPE face shields that were donated to a local IN JUST hospital and front-line workers. 2 weeks our teams made a plastic injection mold with a production capacity of around 2,000 face shields a day IN CONSTANT PURSUIT OF Improving Life at Home At Whirlpool Corporation, our vision has never wavered. We continue to be the world’s leading kitchen and laundry appliance company(a), in constant pursuit of improving life at home. In our 109th year of operations as a U.S.-based company, this principle continues to guide us in everything we do. That means incorporating purposeful innovation into our products while caring for our consumers and the people who live in the communities where we do business. Our commitment continues in the workplace, where we strive to increase inclusion and diversity, while growing and developing the unique talents of all our employees to meet the constantly evolving needs of our consumers around the world. 2020 Annual Report 1 Who We Are WHERE WE OPERATE Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) is the world’s leading kitchen and laundry appliance company(a), with approximately $19 billion in annual sales, 78,000 employees and 57 manufacturing and technology research centers in 2020. The company markets Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Consul, Brastemp, Amana, Bauknecht, JennAir, Indesit and other major brand names in nearly every country throughout the world. $19B in Annual Sales 5 57 Manufacturing Brands with and Technology $1B+ Research Centers in Net Sales Sales by Category Sales by Region Asia Other Refrigerators and Freezers Latin 7% 15% America 13% 31% North America 25% 58% 22% Cooking 29% Europe, Appliances Middle East and Africa Laundry 2 Whirlpool Corporation A MESSAGE FROM MARC BITZER Chairman and Chief Executive Officer 2020 Chairman’s Letter 2020 was a year like none before. Starting with the unfolding of events in January, the pandemic has kept a firm grip on our world and our company. Many of our global operations have been at the epicenter of the pandemic, be it in China or in our northern Italy manufacturing facilities. An unforeseen crisis of this magnitude does not come with a “leadership manual” and is a test of the character of an organization. I am tremendously proud of how our leaders and colleagues throughout the world rose to the occasion and am particularly proud that we stayed true to our roots and committed to serving all our stakeholders. Always paramount is our employees’ health and safety. We had many colleagues working tirelessly to turn large-scale operations into “COVID- safe” operations in a matter of days. We had our procurement teams scouting personal protective equipment for our employees when it was in short supply. Practically overnight, we built an infrastructure to monitor all COVID-19 cases globally and provide health and emotional support for all our people. 2020 Annual Report 3 Equally important was our commitment tremendous strides in delivering on to serve our consumers during the our long-term value creation targets many lockdowns. Despite all the with an ongoing EBIT margin(b) of 9.1% challenges, we did not have significant (against our long-term target of 10%) factory shutdowns and were able to and a free cash flow(b) of $1.2 billion provide essential products to our (in line with our long-term target). consumers even during the peak of Despite the operational intensity with the pandemic. Our service engineers which we had to steer the business, went well beyond the call of duty and we kept our focus on our long-term, visited consumers' homes to repair globally aligned strategic imperatives. and service our products. ► Deliver product leadership. We also stepped up in serving our With the changing competitive local communities. We procured landscape it is more important and donated millions of masks, than ever to lead the market gowns, sanitizers and other critical with innovative, leading-edge material to our local hospitals and designed products. The launch front-line workers when they were of our new global dishwashing not able to procure these materials platform, which ultimately will themselves. We supported local be produced in three of our organizations providing vital services global facilities (Findlay, USA, to the most vulnerable in society, Radomsko, Poland, and Hefei, such as food banks, shelters and China), is a great example of true school meal programs. product leadership. The pandemic easily could have ► Re-define what product is. Even had devastating impacts on us from though the adoption rate of a financial perspective. Instead, IoT-based products is still low, what could have been a setback for we are committed to being at us turned into the best year ever. the forefront of this development COVID-related demand tailwinds, and leading the industry with in particular during the second half consumer-relevant product and of 2020 helped, but drove only a service solutions. The launch of fraction of our outstanding financial our Swash detergent, for example, results. Without a doubt, the early coupled with the unique multi- and decisive actions we took on dosing feature in select washers the go-to-market and cost sides and our portfolio of IoT apps is a made all the difference. Many of very encouraging innovation with these decisions were difficult and true customer value. painful, yet necessary and impactful. Achieving an all-time record of ► Winning the digital consumer ongoing earnings per share of journey. The advent of digital (b) $18.55 is certainly a remarkable technologies has fundamentally accomplishment—and this makes changed both the consumer pre- the third consecutive year of all-time buy process as well as the actual (b) record earnings . We also made purchase process. 4 Whirlpool Corporation SPOT ON NEWSWEEK’S 2021 LIST OF AMERICA'S MOST RESPONSIBLE COMPANIES No. 7 through frameworks such as GRI, SASB and TCFD(d). As outlined in detail in our 2020 Sustainability Report, The pandemic has been a ► Rose to the No. 7 spot on Whirlpool is uniquely positioned to significant accelerator in this Newsweek’s 2021 list of America's both aid the energy transition and space, and we have been hugely Most Responsible Companies deliver compelling innovation with successful in capitalizing on meaningful societal impact.