HAVING AN ENGAGED WORKFORCE
Our People Value Proposition is what creates our sustainable competitive advantage.
We believe that a motivated and engaged workforce creates a sustainable competitive advantage for our business and benefits society. We are committed to attracting, developing and retaining the best people, providing a safe work environment for them, and creating a sense of belonging that embraces their diversity and rewards their contribution.
Our priority SDGs
FY24 salient features
Employee remuneration and benefits: R5.3 billion (FY23: R5.1 billion)
Investment in training and development: R122 million (FY23: R131 million)
Of our permanent employees, 89% are black (FY23: 89%) and hold 61% of managerial positions (FY23: 59%)
Women comprise 20% of permanent employees (FY23: 20%) and hold 30% of managerial positions (FY23: 27%)
Number of employee fatalities while on duty at KAP sites: 1 (FY23: 0)
Number of contractor fatalities on KAP sites: 1 (FY23: 2)
Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases (‘COID’): 350 (FY23: 329)
COMPOSITION OF OUR WORKFORCE
We employ 13 712 permanent and 3 714 seasonal, fixed-term and temporary employees. Our seasonal employees reside in Unitrans’ African agriculture operations and vary depending on the timing of the harvesting season in different territories.
Our workforce reduced by 3% during the year, largely due to fewer seasonal workers used in Unitrans’ agriculture operations, which were affected by adverse weather conditions during the year. Currently, 79% of our total workforce is based in South Africa. Of our permanent employees, 86% are based in South Africa.
Our workforce per division is summarised in the table below:
Our people risks and opportunities
Our operations are people-intensive, and some of our operations require highly technical skills. Over the past four years, we have lost key leadership and middle management technical skills to competitors and emigration. Our average voluntary turnover rate (permanent employees) for the year was 6% (FY23: 6%), with higher turnover rates in junior and middle management. The loss of critical leadership and technical skills represents a strategic risk for the group. We occupy market leadership positions in the sectors in which we operate, which limits the talent pipeline from which we can source suitable talent to support the execution of our strategy.
Our strategic response to people risks and opportunities
Our human capital strategy, which has been in implementation since FY22, drives our approach to our employees. Our strategy is to inspire a high-performance culture where every employee is fully engaged, motivated and equipped to contribute their best effort to help the group achieve its strategic and business objectives.
Given our current context, we are prioritising the following areas:
implementation of an optimal organisational design;
recruitment of key leadership to execute the group strategy, where necessary;
leadership development and succession;
diversity and inclusion;
attracting and retaining talent;
health and safety; and
incentivisation alignment with strategy.
ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TALENT
Employee relations and organisational climate
We conducted climate surveys during FY23 to assess the organisational climate and employee experiences across the group. Leading risk factors identified through the climate surveys included communication, role clarity and personal and work stress levels. Following the surveys, we have implemented several management interventions to address these risks, which included:
Communication: We improved our internal communication to explain to employees how the company is addressing external environmental shocks and the strategies in place to future-proof the organisation. This continues to be driven through various internal communication channels, including KAP CEO webcasts and divisional CEO townhalls and road shows. In addition, our divisions are currently implementing an internal WhatsApp communication platform to engage employees directly and ensure rapid dissemination of news and activities.
Clarification of roles and responsibilities: We have implemented a framework that enables line managers to define expectations and performance measurements for each position. As part of our human capital strategy, our divisions have implemented the Remprofile job profiling system to construct job profiles and document competency requirements for all the roles in the organisation. The next phase, which will focus on defining performance expectations and measurements, will be implemented during 1H25.
Employee wellness: The employee wellness campaign is designed to assist employees to cope with various societal and economic factors that negatively impact their personal lives and those of their families. In addition to focusing on health and financial education initiatives, our divisions have implemented Employee Assistance Programmes to enable employees to receive professional confidential counselling to help them cope with stressful events.
Onboarding
We have invested in comprehensive employee onboarding processes to integrate new employees into the group, which we believe contributed to increased employee engagement and retention levels during the year. Through the onboarding processes, new employees are familiarised with company policies, values and culture. The process also enables managers to clarify the roles of new employees and key results areas to improve performance and reduce the risk of misaligned job expectations.
Training, development and succession planning
Our expenditure on training and development was R122 million during the year compared with R131 million in the previous year. We offered internships, learnerships and apprenticeships worth R66 million to both employees and unemployed learners as part of our human capital development programme and the number of employees in these programmes decreased to 1 105 from 1 122. We offer both on-site and off-site training by accredited providers.
Our training and development include health and safety training, which amounted to R4 million during the year.
Most of our businesses occupy leading market positions in their respective sectors, which limits the pool of available skills from which they can easily source experienced technical employees. As market leaders in our respective sectors, we have adopted the following approach to employee training and development:
We invest heavily in work-integrated technical skills learning programmes to upskill our permanent employees and temporary employees, which is necessary to improve product quality and overall operational efficiencies.
We invest in artisan and graduate development programmes across various engineering disciplines to create a pool of technical skills for absorption into technical roles. We believe that this is necessary to mitigate the national and sector-based skills shortages.
In addition to technical skills programmes, we support leadership development training focused on supervisory, middle and senior management occupational levels to build leadership capacity and pipeline to address succession gaps.
We have invested in training infrastructure that includes training personnel, equipment, and training centres to build internal training capacity. We are reviewing this training delivery model as part of initiatives to reduce fixed costs and modernise training delivery through technology platforms.
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
Embracing diversity is one of our values and an integral part of building a high-performance culture. Our divisions have made good progress in identifying and eliminating barriers to employment equity and have various structures in place to ensure legislative compliance.
We are compliant with the provisions of the Employment Equity Act and have implemented our code of ethics and human rights policy, which prohibit discrimination and harassment in the workplace because of race, religion, gender, colour, creed, age, political opinion and affiliation, social status, sexual orientation or disability. We also comply with the provisions of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act, as well as with the Codes of Good Practice issued under this Act. As a group, we have a Level 4 B-BBEE rating, with divisions being rated individually and having between Levels 2 and 4 ratings. Our B-BBEE verification process is conducted independently by AQRate.
Race diversity
Our permanent workforce comprises 89% black employees (FY23: 89%) and 61% (FY23: 59%) of management (junior management and higher) comprises permanent black employees. On a senior management level, black employees comprise 15% (FY23: 16%) of total positions. As we are witnessing higher turnover rates of our junior and middle-management black employees, we are focused on increasing black representation across all managerial levels in line with the Economically Active Population statistics in terms of the provisions of the Employment Equity Act.
Note: Percentages have been rounded.
* Reference to permanent South African employees
^ Reference to permanent South African employees, junior managers and above
Gender diversity
Gender diversity is also a key focus. Management has set internal targets to improve gender diversity in leadership positions, and to improve female representation across all operations. At board level, 25% of our directors are female, with 17% of the board comprising black females. Females comprise 20% (FY23: 20%) of our permanent workforce and hold 30% (FY23: 27%) of managerial positions (junior management and higher). On a senior management level, females comprise 19% (FY23: 18%) of total positions.
Note: Percentages have been rounded.
* Reference to permanent South African employees
^ Reference to permanent South African employees, junior managers and above
Although we have made good strides in improving race and gender diversity in the group, we have more work to do. We believe that a top-down proactive planning approach is required to improve race and gender diversity across all levels of the organisation. We identify positions where we generally have high turnover over time and proactively identify high-potential suitable candidates within the group and in the job market. This could enable us to proactively build a large pool of candidates and track their career progress over time to give us the ability to employ them when an opportunity becomes available.
Age diversity
We believe age diversity in our workforce provides an opportunity for employees of different ages to collaborate, share knowledge, provide different perspectives and transfer skills. Most of our workforce is between the ages of 30 and 50.
Note: Percentages have been rounded.
* Reference to permanent South African employees
^ Reference to permanent South African employees, junior managers and above
We are also committed to providing an accommodating work environment for people with disabilities. Of our employees, 40 (FY23: 45) are people with disabilities.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Safety
Our group CEO is ultimately responsible for health and safety within the group, a responsibility he has delegated to specific individuals at divisional level. We are committed to a zero-harm environment for all our employees and contractors and target zero fatalities.
At an operational level, we have comprehensive safety management systems, processes and procedures in place aligned with the Occupational Health and Safety Act (‘OHSA’), which covers employees, contractors and members of the public that enter our facilities or sites. Several facilities are ISO 45001:2018 accredited. Each division identifies, measures and reports on health and safety matters. Compliance is reported at the divisional audit and risk committee meetings and monitored at the KAP compliance committee meetings.
We continuously train employees and contractors in health and safety procedures applicable to their work environment. All employees and contractors undergo general health and safety training during induction and annual refresher training, in addition to continuous training required by the OHSA. Due to the diversity of our operations, the latter is performed in line with the type of operations and operational exposure, as required by the OHSA.
Our divisions are regularly assessed by internal health and safety representatives. Where required, assessments by accredited, external, independent assurance providers ensure compliance with relevant health and safety statutory and legal requirements. The frequency of assessments depends on the statutory or legal requirements specific to their facilities and operations.
Our occupational, health and safety procedures include a risk management plan that is supported by a legal, risk and incident register, which allows for the identification of hazards, as well as regular risk assessments, internal audits, safety training, management reviews and third-party audits. These are undertaken on both existing business and new projects. In-depth investigations of all incidents are conducted, and mitigation procedures are reviewed regularly.
Because the equipment and certain raw materials used at some of our manufacturing facilities can potentially be dangerous to our employees, they are trained to adhere strictly to all required health and safety regulations. Specific training, such as working at heights or in confined spaces, lockout and safe work procedures, is given to specific employees and contractors who encounter these environments, in accordance with a training plan which is tracked and monitored.
In our logistics operations, road accidents present the most material risk to the safety of our employees. To reduce road accidents, we conduct driver training and roll out broad-based road transport safety campaigns for our truck drivers. Optix focuses on improving safety on our roads by deploying video telematics and predictive analytics.
Our safety performance is summarised below.
There was unfortunately one employee fatality (FY23: none) and one contractor fatality on site (FY23: 2). These fatalities are unacceptable losses of life. A thorough investigation was conducted into each fatal incident, and urgent risk mitigation measures were put in place. These include intensified training and safety awareness campaigns, refresher hazard identification, risk assessment and legal liability training for both employees and contractors. There will be additional focus on reviewing and formalising contractor management and accountability as management improves the safety culture through visible leadership.
Our Disabling Injury Frequency Rate (‘DIFR’) increased largely due to multiple large capital projects being completed during the year.
Our employees can report work-related hazards and/or what they perceive to be hazardous situations through our ethics line and alternative disclosures mechanism.
Health
We have invested in on-site occupational and primary healthcare clinics for our employees at most of our manufacturing sites. In cases where these are unavailable, we ensure that our employees and contractors have access to healthcare facilities nearby. The clinics offer first aid and play a crucial role in dealing with injuries on duty. They are run by qualified nursing staff, who are assisted by medical doctors. The services they offer include workplace health risk assessments, chronic disease screening and management (including for tuberculosis and HIV), industrial hygiene and medical surveillance. They also offer primary healthcare medication and family planning guidance. Where there is no on-site clinic, an occupational health practitioner is contracted to perform medical surveillance.
In our logistics environment, mobile clinics are available on the main routes we use. These clinics test for chronic conditions and dispense chronic and primary care medication.
HIV/Aids is addressed in all divisional policies, and each division has a comprehensive, holistic programme in place to promote awareness, prevention and voluntary testing, as well as to provide support. Policies cover issues such as confidentiality and protection against discrimination. We are committed to implementing programmes that are relevant and valuable to our employees in each division. Where applicable, local communities are involved in initiatives such as World Aids Day and HIV/Aids education.
Our divisions have wellness programmes and employee assistance programmes to assist employees with their overall wellness, both from a professional and a personal perspective.
LABOUR RELATIONS
We nurture the belief that constructive engagement with our employees is critical to the sustainability of our business. We comply with the provisions of applicable labour and employment legislation in all the countries in which our businesses operate. We have established an employment compliance committee as part of our combined assurance framework to develop and implement the controls, systems and processes necessary to ensure labour and employment legislative compliance. We have sound relationships with our key stakeholders, including industry organisations and trade unions, and we create an environment conducive to achieving mutually beneficial outcomes and collective agreements with these unions. We also play a meaningful role in industry collective bargaining structures, including the bargaining council structures and employer organisations in the industries in which our divisions operate. Trade union representation in our operations remains stable and continues to form a solid base for employee engagement with approximately 70% (FY23: 58%) of our South African workforce belonging to collective bargaining units in FY24.
Our divisional union representation is summarised below.
FAIR LABOUR PRACTICES AND REMUNERATION
Our approach to our labour practices and remuneration is outlined in our human rights policy. We comply with the provisions of the Labour Relations Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act and other labour laws, which promote collective bargaining, prohibit forced labour, regulate hours of work, meal intervals, rest periods and overtime work, and we do not employ children under the age of 18 years. Our divisions monitor and report on overtime work to ensure that we have a healthy workforce and create a safe working environment for our employees. We have established an employment compliance committee as part of our combined assurance framework to develop and implement the controls, systems and processes necessary to ensure labour and employment legislative compliance.
We meet or exceed all minimum wage requirements as legislated in South Africa and all the countries in which our businesses operate.
Our employees have the option to participate voluntarily in both medical and health schemes, while membership of a retirement scheme is compulsory for all our permanent employees.