The employees enjoy the highest priority at Clariant and the company wants to be perceived as a preferred employer by the best in the industry.

Clariant communicates to current and future employees the values and objectives of the Group, fosters respect for colleagues and creates a working environment that is pleasant, stimulating and challenging. Clariant also provides options for its employees to develop their careers themselves through continuing education, training courses and support programs, in addition to targeted monetary motivations such as bonuses and other incentives. In 2015, Clariant also has further developed the onboarding process in this regard, which means implementing efficient and targeted training and integration of new employees in their first 100 days at the company.

Clariant wants to motivate its performance-oriented employees to make a long-term commitment to the company.

Number of employees increased slightly in 2015 – Diversity in the workforce

After completion of the extensive portfolio changes in 2011 to 2014, the focus in the year under review was on the development of growth sectors and regions. This led to a slight increase in the Group’s workforce by 210 employees to 17 213. 130 new employees were added due to acquisitions, however, roughly the same number of employees left the Group due to the divestments.

Employees in emerging markets at 44%

The workforce in the European region still has the largest proportion with 45%, followed by Asia-Pacific with 25%. In Latin America, Clariant employs 14% , in North America 11%, and Middle East & Africa has 5%. The increasing importance of the East Asia region is shown in the high number of employees in Greater China with 1 566. In the emerging markets, which are characterized by the highest economic growth, the percentage of employees of the total number of Group employees is 44%.

Among the Business Areas, Plastics & Coatings is the largest area from a personnel perspective with 6 878 employees (40% of the total workforce) followed by Natural Resources with 2 931 employees (17%). Care Chemicals has 2 321 or 13% of all employees and Catalysis has 1 748 or 10%.

In the 2015 financial year, the Clariant Group spent CHF 1 345 million (2014: CHF 1 435 million) for salaries, social welfare contributions and extraordinary personnel costs of its own employees. When adding in the cost of external staff, the Group’s total personnel expenses in 2015 were CHF 1 391 million. The comparable figure for the previous year was CHF 1 485 million.

The issue of occupational safety shows, for example, how closely performance and people are connected with one another. The LTAR (Lost Time Accident Rate), which reflects the number of occupational accidents with at least one day of work lost in relation to 200 000 hours of work, has substantially improved as a result of training measures and investments in plant safety. This ratio has declined from 0.92 in 2007 to 0.17 in 2015 (2014: 0.23): Less work days lost also means better performance. Lost work days (LWD) saved in the past eight years corresponding to the performance of close to 60 employees during the same period.