COVID-19 Response

Whirlpool Corporation’s Response to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Mar 23, 2020

To All Whirlpool Stakeholders:

Whirlpool Corporation is working around the clock, and around the world, rapidly responding to coronavirus (COVID-19) developments to ensure that we can continue to take care of our employees and our consumers. We are also deeply committed to supporting the communities in which we operate with donations of our appliances, medical supplies and financial contributions to our local hospitals and shelters where possible.

As the world continues to battle COVID-19, our consumers need our trusted appliances to take care of their families during this turbulent time. They are depending on our products — now more than ever — to clean, cook and provide proper food and medicine storage. Our 77,000 employees globally are continuing to support our consumers, as they themselves are living with the new realities of the situation, and we continue to be proud of their everyday commitment to you.

As such, the health and safety of our employees, our customers and all those involved in our operations are our first priority. We have teams in place at local, regional and global levels working tirelessly to ensure the safety of our people and our valued consumers who allow our products and services into their homes. In that regard, we have taken several strong actions in response to the rapidly evolving coronavirus outbreak.

We are closely following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) guidelines and recommendations on the steps we can take to help prevent the spread of the virus. Our safety protocols, which are continually updated, include the following:

Actions at Our Facilities:

• We have heightened cleaning protocols at each plant, including the frequency of deep cleanings.
• To allow the safe social distance as recommended by the CDC, we have taken action to increase distances on our production lines and made the decision to slow production lines down or reduce lines as needed.
• We have implemented food safety precautions in all our cafeterias and are staggering break times to increase social distances.
• We are emphasizing proper hygiene in the plants, including use of frequent hand washing, and are ensuring our employees have proper sanitization equipment.

Employee Self Monitoring/Reporting

• We are implementing temperature screening protocols for all employees at our facilities.
• For any colleagues who have had direct exposure or live with others under a medically advised quarantine, they have been required to self-monitor at home for 14 days.

Remote Work

• All employees who have the ability to work from home are required to do so.

Travel & Visitors

• Since we first learned of COVID-19 developments, we implemented a robust policy to avoid any travel unless absolutely necessary for all of our employees. We are requiring employees who have traveled to high-risk locations or have been exposed to others who have traveled to high-risk locations to stay at home/self-quarantine.
• We implemented strict on-site visitor policies to reduce the chance of exposing employees to COVID-19.

For all of our consumers, if you have any concerns about receiving our products or in-home services, we would be happy to work with you to find a solution that is best suited to your needs. Please contact us at (866) 698-2538 with any questions.

We understand that purchases or service calls for home appliances at this time are likely done out of necessity and Whirlpool will be there to provide. I’m extremely proud of all of our employees for coming together to take care of one another and our consumers during these unprecedented times.

Thank you,
Marc Bitzer
Chairman and CEO