People are precious to us

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

All dimensions of Diversity are important to us. But we are focusing in particular on promoting gender and international balance. Therefore, we have set ourselves ambitious targets: By 2025 our Global Management Team will consist of at least 40% women and 50% non-German employees.

At year-end 2022, women accounted for 37% and non-Germans for 42% of our Global Management Team. Our company’s age structure, including for executives and managers, is well balanced across all age cohorts. At year-end 2022, our average employee was 42 years old. While making progress toward quantifiable targets is important, diversity also has a qualitative aspect that cannot be measured by KPIs—atmosphere and culture. We therefore address the topic from different angles.

Working Conditions

Our employees worldwide are our most important asset. Their skills, knowledge, and dedication—as well as their diverse experience and personalities—shape our company and its success. We strive to offer attractive salaries as well as opportunities for development and are committed to providing a modern work environment in which all employees feel appreciated and can realize their full potential.

Training and Education

We are committed to offering professional development opportunities to all employees throughout their career. We invest in our future workforce by offering apprenticeship programs, a management trainee program for graduates, internships during university programs, work-study schemes, and scholarships. For example, in Germany we employed 99 apprentices and dual students in 2022. Our employees received an average of four hours of training by means of eLearning; third-party and in-person training was provided as well. 98% of our employees worldwide received periodic performance and development feedback, which we believe is essential for their growth.

Talent Management

We have been running talent programs for many years. Their purpose is to enable talented employees to take on more responsibility and fill key positions internally. In 2022 employees from our own company were appointed to 86% of our vacant Global Management Team positions, with the majority having previously participated in our talent program.

Health and Safety

Health and safety of our employees are our top priority. We strive to ensure that everyone starts their workday in good health and finishes it without any harm or negative impact. Our certified health and safety (H&S) management systems and comprehensive policies give our organization a strong safety culture. Nevertheless, we continually work to make our operating facilities and offices even safer.

We assign health & safety officers at all levels of our organization—from top management to shop floor.

All employees are trained on H&S topics, according to the conditions of their workplace. Occupational health exposures are thoroughly documented and managed using an industrial hygiene matrix to ensure compliance with statutory exposure thresholds. Our H&S experts at all sites worldwide have up-to-date qualifications and are readily available to provide guidance on questions, training programs, and educational materials.

At the end of 2022, 94% of our employees were working at a facility with a certified H&S system, and we continue to strive to increase the number of certified facilities.

* Lost time incidents are all incidents with lost time of 1 day or more. LTIR is calculated per 1,000,000 hours worked.

** Any incident or near miss that might, in other circumstances, have resulted in a major or catastrophic event.

Lost time incident rate (LTIR) 2022

People in our Value Chain

We are aware of the significant impact our business has on people along our value chain and recognize our responsibility for their welfare. We systematically assess our precious metal suppliers’ social and environmental performance, particularly with regard to protection of human rights.

Where we stand

Human rights due diligence is an integral part of our general due diligence process. Our measures to safeguard human rights include:

• conducting appropriate due diligence processes
• collaborating with mining partners to improve living conditions of workers and communities along our value chain
• monitoring observance of human rights along our value chain
• providing channels for value chain workers to raise concerns
• engaging with stakeholders in the industry to further foster a sustainable work environment, especially in artisanal and small-scale mining

Our efforts to protect human rights along our value chain are based on recognized international industry standards. We supplement these with our own even more stringent guidelines.

Collaborating with our mining partners

We are aware that engaging with our stakeholders has the greatest potential to improve the living conditions of workers in our value chain and our impact on the environment and local communities. We strongly believe that we can only create a positive impact by collaboration These considerations have resulted in a roadmap, setting milestones for transparency, improvements, and progress assessment for the impact of our mining partners.

Projects and Examples

Promoting mercury-free mining

We are active in projects around the world to promote mercury-free mining. Large amounts of toxic mercury are used in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASM), posing a serious threat to people and the environment. A prominent example of our engagement is the collaboration with the Fairtrade Max Havelaar Foundation, a Swiss-based non-governmental organization, and the mining cooperatives of Central de Cooperativas Mineras de San Antonio de Poto de Ananea (CECOMSAP) in Peru. By investing part of the revenue generated through the sales of Fairtrade gold in processing technologies at the mine sites, the use of mercury in Peru has been significantly reduced.