Growth means convergence. We shoulder our ambitious goals as one global SOLARWORLD. We therefore need highly qualified and motivated employees and a work environment that is conducive to performance and new ideas. Accordingly, our focus is on the development of our corporate culture and the qualification of our employees for more advanced tasks and positions. We are convinced that these efforts will pay off – in particular in the light of our internal growth process, the bottleneck of skilled labor on the market, and the growing market requirements caused by globalization, competition, and innovation.

In 2008 we conducted our group-wide executive survey, MisSun Leadership (participation: 81 per cent), in order to analyze and subsequently strengthen our internal processes. We also developed programs focusing on human resources, IT and ethics, which were subsequently adopted by our Management Board. The first few elements of these programs have already been implement

SOLARWORLD corporate culture – a strong asset. Our organically grown corporate culture is one of our particular strengths when it comes to competing for skilled employees. It is characterized by openness, flexibility, and trust. Our principle »Trust comes from confidence« stands for cooperative leadership and promotes autonomous action by our employees and also staff development. SOLARWORLD has created the necessary framework: flat hierarchies, short decision-making paths, direct and open feedback, fast implementation of good ideas and individual solutions to achieve a work-life balance. We also started to further develop our uniform understanding of the SOLARWORLD leadership culture since our executives are change agents for our corporate culture.

Competitive edge – group experts and global mobility. We managed to achieve a crucial competitive edge by means of the global networking of our sites. The combination of internal engineering know-how ‘made in Germany’, about a decade of technology and process experience in the wafer, cell, and module areas and highly qualified employees from the electronics and semi-conductor industries in the region around Portland, Oregon, cleared the way for the North American market. We only took around one year to establish our integrated production site at that location. We built our module production in South Korea within only ten months together with our Joint Venture partner. Here, too, we promote an intensive international exchange of our skilled employees. In 2008, around 60 US-American and Korean employees came to Freiberg for training sessions. We also filled positions at our sites abroad with experts from Germany. Our commitment to promoting global mobility is rounded off by group-wide programs aimed at helping our employees and their families to adjust more easily to new living and working environments. We have developed a posting policy, and increasingly offer intercultural training schemes in order to reduce potential language and cultural barriers. We thus support the transfer of knowledge within our company and the career opportunities of each individual employee.

Using existing resources by means of qualified initial and further training. In order to optimally incorporate our existing employees with their personal skills into our growth process, we continued to invest heavily in initial and further training in 2008. Investing to improve skills and knowledge motivates each individual employee and, at the same time, enhances the value for our company. Direct training costs totaled k€ 697 (previous year: k€ 566). They thus rose proportionately in relation to the headcount increase.

Personal development perspectives are determined in various ways including annual employee review sessions. With the planned introduction of talent management, we intend to ensure early identification and selective promotion of high potentials in order to increasingly recruit junior executives internally. Our training program for 2008 comprised training sessions for senior and junior executives in order to strengthen our management culture, language training to harmonize international cooperation, and a large number of additional technical and non-specialized training schemes.

In addition, we offered qualified vocational training to 83 (previous year: 66) young people group-wide. In Germany our training ratio remained at 7 (previous year: 7) per cent. In 2008 we newly recruited 26 trainees in Germany, in full compliance with our goal. In the year under review, 64 (previous year: 100) per cent of the trainees were offered permanent employment contracts when they had completed their training course. We also offered 8 (previous year: 5) young people the opportunity to take part in a practice- oriented sandwich-course type training combining shop-floor-level learning with a university course.

Measures to successfully recruit staff. In 2008, SOLARWORLD continued to develop its employer position- ing with a view to taking new employees on board. The measures included a significant expansion of contacts with candidates at international trade and job fairs by means of an active dialogue and new career brochures. A further measure was the renewed intensification of our university marketing policy, including a vast array of practical placements, dissertations and PhDs as well as dialogue with professors teaching electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, process engineering, physics and chemistry, i.e. our target disciplines. We are whetting young engineers’ appetite for solar power as a future-oriented technology by developing (for example) the solar-powered racer »SOLARWORLD no. 1« at Bochum University of Applied Science, or the annual presentation of the SOLARWORLD Einstein Junior Award. Thanks to our cooperation with Bochum University of Applied Science we have established contact with promising junior experts who have experienced the spirit of the »solar power« idea.

Expansion of offerings at partner universities. In order to win engineers for photovoltaic studies via special university courses, the »photovoltaic technology associate’s degree« was created in partnership with the Portland Community College (PCC). The program includes a scholarship scheme. This degree builds upon existing courses in chip technology, complementing them with a corresponding solar technology qualification. We expect the first students to finish this two-year university course in 2009. In addition, a »solar technology certificate«, obtainable within the short term, offers young engineers and technicians further training and provides them with additional skills in this technical field. In 2008, around 25 job candidates who had completed this program joined SOLARWORLD at our Hillsboro site.

SOLARWORLD has traditionally maintained close cooperation with the Technical University and Mining Academy (TUBA), Freiberg, in particular in the field of research and development. Our solar experts give guest lectures on photovoltaic issues at the Mining Academy. In addition, a large number of TUBA graduates and post-graduate students have joined SOLARWORLD. Many students also gain practical experience at our companies as trainees or working students. In 2008 we launched an excellence program for doctoral theses in the field of silicon-based photovoltaic (“Post-graduate Photovoltaic College”). Under this scheme we sponsor up to 15 young researchers for a period of up to three years. The program is aimed at imparting technical knowledge and also at developing soft skills so as to provide the participants with team player skills and project organization skills for future executive functions. Cooperation between university and industry is intended to pave the way for PhD students to have a successful start in a solar power technology job by offering them targeted academic and application-oriented training. The SOLARWORLD Foundation Fund for Teaching and Research, founded in 2006, supports scientific work at the chemical and physical faculty of TUBA Freiberg. Since the fund was created, SOLARWORLD has committed to donating the amount of € 250,000.

Profit-sharing scheme creates financial incentives. A company such as SOLARWORLD, characterized by remarkable success and over-proportional growth, demands a great deal of commitment and performance from its employees. Since our success is driven by people, our philosophy includes making it possible for our employees to participate in our business success (financially also).

Our compensation system therefore comprises a variable component related to our business performance. In 2008 this compensation component accounted for personal costs amounting to € 14.2 million (previous year: € 10.9m).

At our locations in Germany, our employees receive a performance-related bonus ranging from between 10 to 30 per cent of the annual salary, depending on the performance of the group and the relevant subsidiary, in addition to their salary in the framework of the employee profit-sharing program (GOMAB). The group-related performance indicators are EBT return and return on equity before tax. In addition, individual target and bonus agreements apply at all our sites.

At our Freiberg site, more than 92 per cent of employees earn the rates agreed in collective bargaining. GOMAB is part of the company agreement of the Freiberg-based companies and replaces other components of the collective agreement. Following several months of negotiations with the German Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers’ Union (IG BCE), a long-term collective bargaining agreement covering the period from 2008 until the end of 2010 was agreed this year. Besides modifications to the compensation structure and the revision of GOMAB in Freiberg, the introduction of a performance-related compensation component into the collective agreement as of 2009 is another key result of the company agreement currently applicable to the Freiberg-based subsidiaries.

In addition, we offer a company pension scheme (BAV) and capital-forming benefits with full employer’s contribution in Germany.

Health Protection: Offering safe working conditions. We ensure safe working conditions for our employees and support their efforts to protect and maintain their health. As before, regular meetings of the health and safety committees, health and safety check-ups, hazard analyses and health and safety training schemes were conducted throughout the group in 2008. Each company has its own safety officer. In addition, the manufacturing companies have special safety engineers.

We refer to the presentation of social performance indicators in the sustainability report (annex to the annual group report for fiscal year 2008).