This year we continued to roll-out people programmes, aligned with our strategic Pillar 1: Maximise the potential from our current assets through people and innovation. These included:
In 2021, we conducted a baseline survey of the Gold Fields culture by surveying our employees. The feedback informed the development of a Gold Fields culture statement premised on four key focus areas: One Gold Fields; Respectful workplace; Working smarter together; and unlocking potential through innovation and learning. These key priority areas are supported by 10 behaviours that employees identified as being critical to driving our aspired culture.
We launched the culture roll-out programme early in 2023, and it is supported by a range of initiatives, including leadership capability and skills programmes, talent and performance processes and specific targeted interventions to drive the change. We formed a culture future forum, comprising a representative group of Gold Fields employees in different roles and regions and chaired by the CEO, which is identifying practical ways to build the culture that Gold Fields aspires to.
The programme is expected to take two to three years to implement recommendations from the forum and the Broderick review, with detailed assessments each year to help monitor progress.
A diverse workforce strengthens our ability to deliver our strategy, and an inclusive environment helps us attract and retain a broad range of skills. During 2023, we will evolve our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategy.
We continued to measure progress against our diversity and inclusion dashboard, which measures lead indicators such as succession planning, risk of employee departures and other key factors that drive our workforce composition.
We continue to drive stronger representation of women consistent with our 2030 ESG target of 30% female representation. This is supported by focused recruitment activities, skills and leadership development and career pathways.
At the end of December 2022, 23% of Gold Fields' employees were women (2021: 22%). The percentage of women in core mining roles increased to 55% (2021: 54%). The percentage of women in leadership remained unchanged at 25%, and three out of our 10 Board members were women.
While these statistics show room for improvement, it is pleasing to see the steady increase in female representation over time: in 2016, only 16% of our workforce were women; 15% at management level and 8% in core mining roles.
We conducted a Group-wide gender and ethnicity (South Africa only) pay parity analysis and found no material gaps in this regard. The basic salary ratio for men to women was 1.03 in 2022 (2021: 1.30). The significant improvement in 2022 was due to the focused recruitment, retention and development of women, as well as salary adjustments where necessary.
Gold Fields was included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the fifth year in a row – one of only 485 companies globally to achieve this.
Our training and development programmes attract new talent and develop the skills required by increasingly mechanised, modernised and automated mines. In 2022, we invested US$1,411 per employee in training (2021: US$1,397).
Leadership competencies are critical in helping us achieve our business plan. We have developed leadership programmes to meet specific objectives for senior managers, middle managers and graduates, to be rolled out in 2023. We have also finalised Gold Fields' job architecture for all roles across disciplines and career paths.
Culture and talent development help us attract and retain the right people. Critical role turnover for the Group was 8% against a target of 5%. Western Australian and South American operations in particular face retention challenges in a fiercely competitive skills market. We put additional brand building, talent attraction and retention and employee benefit programmes in place to address these challenges.
Our operating model ensures people can work with maximum efficiency and is an important part of our culture. It sets how we work together in a regionalised structure with strong functional guidance from the centre. We concluded a review of our operating model during the year and while the model has not changed fundamentally, the review provided greater clarity on roles and responsibilities.
Our operating model is critical to the Gold Fields culture, as it defines the roles, functions and work undertaken by the Group Corporate Office, the various regional offices and our mines and project. Our current operating model could be defined as being decentralised, whereby regions and mines are fully responsible for the operations and their support functions, such as procurement, human relations and engagement with national and local governments and communities.
The Corporate Office is responsible, among others, for setting the Group's strategy, the expenditure framework, centralised reporting, branding as well as shareholder engagement.
A review of the operating model in 2022 was undertaken to seek clarity on how we work together in a regionalised structure with functional guidance from the centre and the roles and responsibilities of the regions and centre. We feel the regionalised model remains appropriate for Gold Fields to deliver on its strategy, though a greater level of functional responsibility should sit with the centre.
For details of our Remuneration Policy and 2022 remuneration and incentive payments to executives and directors, refer to our Remuneration Report on our 2022 AFR, which can be accessed at https://www.goldfields.com/integrated-annual-reports.php
Gold Fields' workforce of just over 23,000 is significantly larger than in previous years due to our Salares Norte project's construction in Chile, which is mostly carried out by contracted firms. The Group's long-term focus on host community employment influences our workforce profile, with host community members comprising 52% of our workforce (2021: 54%). This aligns with our strategy of creating value for the communities in the regions where we operate (read more on stakeholder overview).
Total |
Employees |
Contractors |
Proportion of |
|||
2022 | 2022 | 2021 | 2022 | 2021 | 2022 | |
Australia | 3,677 |
1,866 |
1,773 | 1,811 |
1,667 | 77% |
South Africa | 4,880 |
2,495 |
2,317 | 2,385 |
2,193 | 87% |
Ghana | 7,035 |
1,054 |
1,109 | 5,981 |
6,029 | 100% |
Americas | 7,359 |
828 |
639 | 6,531 |
6,264 | 98% |
Corporate | 133 |
121 |
119 | 12 |
0 | 72% |
Total | 23,084 |
6,364 |
5,957 | 16,720 |
16,153 | 88% |
1 | Total workforce |
Category | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
Total workforce | 23,084 |
22,110 | 18,412 | 17,656 | 17,611 |
Historically Disadvantaged Persons (HDPs) employees (%)1 | 78 |
75 | 73 | 59 | 72 |
HDPs employees – senior management (%)1 | 62 |
53 | 51 | 52 | 43 |
Minimum wage ratio2 | 2.41 |
1.78 | 1.71 | 1.97 | 2.40 |
Female employees (%) | 23 |
22 | 20 | 20 | 19 |
Ratio of basic salary men to women | 1.03 |
1.30 | 1.31 | 1.14 | 1.25 |
Employee wages and benefits (US$m)3 | 468 |
463 | 412 | 395 | 442 |
Average training spend per employee (US$) | 1,411 |
1,397 | 1,211 | 1,912 | 2,469 |
Employee turnover (%) | 16 |
12 | 6 | 16 | 354 |
1 | South Deep and Corporate Office only: Excluding foreign nationals but including white females |
2 | Entry-level wage compared with local minimum wage. The minimum wage ratio has improved significantly due to the inflationary increase and special adjustments applied as per our reward practices, with increases greater than the minimum wage increase in each region. South Africa and Peru reflects the highest ratio of lowest earners against the in-country minimum wage of 2.85 and 5.37 respectively. This ratio excludes Ghana, as the region only employs management-level employees with the transition to contractor mining |
3 | This excludes benefits paid to employees working on capital projects |
4 | High turnover due to South Deep restructuring and transition to Tarkwa contractor mining |
As our Damang mine heads towards closure, we are focused on finding operational synergies between it and our nearby Tarkwa mine. During Q4 2022, we commenced the process of combining the management teams for maximum efficiency.
This required a restructuring process that led to the retrenchment of 218 people (approximately 20% of our workforce) in Q1 2023. We engaged thoroughly with employees to get feedback on our proposals, which we adjusted before reaching a final agreement. Through our selection criteria for impacted positions, we sought to reduce the impact on community-based and female employees.
The one-mine model makes site leadership responsible for mining, processing and engineering, while functional heads are responsible for support functions and providing shared services to the two mine sites.
We uphold our employees' rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining, and we ensure our contractors also abide by these standards.
Trade union membership among our employees is as follows:
In early 2023, South Deep extended its wage agreement with its two registered trade unions, NUM and UASA, by two years to February 2026. This will ensure labour stability as the mine continues its production ramp-up and offer our employees an even greater share in the financial success of the mine. The key features of the agreement are:
In Q1 2022, Gold Fields in Australia negotiated a four-year Enterprise Agreement, which covers the key terms of employment for all its operational, non-senior management workforce. The negotiation process involved employees and their representative union, and resulted in an agreement that provides modern and fair terms and conditions of employment. The overwhelming majority of employees voted in favour of the agreement.
The key benefits of the deal are: