Indicators: Employees

 
We track data on our employees Group-wide. When the legal frameworks are not comparable or no global data is available, the data will then only reflect our employees in Germany (approximately 25% of our workforce).

Employee facts & figures worldwide

External contractors are currently not logged in our employee data system, nor do we currently have any plans to integrate them.

The Global Rewards Policy applies across all our subsidiaries worldwide and guarantees a systematic compensation structure. Base pay is oriented on the median base pay, and short-term variable compensation is based on the third quartile of the relevant reference market. All employees within the lowest Grades are paid within this salary band, which corresponds at least to the local minimum wage.

Despite our efforts to prevent accidents, we had two fatal workplace accidents in 2015; one employee died in a car accident in the United States, and in Germany one employee suffered a fatal accident involving a forklift.

Both our employees as well as contractors have been included in the calculation of these indicators.

Through the LTIR, we record work-related accidents that involve at least one day of missed work. A work-related accident is an injury that results from the type of work, in the course of doing said work, and that has no internal cause. Work-related accidents are considered relevant if they occur on the premises, on business trips, during goods transport, as a result of external influences (e.g. natural disasters), or due to criminal acts involving personal injury. Commuting accidents and accidents during company sporting activities are not included. First-aid incidents are generally not included in the LTIR since these usually do not result in more than one day of missed work.

By 2020, we intend to sustainably lower the LTIR to 1.5. The aim is to permanently stabilize or outperform this challenging number, which we achieved for the first time in 2015. 

We have defined the LTIR as a key indicator for our company. Therefore, we do not publish any other indicators such as workplace accidents, lost days or days of absence. The LTIR is not broken down by gender as this differentiation is not relevant to our strategic planning.

For our sites in Darmstadt and Gernsheim (about 19% of our employees), we only report work-related illnesses if these have been diagnosed and verified by a physician. In the 2015-2016 period, no cases of work-induced illness were recorded. 

We record and report the costs of vocational training and continuing education for our employees. We are not currently tracking the average number of continuing education hours consolidated at Group level, but we are working on a technical solution.

Regular feedback and employee performance evaluations are essential to fairly ranking individual performance and to helping all employees follow their own career path at our company. Our globally uniform Performance and Talent Management Process requires annual feedback meetings and performance assessments for all employees rated Global Grade 10 and up in the position ranking system that was used in 2016. Apart from evaluating employee performance, this helps us to identify individual development opportunities.

When it comes to applying this process, our individual subsidiaries can decide for themselves whether to include employees rated below Global Grade 10. In Germany, all permanent employees have been participating in the Performance and Talent Management Process since 2013. In 2016, a total of 49,000 employees worldwide were involved in the process. The Performance and Talent Management Process is coordinated via our HR Suite IT system.

All our employees are covered by either statutory or voluntary accident and health insurance.

We offer a company pension in numerous countries along with various programs for supplemental company pensions and survivor's benefits.

The global benefits listed in the table above are designed to provide additional security to our workforce and their families and to improve their quality of life. Benefits represent voluntarily employer-initiated as well as employer-financed assistance to our workforce in addition to the regular compensation package.

Our benefits offer meaningful choices, where possible, to support a diverse workforce and are sensitive to the needs and customs of the employees who use them, regardless of country, age, family status, interests, or values.

Depending on the legal, economic and fiscal circumstances prevailing in each country, different retirement benefit systems are provided for the employees of our company. Generally, these systems are based on the years of service and salaries of the employees. Pension obligations of the Group include both defined benefit and defined contribution plans and comprise both obligations from current pensions and accrued benefits for pensions payable in the future. In the Group, defined benefit plans are funded and unfunded (see our Annual Report 2016, Note on Provisions for pensions and other post-employment benefits).

Employee facts and figures, Germany