Sasol Limited Sustainability Report 2021 - Book - Page 13
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SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE AGAINST OUR FOCUS AREAS: SAFE AND ENDURING OPERATIONS (CONTINUED)
Human Capital: Labour management (continued)
Focus area
Purpose
Progress
Labour stability
and employee
productivity
Maintain stable labour environment
and strengthen employee engagement
to improve productivity.
We focused extensively on change leadership and employee wellbeing to support employees through the workforce transition process.
Preparing and assisting our employees during times of change
We amplified awareness and accessibility to our enhanced employee wellbeing support services including on-site, virtual and telephonic counselling services. Our Employee Assistance
Programme is available to all employees and their families at no cost. We also provided various skills to employees during the transitioning phase such as resilience training, curriculum vitae
(CV) writing, using social media platforms for maximum benefit and preparing for interviews.
Continuous engagement
Our leadership team continually engaged with employees via virtual platforms or on-site visits in operational areas to ensure visible leadership. These sessions emphasised Sasol’s
commitment to treat employees fairly throughout the Sasol 2.0 transformation programme and encouraged them to utilise the wellbeing initiatives available. These sessions also helped
prepare employees for the new and exciting challenges ahead as we transform to Future Sasol.
Maintaining constructive relationships
We continued to recognise and respect the right to collective bargaining as part of the trade union recognition agreements. In this regard, we maintained constructive relationships with all
recognised trade unions and works councils in all the countries within which we operate. In line with applicable labour laws, these key stakeholders retained consultative or negotiating powers
on issues of mutual interest. To ensure that these rights promote and enable us to realise improved working conditions, we regularly review and update our policies and procedures in line
with business, legislative requirements and key conventions of the International Labour Organisation.
Throughout the transition process, we maintained ongoing engagements with leadership of trade unions and works council leadership on the transition to Sasol of the future. Trade union
partners were fully engaged regarding the workforce transition principles, framework and process.
Capability
building
Equip the workforce with
capabilities required.
A key objective for the organisation is the identification and building of future skills and capabilities required to ensure the new operating model continues to function successfully. Identified
core capabilities included leadership excellence, commercial excellence and operational excellence as part of emerging and foundational capabilities.
Building leadership capacity
In 2021, we rolled out our capability building programme with a primary focus on leadership excellence, commercial excellence , initiative delivery and micro-battle training. At the centre of
our culture transformation and capability programme is the leadership commitment Journey to build critical leadership bench-strength and effective teams as well as addressing leadership
mindsets and behaviours.
Skills development
The cash conservation measures implemented as part of the Sasol 2.0 transformation programme included limiting training spend to critical skills development and safety training, which
continued into 2021. However, through our career pre-investment programmes such as learnerships, apprenticeships, and bursaries, we continued to build and sustain a pipeline of technical
and operational talent pools by investing R1,2 billion in skills development, which included our critical skills development and safety training, bursaries, graduate development and learnership
as well as our apprenticeship and internship programmes.
During the 2021 academic year, we funded 729 undergraduate and postgraduate bursaries. Our Skills Academies in Secunda and Sasolburg remain favourably positioned to ensure a pipeline
of artisans, critical to Sasol and the future development of South Africa and Mozambique. Various trades are catered for in these academies which are delivered internally via in-house technical
experts. Trades offered include fitting, electrical, instrumentation, welding, turning, fabrication and rigging learnerships and we have 336 learners in these programmes. We also invested
R3,3 million on upgrades to technical training equipment to ensure that high quality training outcomes are delivered to the learners. We have also digitised components of our training content,
assessments and learner surveys which are now available via electronic devices in most of our Skills Academies.
Partnerships for critical skills
We maintained strategic partnerships to build and strengthen a broader pool of identified critical skills in areas within which we operate. In South Africa, we have partnerships with local
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, with the support of the Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority, and in Mozambique, we established a three-year
learnership programme at the Central Processing Facility (CPF).
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Sasol Sustainability Report 2021