Integrated report 2020
Exxaro report selector 2020
Exxaro Resources Limited
Integrated report 2020
REPORT SELECTOR
Human
Intellectual
Financial
Manufactured
Social and relationship
Our people strategy, based on four strategic priorities, is the foundation of our approach to employee engagement:
The pillars are underpinned by a commitment to sustain our culture, values and behaviours to enable our core purpose: to power better lives in Africa and beyond.
As our Sustainable Growth and Impact strategy evolves, it is supported by embedding our organisational culture – the behaviour we expect from all employees. We drive adequate communication and change management relating to strategic issues through our connect2NEXT platform, supporting positive employee engagement.
Exxaro believes that people are at the centre of our success. We harness value from our workforce’s diversity of thinking.
Our diversity and inclusion strategy supports our employee value proposition (EVP) through the co-creation of an innovative and agile work environment. Value-adding people solutions afford a fulfilling work experience with growth and development. The evolution of our EVP and our culture is further enhanced by a baseline culture survey.
We maintain sustainable human resource governance with a comprehensive suite of policies that cover employment, labour relations, occupational health and safety, training and education, among others. We are mindful of the safety and wellbeing of our employees and host communities. We strive to achieve zero harm through collective responsibility, commitment and risk awareness.
Our phased approach to meeting employee needs uses lessons learnt in each phase to accelerate the next.
For more information on how we maintain legal, regulatory and compliance excellence as well as instil transparency, ethics and integrity, refer to our governance summary and our full ESG report.
| Snapshot of our workforce | |
| 22 466 people | 30% full-time employees |
| (2019: 23 365) | 70% contractors |
Safety
Safety performance
We review our safety target every year, based on prior performance, and apply stringent management protocols, programmes and systems. Our BU management team investigates every occurrence of a safety incident and in terms of LTI and a skilled committee, headed by an independent chairperson, investigates fatalities and high-potential incidents (HPIs). Exxaro reports investigation findings to the executive committee and the sustainability, risk and compliance committee, and escalates these to our board.
The leading causes of incidents and sources of safety risk remain trackless mobile machinery, fall of ground, energy and machine isolation, lifting and material handling, as well as poor risk awareness and discipline. We provide on-the-job training to ensure well-trained people are in suitable positions. Each BU tracks adherence to standards and legislation through a safety improvement plan of self-assessments and corporate audits.
We revised our group safety strategy in 2017 and leadership identified five specific focus areas namely, leadership, communication, consequence management, training, and risk management. Additional interventions to address safety risks in 2020 included:Our new safety campaign, Khetha Ukuphepha (“choose to be safe”) was also launched to communicate that zero harm is possible, to achieve safety targets, and to reach the three-year and beyond fatality-free milestone. The campaign was introduced in the BU safety indabas and the executive committee’s group-wide Safety Leadership Day.
There were no fatalities or LTIs at either of Cennergi’s two windfarms.
Our health and wellness strategy is supported by three pillars that ensure an integrated approach to occupational and lifestyle diseases throughout our BUs.
Our executive committee and board approved the strategy in November 2019 and it aims to:
Our strategy identifies occupational and non-occupational health risks and their causes, solutions to mitigate these risks, impacts of the risks on the business, and the best approach to ensure an environment that empowers employees to manage and protect their health. We need seamless integration of health and wellness management with clearly defined employer and employee responsibilities for our strategy to deliver a comprehensive health solution.
Diagnostic programmes are advanced with integrated health and wellness solutions. Wellness management is moving beyond services currently offered (general and psychosocial counselling) to healthy lifestyle coaching with physical and mental health management in a single certificate of fitness awarded after routine tests.
For more information on our approach, as well as how we performed with regard to occupational and non-occupational disease management, refer to people in the ESG report.
In line with our health and wellness strategy, Exxaro’s strategic response to COVID-19 is based on three pillars:
Our health and wellness strategy seeks to provide a solution that diagnoses, manages and prevents COVID-19 cases.
Exxaro’s response to COVID-19 during 2020 included amplified awareness campaigns, business process amendments, establishing COVID-19 technical teams, individual and workplace hygiene measures, driving compliance and behaviour change, two testing stations, mass screening and a 24-hour call centre, among others.
For more information, refer to Year in review.
Exxaro’s talent management strategy guides our sourcing and development of leaders, specialists and professionals. Our strategic workforce pipeline, talent planning and learning and development processes maintain our status as “employer of choice”. These processes also contribute to our EVP, and diversity and inclusion strategy.
Our talent management initiatives build leadership, management and technical competencies, and broaden knowledge. We facilitate leadership training, formal studies, mentoring, coaching, internships, learnerships, skills development, adult education and training and short courses. The strategy has evolved over the past three years to focus on several initiatives that enhance learner experiences as well as reskill and upskill employees. Initiatives include smart workforce programmes, capability development, a new learning platform, diversity and inclusion programmes, new digital platforms and fourth industrial revolution training.
To meet our skills requirements, we invest in current and potential employees as well as members of communities in our labour sending areas (99% in South Africa). Our bursary, graduate, learnership and skills development initiatives empower local communities to compete for positions. Learning programmes optimise individual potential for growth and meaningful contribution.
We examine key areas across the value chain to ensure the right skills are available at the right time. More than half of our talent pipeline spend is dedicated to artisan and miner learnership development.
Developing our human resources
Human resource development initiatives reduce core skills shortages in the South African mining industry. Our learning programmes accelerate technical and functional skills development as well as leadership competence, especially for black people, women and people living with disabilities. At the same time, we comply with skills targets and goals set by regulators. In some instances, we exceed the requirements of the Mining Charter and the dtic B-BBEE codes.
We invest a portion of annual salaries and wages in developing our people. In 2020, we spent R227 million or 5.04% (2019: R298 million or 6.52%) of our payroll on training and development including:
To mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on our internship, learnership and skills development programmes, some training offerings were made available using digital platforms. More than 17 000 compliance training interventions were completed in our online cloud-based learning management system. The creative content improved learner retention and saved time.
Our strategic workforce planning initiatives support our business in identifying and developing capabilities required to deliver our Sustainable Growth and Impact strategy.
We translate capabilities into learning journeys to reskill and upskill our workforce. The process supports digital transformation as our operations adopt new technology and equipment. Our minerals growth strategy informs the transition of roles for effective delivery of our business strategy.
Updated competency profiles, assessment tools and learning interventions will support future roles. We train young people in our talent pipeline to expose them to our working environment with our new business strategy in mind. Our smart workforce training programmes ensure digital skills are fit for the advancing digital economy.
Our strategy aims to build a multi-core and supportive organisation. Our talent management team partnered with service providers to develop capability framework proof-of-concept training programmes (including strategic development, market orientation and business acumen). Our plans include additional internal capability development programmes to be rolled out in 2021.
For more information, refer to our ESG report.
Our adaptable culture reflects willingness to learn and improve as we strive to achieve our Sustainable Growth and Impact strategy. We continue intensifying our employee engagement efforts to share critical information and changes. This includes feedback from our employees through our culture and engagement survey.
Our connect2NEXT process continued to empower the organisation (including BUs) on the management and communication of the changes, through communities of practice, and alignment with the strategy and culture evolution. This also involved the review of the major shifts required.
Our diversity and inclusion strategy is a key strategic enabler and aims to create value from our people’s diverse talent and mindsets. Diversity and inclusion is key component in ensuring that Exxaro achieves its Sustainable Growth and Impact strategic objectives by enabling an inclusive culture that empowers its people, irrespective of gender, race and background, to successfully contribute to delivering on our vision to “power better lives in Africa and beyond”.
The implementation of the diversity and inclusion strategy is managed through the diversity and inclusion framework which adopts a phased approach aimed at increasing alignment and promoting a diverse and inclusive culture that delivers business and stakeholder value. The key objectives of the diversity and inclusion framework are:
Diversity and inclusion implementation framework
In 2020, we defined diversity and inclusion for Exxaro with the following focus areas:Women in mining
We empower female employees, who make up 24% (2019: 22%) of our workforce. We grow this talent pipeline through our professionals in training (PIT) programme, which enrolled 38% (2019: 43%) female candidates in 2020.
In 2020, 39% (2019: 33%) of bursaries were awarded to full-time female students in engineering and mining disciplines at universities in South Africa.
Our learnership and internship feeder schemes in 2020 comprised 40% (2019: 35%) women. Exxaro is recognised as a leader in gender empowerment as we understand the barriers women face in the mining industry. Our initiatives include:The mining industry has significantly increased efforts to create a conducive environment for women since 2004. We celebrate their growing influence and respect their aspirations.
Exxaro prides itself in active women in mining structures across all our operations. These structures collaborate with transformation structures to highlight and resolve issues affecting women in the workplace.
Exxaro also signed up to the UN Women Empowerment Principles, which offer guidance on how we can further empower women in our workplace and communities. Furthermore, Exxaro was recognised in the Bloomberg GEI. This announcement is testament to the gender-related practices, policies and purpose-led programmes to advance the role of women in Exxaro.
