Employees

Our people are what make us the successful business we are. We aim to attract and retain best talent by providing an inclusive, fair and enabling working environment. Our salaries exceed regional averages in all our areas of operation, while our long-term incentives are linked to employees’ performance and potential. We annually align wage growth with inflation.

To reduce the risks of talent shortage, we invest in training and development, hold in-house scientific conferences, maintain Talent Pool and other development programmes for target groups. We collaborate with leading universities and technical colleges to attract talented students via targeted internships followed by recruitment, hold professional contests and provide mentorships.

Who is responsible

We employ more than 13,000 people across the Group’s production, exploration, research, development, design, logistics and management activities. Most of those involved in extraction and exploration work on a fly-in-fly-out basis, due to the demanding nature of the work and the remote locations of many sites.

We believe that workforce diversity is a strength and we are deeply committed to equal opportunities and terms of employment. We actively recruit people on merit, eliminating any discrimination on the grounds of race, skin colour, gender, religion, political opinions, nationality or social origin. In 2021, we approved a five-year Diversity and Inclusion Programme to eliminate workplace bias, empower diverse teams and attract and retain people with different backgrounds. The programme sets gender diversity targets for our existing talent development programmes and introduces new initiatives to inspire women into leadership roles. Besides managing gender diversity issues, we have planned for a set of measures to eliminate discrimination based on age and disability.

Find out more in Diversity and Inclusion Policy.

Our diverse operations require diverse skills, which are changing as technologies develop. We go beyond mandatory compliance and induction training, with individual development plans and annual appraisals for key positions.

Employees are offered professional and managerial skills training, webinars and English language courses. We are extending our portfolio of distant learning solutions with online courses in geology, mine planning and engineering. These are complemented with human rights and diversity training.

Where possible, we meet our talent goals through internal promotions (unless very specific expertise is not available in-house in which case we must recruit externally). To develop future leaders, we operate a Talent Pool programme, which includes 360-degree feedback, additional training, personal targets and development plans for aspiring leaders. As a part of our diversity and inclusion programme, we aim to increase the share of women in our Talent Pool to 30% by 2025.

To promote mobility of the workforce across operations, we established the Polymetal Human Resources Committee, whose main responsibility is to plan staff rotations and fill key positions within the Company. Rotations into these positions are based on candidates’ performance and qualifications, as determined by the Committee. This helps us manage and plan rotations in line with stakeholders’ views and expectations, and in a way that best meets our business needs.

We capture and respond to employee feedback through company-wide engagement research, pulse surveys and Q&A sessions. Employees can raise any issues or concerns without retribution and ensure adequate remediation steps. Complex or Group-wide issues are submitted to a Board-level committee for resolution.

In 2021 we carried out a widescale employee survey with more than 8,000 respondents. We observed an employee engagement index of 69% (moderately engaged), which benchmarks well for a complex mining company with rotating shift schedules. Following the survey, we implemented an action plan across all employees’ areas of concern.

We also engage employees in corporate volunteering campaigns, as well as organising professional, cultural and sports events.