Focus Topics – Employee related issues

Diversity, equal opportunity, inclusion and decent work 

Cultivating workplace inclusivity

Management approach

Zehnder Group places great value on diversity, equal opportunity, inclusion and decent work. We are actively working on building an organisation that fosters a zero-tolerance approach towards harassment, bullying or discrimination of any form. We believe that we can achieve this only by creating a diverse work environment and providing decent work and equal pay. To identify potential gaps, it is crucial to maintain complete transparency throughout the Group regarding pay and reward principles as well as standardised roles and responsibilities. This will be a significant focal point in the short-term future. With increased pay data transparency across the Group in years to come, we will be able to fully report on the annual total compensation for the organisation’s highest-paid individual as well as the median annual total compensation for all employees.

Good working conditions and high diversity among employees have a positive impact on hiring success but also on corporate culture. It is still challenging to hire women in some roles, due to the nature of our industry - nevertheless, we strive for a better gender diversity over the upcoming years.

We developed a Group Anti-Harassment Directive and a Group Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Directive have been in place since January 2023. Starting 2024, we will link parts of the long-term incentive of our Group Executive Committee to achieving the gender diversity target of the senior management team.

The responsibility for coordinating the “Diversity, equal opportunity, inclusion and decent work” theme, under the category of “Attractive employer”, rests with the Director Group Human Resources and the corresponding team. The Director Group Human Resources is a member of the Sustainability Steering Committee. The HR departments of the local business units are closely involved and responsible for implementing Group targets and policies at their sites. Furthermore, the line managers play a crucial role in communicating the ambitions, targets and guidelines to the employees – and in helping them to contribute. Due diligence measures include the four-eyes principle, which is applied in all HR-related processes. In addition, Group HR is working on an HR reporting policy to create transparency as well as drive performance throughout the Zehnder business units along several clearly defined KPIs. For example, in the most recent years, wage ratios between the highest compensation and median compensation of our employees for each of our organisations at a given geographical location have been calculated through our annual sustainability data collection. In addition, the global annual leadership team meeting and the Leadership Development Programme are used to create awareness and train the global senior management teams across all business units on the material topics surrounding diversity, equal opportunity, inclusion and decent work.

Implementation and outlook

To implement the above management approach and policies, we defined two ambitions, each supported by one or more targets and monitored via specific KPIs.

Ambition: Apply a zero-tolerance approach to harassment, bullying and discrimination at all times

Train employees in anti-harassment and discrimination
Status:
To promote diversity within our Group, we rolled out a diversity, equity and inclusion training campaign for senior and mid-level managers in 2023, with 51 of 125 managers having taken part to date. We also have a communication channel through which our employees can anonymously report cases of suspected harassment (more details about the Integrity Line can be found in Compliance and fair business practices).
Outlook:
By 2025, in addition to all managers, we will roll out training on anti-harassment and discrimination for all employees as well. We aim to integrate these topics via regular training concerning bias and anti-harassment and to ensure non-discriminatory HR processes.

Ambition: Create a diverse work environment and provide decent work and equal pay

Achieve gender diversity
Status:
In 2023, 18.3% of the company’s senior management team was female¹. To promote gender equality, we launched accelerator programmes in France and Poland in 2022 and 2023. Initiatives included awareness raising, investing in women-specific facilities, providing lifting equipment to minimise heavy lifting for all employees and introducing more flexible working hours. Both business units have defined measures as well as targets regarding gender and ethnicity ratios for the next ten years. The French production sites aim to double the number of female employees from 10% to 20% between 2022 and 2030. Therefore, they want to make all positions eligible to women by 2030. This includes, for instance, plans to automate processes and the introduction of new machines. To promote diversity, the site opened its doors to schools during French Industry Week. The findings and lessons learned from both pilot projects are to be shared with the HR community at Zehnder in 2024.
Outlook:
By 2026, we aim to have 22.5% female and diverse employees in senior management roles. Our target is to further increase this percentage to 30% by 2030.

Further securing equal pay
Status:
Our internal tools for assessing compensation ratios are not yet available but will be implemented as part of a pilot project next year. Due to a lack of full transparency on pay data Group-wide, we are unable to share accurate data on compensation ratios by gender and/or employee categories.
Outlook:
Our EU sites will be ready for equal pay audits by the end of 2025. The basis will be provided by a pilot group across six countries that we will launch in 2024. In the medium term, we are working towards auditing all EU sites for equal pay by 2027, while all our sites globally are to be audited by 2028. In addition, we work on developing a foundation for pay transparency and equal pay, internally as well as externally. To this end, we will develop a global job catalogue and further invest in the digitalisation of HR data across Zehnder Group.

Increase the portion of employees receiving a living wage
Status:
Following the definition of the UNGC, a living wage means a wage that enables workers and their families to meet their basic needs. While all our employees always receive the local legal minimum wage, where legal minimum wage laws exist, our routine analysis consistently reveals that the absolute majority of our employees at our sites earn at least a living wage. However, it has also revealed disparities, where at some sites a portion of our employees do not receive a living wage according to the definition of the UNGC.
Outlook:
We aim to define our approach towards living wages as defined by the UNGC and to understand the root causes of the gaps. Our mid-term goal is to substantially increase the portion of employees receiving a living wage across the entire organisation by 2028.

¹ Senior management refers to Zehnder’s job positions within L1–L3.

GRI 405: Diversity and Equal Opportunity 2016
Disclosure 405-1 Diversity of governance bodies and employees
Diversity within the Board of Directors

GRI 405: Diversity and Equal Opportunity 2016
Disclosure 405-1 Diversity of governance bodies and employees
Diversity within the Group Executive Committee

GRI 405: Diversity and Equal Opportunity 2016
Disclosure 405-1 Diversity of governance bodies and employees
Diversity among employees

Gender diversity among senior management

GRI 406: Non-discrimination 2016
Disclosure 406-1 Incidents of discrimination and corrective actions taken

Trained employees for harassment, bullying and/or discrimination