Sustainability Report 2021 48 Sustainability Report 2021 48 With our business deemed essential, the majority of our global manufacturing, lab, and customer-focused employees continued to work in person at Applied locations or customer sites. To keep our employees healthy and informed, we maintained elevated on-site safety protocols and proactively communicated the evolution of those protocols as the Delta and Omicron variants surged and waned. We offered a suite of health and wellness benefits to address our people’s physical and mental needs and maintained programs to support work-from- home employees through the complexities of melding work and home life, such as caring for school-age children and elders. At our sites in Austin, Gloucester, and Kalispell, we worked with local health departments to host multiple COVID-19 vaccination opportunities. In a November 2021 employee survey, 87% of respondents reported high satisfaction with Applied Materials’ response to the challenges created by COVID-19, nearly 90% gave positive marks on role expectation clarity, and nearly 80% reported positively on receiving regular manager check-ins and recognition. Throughout 2021, we evolved a number of programs and added new benefits based on our people’s needs during COVID: > Announced an expansion of our 100% paid family care and parental leave policies to 12 weeks, effective January 1, 2022 > Began defaulting all U.S. employees to short-term disability insurance to assure wage replacement in case of illness > Implemented supplemental sick time hours to support employees with COVID-related situations > Implemented virtual healthcare access across the U.S. through Crossover > Allowed carryover of unused childcare funds in flexible spending accounts > Added additional mindfulness, stress- reduction and wellness content to our virtual offerings through Applied Global University > Introduced a virtual Health Fitness 360 program, offering content on nutrition, fitness, yoga and stress management, as well as livestreamed classes led by trainers from our Austin gym > Added a stipend to cover tech expenses for our work-from-home employees These policy changes add to efforts begun in year one of the pandemic, which included standardized sick time across U.S. exempt and nonexempt categories, additional support for working parents, a suite of health and wellness benefits, and a pay-continuity policy for employees unable to work on-site due to compromising health conditions. For more details on Applied’s standard benefits, see here . Helping Our People Clear Student Debt In 2021, we announced a new program that offers up to $2,000 in student debt repayment assistance annually to non–highly compensated employees (NHCEs). The first payments from this program were disbursed to over 200 employees’ student loan debt lenders in February 2022. INTRODUCTION PURPOSE PEOPLE Recruiting and Hiring Our Culture of Inclusion Learning and Development Employee Safety and Support During COVID-19 Occupational Health and Safety Human Rights PLANET PROGRESS Employee Safety and Support During COVID -19 In year two of the COVID-19 pandemic, the safety of our employees and their families remained one of our top priorities.
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