Employment

21 min

dormakaba offers fair working conditions in which our employees can leverage on their strengths and build their skills. We foster an engaged workforce where we strive to have the right people in the right roles.

Why it matters

Our success is based on the performance of our employees. It is their dedication that helps us maintain and further develop our global competitive position, which is why we have a strong people-focus in our corporate strategy. As a company with employees in over 50 countries, we must ensure an engaging working environment in order to be an employer of choice for current and prospective employees. We must also ensure that we treat employees fairly and with respect in accordance with our company values, and that we provide them with equal opportunities and fair remuneration.

Key activities

A key element of our corporate strategy is that we continuously shape a productive and equitable working environment and foster an atmosphere of trust. As we strive to have the right people in the right roles, dormakaba offers fair working conditions in which our employees can leverage their strengths and build their skills. This leads to an engaged workforce and helps to avoid risks, such as loss of know-how and personnel shortages. Our approach toward our employees is governed primarily by our Code of Conduct as well as by country-based labor regulations and the local employee handbook, where available.

Our Human Resources (HR) management team is spread globally – in addition to Group HR, there are HR professionals at the segment level and HR representatives at the local market level. Group HR bundles strategic issues based on our corporate strategy and the needs of local HR representatives, and develops best practice programs accordingly. These programs can then be customized and implemented in each segment and region to respond to local market requirements and conditions. The local HR representatives also develop and implement individual initiatives and programs suited to the needs of their employees, helping to react to the different local customers and markets as effectively as possible. We continue to invest in technology and business applications that allow us to more effectively deliver services to our employees, including a Group-wide HR data management system launched in the financial year 2017/18.

Due to the local nature of employment practices, our segments and regions develop employment policies according to local requirements. Labor regulations and business needs have to be taken into consideration to find the best and most sensible solutions on a local level. For the sake of transparency, however, an overview of best-practice policies across the Group is found below.

Policies and benefits

in %

 

 

Policies (additional to Code of Conduct)

 

% employees covered (Group-wide FTE)

Health and Safety Policy

 

91%

Employee Counselling and Discipline Policy

 

78%

Equal Opportunity Employment Policy

 

68%

Non-Harrassment/Non-Discrimination Policy

 

67%

Equal pay for equal work Policy

 

65%

Drug free/Alcohol free Workplace Policy

 

59%

Training and Professional Development Policy

 

50%

Whistleblower Policy

 

48%

Open Door Policy

 

27%

Anti-bullying Policy

 

23%

Flexible Working/Home Office Policy

 

20%

Benefits

 

% employees covered (Group-wide FTE)

Vacation and holidays*

 

64%

Incentive/bonus scheme

 

63%

Health Insurance benefits for employees

 

59%

Other special leave offerings*

 

55%

Health Insurance benefits for employees’ families/dependants

 

51%

Pension plan*

 

48%

Financial contribution to external training

 

44%

New employee referral bonus

 

41%

Disability benefits*

 

30%

On-site fitness classes or gym discounts

 

21%

Maternity, paternity or parental leave*

 

16%

Measures

 

% of countries implementing**

Provision of protective equipment to all impacted employees

 

77%

Regular assessment of individual performance

 

72%

Provision of skills development training

 

64%

Training of relevant employees on health & safety

 

60%

Recognition program

 

49%

Annual medical exams

 

47%

Employee representatives or employee representative body (e.g. works council)

 

40%

Flexible organization of working time

 

38%

Working time reduction measures

 

34%

Official measures to anticipate or reduce layoffs and associated negative impacts

 

34%

Communication on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining

 

32%

Equal pay for equal work audit

 

28%

Employee Assistance Program (counselling)

 

25%

Awareness training to prevent discrimination/harassment

 

19%

Training on freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining

 

19%

Dependent care support

 

13%

Measures to promote gender and/or minority inclusion

 

13%

*Beyond legal requirements

**Even if not country-wide

 

To provide employees with an employment and working environment in which they can thrive, dormakaba focuses our activities on the following four areas:

  1. Engaging our employees
  2. Creating an inclusive and diverse workforce with equal opportunities
  3. Fair remuneration and benefits
  4. Employee attraction and retention

Engaging our employees

High employee engagement has been proven to lead to increased productivity, decreases in workplace accidents and improved customer satisfaction. A key method to support employee engagement is to ensure a culture of open dialogue across the organization.

In the financial year 2017/18, dormakaba launched the first Group-wide employee survey, called dormakaba dialogue. In January 2018, 72% of our employees in 52 countries anonymously participated in the survey, which was available in 18 languages. The aim of the survey was to gauge employee engagement and performance enablement. The latter focuses on, for example, whether employees feel they have the required skills, tools and information they need to do their jobs effectively.

The survey revealed strengths as well as room for improvement on a global level. One key strength is that managers and employees are perceived to act according to the dormakaba values. The relationships between managers and employees are in general characterized by our value and brand promise: Trust. 

 

 

Employee Engagement Index (%)

 

Performance Enablement Index (%)

dormakaba

 

67

 

68

IBM Global Norm*

 

71

 

74

*The IBM global norm is a composite of employee responses from 400 companies across organizations from all industries and all geographies. It provides comparative results that represent the average scores across all organizations in the IBM norm database running employee surveys for multiple years.

Based on the overall global results, the Executive Committee has identified the following fields of action and commitments:

In the financial year 2018/19, team leaders were asked to discuss the results in dedicated team sessions to develop actions on leadership behavior, team topics, processes and infrastructure as needed. HR representatives trained team leaders throughout the company on how best to communicate the results and develop their action plans. Communication materials, such as posters, stickers and PowerPoint templates for cascading results and defining team actions were made available. Stickers with the slogan “I am a result of dormakaba dialogue” were designed for items specifically purchased or put in place as a result of the employee engagement survey.

On top of the global actions highlighted above, over 800 teams worldwide worked with their survey results and launched more than 2,200 team actions. Actions implemented at the segment level were communicated in a series of intranet articles and newsletters. To measure the efficacy of the ongoing actions, a follow-up global survey is planned for February 2020. In addition to the global employee survey, segments and regions have local solutions to gather employee feedback and to address employee concerns and grievances.

Examples of such activities in the financial year 2018/19 included:

Creating an inclusive and diverse workforce with equal opportunities

Our global presence and operations in various markets mirror our commitment to promote a diverse and inclusive workforce. As our Code of Conduct states, we respect the equality of people and cultures. In the financial year 2018/19, female employees represented 31% of the total workforce. At 54%, the majority of employees represented in this report are between 30 and 50 years of age.

The topic of diversity and equal opportunity is driven by local activities. Examples of activities in the financial year 2018/19 included:

Employees
  
Board of Directors
  
 Executive Committee
  

Fair remuneration and benefits

dormakaba aims to establish fair compensation that is determined based on the job function and relevant local market benchmarks. It is not influenced by personal attributes such as age, nationality or gender. The global grading system ensures that functions are evaluated in a consistent manner across the organization. In addition, we provide locally specific benefits and welfare programs. As stipulated in the Group Directive Compensation, we refrain from offering excessively low wages (i.e., wage dumping). Examples of our fair remuneration and benefits activities in the financial year 2018/19 included:

Employee attraction and retention

We provide our employees with long-term professional development opportunities in order to attract and retain an experienced workforce. This is vital to the company’s success. When filling open positions, promoting from within our own workforce is preferred.

Examples of recruiting and career opportunity activities in the financial year 2018/19 included:

Fluctuation

Overall fluctuation (in percentage and headcount)1)

In financial year 2018/19, a total of 1,194 employees left the company and 1,411 joined in the reporting scope. This corresponds with rates of 10% and 12%, respectively.

Employee fluctuation in Asia and the Americas was higher than in other regions. This is attributed to restructuring measures, and relocation of manufacturing activities in the Americas. The higher fluctuation in Asia Pacific is to be expected based on regional workforce trends. In addition, in China, employees are usually appointed on the basis of fixed-term labor contracts before being eligible for an indefinite contract. This results in a temporal shift of the fluctuation rates for Asia Pacific and to a certain extent overall, since employees with permanent contracts joining and leaving dormakaba are counted only after their contracts have been converted (usually after the completion of two consecutive fixed-term contracts, in accordance with Chinese Labor Contract Law).

Fluctuation by region (in percentage and headcount)1) 
Fluctuation by age and gender (in percentage and headcount)1)

The workforce aged under 30 years shows higher joining and leaving rates compared to the other age groups. This is consistent across all regions, and congruent with findings from a study on general workforce turnover trends periodically conducted by human resources consulting firm Mercer.

  1. Fluctuation is calculated with permanent staff. 

Our performance

Our most significant achievement in the financial year 2018/19 was the continued internalization of our corporate culture and values at the local level, as well as further engaging with our employees on our values. We have significantly improved our global employee master database, which has allowed us to gain additional insight on the workforce structure and related trends. We also ran an in-depth analysis of where the company stands as an employer and developed an Employer Branding strategy. Our biggest challenge, however, remains in that we are a highly diversified company in terms of geographic distribution, size of sites and local challenges. This is why we have planned to further strengthen cross-country and cross-entity collaboration and communication which will be measured in the next round of our employee engagement survey in early 2020.

Outlook

On a Group-wide level, we will begin implementing a uniform orientation process across all countries and segments, and we will roll-out initial actions based on our Employer Branding strategy. We will continue to seek feedback through the second round of our global employee engagement survey. In addition, we will continue to constantly review our compensation practices.

Access Solutions (AS) DACH is rolling out an eRecruiting system in Germany to automate and optimize the recruiting process in order to be more transparent and efficient. A similar roll-out is planned for the Americas and is under consideration for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.

Further, a home office policy is being developed to better balance family life and career in Germany, while in China, the focus is on completing succession planning. In Singapore, an Employee Assistance Program will be launched to support employee emotional wellbeing by offering talks and counselling sessions. MEA is establishing a grading structure to analyze “equal pay for equal work” and to design realignment measures. The region will also introduce a “spot recognition program” that rewards employees for going the extra mile with outstanding contributions to the business.

Creating awareness about accessibility

Our colleague Tobias Röll, an employee in the marketing department for Entrance Systems and a disabled representative at dormakaba, is working to create more awareness about accessibility. He is acting as an issue influencer under the Hashtag #moveforward. 

Tobias says, “People see my wheelchair, and see only my wheelchair. They think only that I am handicapped. But I’m not – it is my environment that makes me disabled. Anyone can make a difference, whether they can walk or not. That’s why dormakaba and I want to point out accessibility barriers in public and private spaces. We want to draw attention to people with disabilities. And we no longer want to accept discrimination.” Tobias is 33, married and a proud father. He is a paraplegic and comes into daily contact with accessibility barriers. Under #moveforward he shares his personal experiences – for example, when he is building a house or is on holiday – on various social media channels and takes his followers with him on his many journeys.

#TobiOnTour: buildings are tested for accessibility; videos and photos from the road
#TobiTrifft: interviews with decision makers or affected people
#TobiCheckt: critical product tests, exchanges with product developers and managers
#TobiInformiert: information and stories from everyday life

In his posts, Tobias is hoping to raise awareness of the challenges that people with disabilities have to master every day. He also wants to highlight how it is possible to improve our collective quality of life through publicly accessible buildings and workplaces (both structurally and technically) in such a way that everyone can lead a self-determined, independent life. This is particularly true for children, senior citizens or people with physical disabilities who struggle to open doors – which often represents a basic barrier to everyday life. Free movement in public or private buildings, as well as unhindered entry and exit, especially in the event of an emergency, is a prerequisite and often regulated by law. This applies to hospitals, nursing homes, government buildings, hotels, schools, shopping centers – anywhere where building accessibility issues could inhibit free movement. “Accessibility is no longer a technical problem. Accessibility is a question of attitude”, emphasizes Tobias.

Website: moveforward.dormakaba.com – Facebook: Moveforward Tobias Röll – Instagram: @moveforwardtobiasroell – YouTube: #moveforwardtobiasroell

Focus Area PeopleTraining and Education

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