4Incentivizing Employees and Productivity

4.1Attractive and responsible employer

The Cicor Group places significant emphasis on creating value for its employees in order to maintain a talented workforce and attract new employees in times of growth. This increases the Group’s competitiveness, both in the labor market and at site level, and reduces employee turnover.

Cicor recruits from diverse backgrounds to ensure a constant flow of new ideas, creativity and experience, striving to cultivate a competent workforce with the ability to innovate, respond to change and build on opportunities. The Group is consistently and continuously enhancing its employer brand.

At the heart of Cicor’s workforce strategy is improving the capabilities and maximizing the potential of its employees. In Boudry, for example, a new and improved integration program for all new employees was introduced in 2022 in order to foster the full potential of employees right from the start. At the Bedford site, employees not only receive training for their professional development; in annual reviews with their respective line manager, the potential for their personal development is now also analyzed and subsequently realized. Finding the right people for open roles and allowing them to grow meaningfully within the organization has increased productivity and employee retention. Sites report that staff turnover in the Group’s offices is low and falls below the industry average for manual workers.

Cicor is also continuously enhancing working conditions to remain competitive and retain qualified employees. In Arad, for example, flexible working hours and the option of remote working were introduced in 2022, while at the Singapore site salary gaps and wages were reviewed. Singapore also started to place a strong focus on diversity and inclusion and to actively promote the mental health and well-being of its employees.

To make the Suzhou site an even more attractive and responsible employer, salaries and benefits for employees were improved in the reporting year.

Cicor works on a system of flat hierarchies, with decision making in recruitment shared by team leaders, department heads, division heads, management, and human resources.

Some Cicor sites monitor KPIs such as the number of applications, interview-to-hire ratio, time-to-hire, fluctuation rate and employee turnover, and evaluate employees annually on absenteeism. Sites also ask resigning employees to answer a questionnaire that identifies areas for improvement.

4.2Employee development

Employee development is an underlying priority throughout the Cicor Group. The Group has aligned training with its corporate goals, enabling Cicor to keep pace with emerging trends in the field of high-tech development and production. As qualified employees are crucial to the Group’s success, focusing on employee development ensures know-how is maintained and implemented across new projects. Cicor also knows that employee development increases its versatility and its ability to function as a flexible and agile company. The Group also looks to spread specific expertise more widely across the organization. To increase flexibility in Arad for example, employees are trained for various activities and processes outside their actual field of activity. Cross-functional employee training also takes place at the production site in Bedford. This helps Cicor fulfill business requirements and enables employees to get involved in different areas of the company and expand their skills.

Cicor is aware that the demands on its employees are increasing and that regular training and broad knowledge in diverse disciplines is necessary. This is most apparent in the field of medical technology, although it is also relevant in other regulated areas. Cicor further recognizes that employee development is key to motivate its workforce – employees tend to remain with a company that values them and helps them grow. To manage its employee development, the Group offers training programs for all internal processes. Staff are retrained each year in the tasks they currently perform to ensure that all employees are up-to-date in their knowledge. Leadership instruction is also provided to medium and lower management levels.

The Group gives employees equitable opportunities to be considered for training and development based on their abilities and needs, helping them reach their full potential. In Bedford, for example, new training material has been developed in 2022 to provide better support and faster training for employees after a promotion. It also serves as a refresher training for employees in existing positions. In addition, external courses are offered to employees. This helps to meet changing customer requirements, while supporting internal succession planning. The production site in Suzhou plans to further improve its training and development offering in the coming years.

Seeking to generate flexibility, Cicor trains its staff on different activities by offering a limited number of cross-training courses. The exchange of individual employees among specialist areas is institutionalized in manufacturing, helping to identify talents and promote wide-ranging expertise.

Cicor’s human resources and department managers create yearly employee development plans, taking into account goals identified in annual staff reviews, while also promoting overall employee development across the board. The Group financially supports external courses in the cases where new skills will reinforce employees’ capabilities within their roles. Furthermore, in select departments, students are trained for particular activities related to electronics production and development. Further education in the form of technical college or a postgraduate degree is also subsidized if it corresponds with the company's current needs. At the Bedford production site, dedicated positions for university graduates were created in 2022 to ease their transition from education to working life and to commit them to the company long-term. To further strengthen employee loyalty and Cicor's reputation as an attractive employer, additional capacity has been created in the HR department.

The Group’s employee development efforts are evaluated through regular internal and external audits. Employees are asked to complete a survey and staff appraisal to determine their satisfaction with the development program. An assessment is also done at the end of each course to understand how much the employees learned and establish to what extent it helps in their daily work.

4.3Occupational health and safety

Occupational health and safety is of the utmost importance to the Cicor Group. This includes the health and safety of Cicor’s employees, as well as visitors. The Group has created a safe working environment and recognizes that caring for the health and safety of its staff not only helps retain its workforce but also offers a more attractive working environment for potential employees.

Cicor’s goal is to have zero working accidents or occupational illnesses. The Group aims to supply every necessary means and resource to ensure the health and safety of collaborators and contributors. Besides adhering to applicable government health and safety laws and regulations, Cicor’s own health and labor safety policy, quality and environment standard operating procedures, health and safety programs and production safety officers support careful occupational health and safety management.

Across the Group, most sites have a safety committee and a chairman appointed by management to oversee safety aspects of the company. Moreover, at some sites, an additional health and safety task force has been set up. To further encourage employees’ commitment to occupational health and safety and continued engagement around the topic, the workers’ union is part of the health and safety committee. The responsibility for maintaining health and safety across the Group falls on the quality department, maintenance department and HR. However, every collaborator and contributor has a duty to support and advocate for all health and safety measures.

Risks and hazards are identified and controlled throughout operational health and safety documentation, namely, specific work instruction, training, and clarifying what special personal safety equipment should be worn.

Health and safety practices of Cicor include preventing exposure to hazardous substances, mandatory checks on air, water, noise and lighting, verification for special equipment such as pressure tanks, lifters, and cranes, as well as fire detection and fighting.

Cicor believes occupational health and safety can be maintained and improved through communication, training and awareness. The Group enlists an external safety consultant, organizes staff training, issues protective equipment where necessary, arranges regular occupational health and safety meetings, and provides a medical service for its staff. Employees have the opportunity to receive periodic medical consultations from an external company contracted by Cicor. All new staff are given a safety orientation, daily safety inspections are conducted, and general awareness is imparted through yearly safety training. The Group also runs monthly health and safety campaigns. Safety incidents are noted in the “dangerous situations and hazards report,” and each record is analyzed and treated as part of a continuous improvement action plan.

Emergency management is covered with an emergency response Group (GIC: Groupe d’Intervention Cicorel). Trained first aiders and/or safety managers, as well as one defibrillator, are in place on each site, and simulations are carried out to ensure emergency preparedness and response.

In Arad, internal health and safety committee meetings are held every six months, which gives employees an opportunity to report dangerous situations and involves them in the implementation and development of the health and safety management system. Employees can also use a suggestion box as needed to report hazardous circumstances. In Batam, an escalation chart is available for reference if an unsafe situation emerges. When an abnormal situation is identified, employees can then feed this information back to the Safety Officer. Furthermore, the Batam site also offers instruction on personal protective equipment (PPE). In 2022, the site additionally introduced a Standard Operating Procedure for Environment, Health & Safety (EHS), while Suzhou set up a Safety Standardization Management. In addition to Cicor's comprehensive health and safety measures, the production sites in Arad, Batam and Boudry are ISO 45001:2018 certified.

Cicor monitors its management of occupational health and safety via internal audits and specific KPIs. Regular KPI assessments include health and safety incidents, occupational illness occurrence, internal health and safety non-conformities, rate of adherence to legal requirements, occupational accidents, hazards spotted, and hazards treated. The Group tracks the number of complaints and sanctions about occupational health and safety violations and has instigated a monthly inspection report to gauge the effectiveness of Cicor’s initiatives. The Group organizes a bimonthly labor incident monitoring report and works toward continuous improvement of its action plan and safety training matrix. A survey is conducted with all Cicor’s employees to further evaluate its occupational health and safety.

4.4Diversity, equal opportunity and inclusion

The Cicor Group strongly upholds the values of diversity, equality of opportunity and inclusion. According to Cicor’s policy, employees must be recruited solely on the basis of merit—namely, their skills, experience and ability to perform the job, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, marital status, family responsibilities or disability. By hiring fairly and based on merit, Cicor has access to a wide pool of candidates for vacancies. The Group aims to create an inclusive culture that respects people’s differences and gives everyone a chance to excel in their given role. To safeguard its employees, Cicor’s Code of Conduct has been updated with new company rules and guidelines that integrate equity, respect and equality, and condemn any kind of discrimination. Some of Cicor’s sites have additional local policies to promote greater workforce diversity. Cicor believes that an inclusive workplace centered on good communication leads to every employee feeling valued at work. In 2022, the Bedford production site introduced a diversity and inclusion training for all company managers, while Dresden and Radeberg implemented pay grades for workers to ensure equal pay. In addition, the Company set up an umbrella function in the Human Resources department. Among other things, the new Vice President will address closing salary gaps between employees with the same education and experience who work at the same site.

The responsibility for equal treatment of all employees lies with Cicor’s top-level management. The Group’s management seeks ideas from staff on how to improve the working culture and environment and encourages them to raise issues or make suggestions. Cicor has an open-door policy to hear and address staff concerns and open feedback is continually received from employees in the form of emails or verbal communication. In 2023, Cicor plans to implement a group-wide whistleblower hotline.

As a result of these continued efforts, there were no incidents of discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, or the like, in 2022.