Focus Topics – Employee related issues

Attractive employer 

Fostering the well-being of our employees

Management approach

We continuously aim to improve working conditions for our employees. Based on biannual employee engagement surveys, we define measures to increase engagement such as training and opportunities for personal development. This helps us train the next generation of leaders in our own ranks, enabling us to fill vacancies internally and create career perspectives for our employees. In 2023, we were able to achieve a share of 48% internal promotions compared to external hirings of leadership positions. Our goal is to foster a culture of dialogue and feedback. Beyond that, we promote health, well-being and sustainable lifestyles among our employees, knowing that healthy and engaged workers are our most important asset and vital to a healthy planet. Our specific activities vary from country to country, considering cultural differences.

Coordination of the “Attractive employer” topic lies with the Director Group Human Resources and the team. The Director Group Human Resources is member of the Sustainability Steering Committee. The HR teams 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 goals, targets and guidelines to the employees – and in helping them to contribute. In biannual employee engagement surveys, all employees are asked to voluntarily give feedback regarding how attractive Zehnder is as an employer as well as provide any ideas for improvement. In addition, there is an annual data collection for HR-related sustainability data, which is followed by a thorough internal verification process. These data include a key performance indicator to ensure performance reviews are being held regularly with all employees.

Implementation and outlook

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

Ambition: Maintain the level of engagement of our employees with Zehnder Group

Address the top three improvement items from the employee engagement survey
Status:
To assess if we are on track regarding our target to increase the level of engagement of our employees, we conducted our biannual employee engagement survey in 2023. The overall results were very positive. Our employees rated all issues covered better than in the last survey of 2021. The category of employee engagement increased by 2 percentage points to 84%. Benchmarked against peers from the industry norm¹, Zehnder ranks with 6 percentage points above the norm. The survey was sent to all employees, out of which 83% responded. More than 9 out of 10 employees agreed that they understood how their work contributed to Zehnder’s business objectives and that they support our sustainability ambition, targets and actions. Regarding leadership, 86% felt supported by their line manager and saw them as a role model representing Zehnder values. These results show that employees appreciate our corporate culture and leadership philosophy – and that our actions defined after our 2021 survey have made an impact. For instance, as the communication of Zehnder’s strategy was identified as an area of improvement, the CEO began releasing a video regarding Zehnder’s strategy two times a year to increase internal transparency. Additionally, the global Leadership Development Programme supports managers in cascading our strategy to our employees to raise their understanding of their contribution to it. The effectiveness is shown by the fact that 83% of the respondents confirmed that they had a good understanding of their business unit’s strategy, representing an increase of 3 percentage points compared to 2021.
Outlook:
In 2024, we will define and implement the activities to tackle the top three areas for improvement identified in the 2023 survey to further increase the level of engagement of our employees. These areas are digital transformation, confidence in the long-term future of Zehnder and information about Zehnder’s products and services. Our leaders will conduct workshops with the employees to analyse the reasons behind the rankings and define effective measures for improvement. Our specific goal for the 2025 survey is to keep the engagement level at a minimum of 4 percentage points above the industry norm and achieve a response rate of 85%.

Ambition: Invest in our people, upgrade their skills and promote a culture of lifelong learning for all genders and aim to fill two-thirds of all vacancies through internal promotions for all roles with leadership responsibility

Improve the results of the employee engagement survey question “I receive regular feedback”
Status:
The 2021 engagement survey showed that our employees wished for even more frequent feedback between managers and their direct reports. Consequently, in 2022 and 2023, HR supported managers in improving their capacity to provide regular qualitative feedback. In the 2023 survey, our employees rated the item 2 percentage points higher, increasing to 79%. While this is an above industry-average value², particularly considering our high share of blue-collar employees, we had aimed for a 5 percentage point improvement.
Outlook:
All employees should receive a regular performance review or at least annual feedback. This is why we want to increase not only this rate but also the result of the employee engagement survey question by 3 percentage points in the 2025 survey. One specific measure is an e-learning module that we offer to managers on effective feedback to direct reports. Our vision is to create a culture of ongoing and open discussion, going beyond a focus on regular feedback. As a result, we are now firmly focused on increasing the number of employees who receive a regular performance review.

Provide access to e-learning for all employees
Status:
Although the market is currently challenging for many companies, we did not scale back on our investment in training and development. We remain committed to investing in our most important asset – our employees. Consequently, we moved forward by implementing our e-learning platform and conducting the global Leadership Development Programme for managers in 2023. We rolled out a new e-learning platform in autumn 2023, with deployment in China and the USA pending due to restrictions and logistical constraints. The courses are provided by an external partner and cover a variety of topics, addressing different learning needs, cultural preferences and knowledge levels of our employees. Today, nearly 2,700 (74%) Zehnder employees have access to the platform and its learning catalogue. Once all employees are onboarded, we will proceed to monitor the use of these offers.
Outlook:
Our goal is to offer access to e-learning to all our employees globally by 2025.

Ambition: Promote health, well-being and sustainable lifestyles and become a role model for our employees

Encourage employee engagement with the SDGs and the Zehnder Group sustainability ambition
Status:
In our 2023 employee engagement survey, 92% of the employees affirmed that they support our sustainability ambitions, targets and actions.
Outlook:
Our aim is to sustain employee engagement for the SDGs and Zehnder’s sustainability goal at over 90% by 2025. This will be achieved by investing in the training and education of employees to ensure their understanding of our targets, particularly the reasons behind our commitment.

¹ Methodology and benchmarking conducted by Willis Towers Watson (2022/2023).
² The global industry benchmark is defined by Willis Towers Watson. It is the weighted average of survey results from employees in manufacturing companies or organisations engaged in production environments, regardless of job function. The data is based on results from more than 2,100,000 employees (148,245 weighted), being part of 195 recent client studies across the world, with additional global data (updated annually).

GRI 401: Employment 2016
Disclosure 401-1 New employee hires and employee turnover
New employee hires

GRI 401: Employment 2016
Disclosure 401-1 New employee hires and employee turnover
Employee turnover

GRI 404: Training and Education 2016
Disclosure 404-1 Average hours of training per year per employee

GRI 404: Training and Education 2016
Disclosure 404-3 Percentage of employees receiving regular performance and career development reviews

Internal promotion

Employees with access to e-learning

Employees that support the Zehnder sustainability ambitions and targets