Decent Work and Economic Growth

Paid work is the key driver for material well-being, financial security, equal opportunity, and human development. But still a majority of employees are excluded from this, as a job does not always guarantee a life without poverty. Poverty can be eliminated only through permanent, well paid work. Reaching this goal is closely connected with other goals, such as education, gender equality, and equal opportunities. 

With its activities, Evonik makes a contribution towards economic growth and offers safe work under decent conditions. Our impact valuation shows that on average every Evonik job secures 13.5 jobs worldwide in the supply chain.
We are a member of the Global Compact and, in our Global Social Policy, in the Executive Board's Policy Statement on Human Rights, and in our Code of Conduct, we state that we will comply with human rights and workplace laws. We also expect this from our suppliers.

• Collective agreements on remuneration cover 100 percent of our employees in Germany and around 70 percent of our employees worldwide.
• Around 96 percent of our sites and regions have performance- or profit-oriented incentive systems. These systems cover around 99 percent of our employees.
• Evonik offers voluntary social benefits to employees in all regions where it has a presence. These are available to more than 99 percent of our employees.
• Close to 100 percent of our employees have statutory or company pension insurance and health insurance.
• These benefits are also available to part-time workers – assuming they achieve the minimum number of working hours that are specified in some regions.
• At the end of 2022, Evonik had more than 1,000 young people in dual vocational training, including 460 apprentencies being trained for other companies. Apprentices accounted for 5.3 percent of our workforce in Germany, which is still well above the national average of around 5 percent in both the chemical industry and the industrial sector.
• Our offering covered 22 recognized vocational training courses and combined vocational training and study programs at 16 sites.
• In the “Starting a Career” project, we prepare young people who are not yet ready to begin an apprenticeship or traineeship for their start in professional life. In the 2021/2022 project year, we offered an additional 30 places in this program, bringing the total to 80.
• Occupational safety is an important part of decent work. The principle at Evonik is: Safety and health are more important than sales and profits. Our Group initiative “Safety at Evonik” has raised awareness for safety among our employees.
• The key performance indicator for occupational safety at Evonik is the lost time injury rate (LTI-R). In 2022, we once again achieved our target of remaining below the defined minimum LTI-R of 0.26 accidents involving Evonik employees  resulting in absences of at least one full shift per 200,000 working hours. The LTI-R was 0.25 3, and therefore at a good level. 
• Our PSI-R (number of incidents per 200,000 working hours) was 0.49 in the reporting period, so we failed to meet our target of remaining below the upper limit of 0.40. 
• We have defined a target of ≥ 5.0 for the occupational health performance index (calculated from occupational medicine, health promotion, and emergency medical management). In 2022, the index was 5.5 (maximum: 6.0).

• Proportion of women in top and senior management should be 23 percent at each level by 2023
• Intercultural mix at executive level should be 20 percent by 2023
• Lost time injury rate (LTI-R) ≤ 0.26
• Process safety incident rate (PSI-R) ≤ 0.40
• Occupational health performance index ≥ 5.0