PEOPLE AND CAREERS Training and development

Training and development

Gold Fields encourages all employees to have Individual Development Plans in place which are updated twice annually. These development plans inform our training budgets and training plans in each Region. Annually Gold Fields conducts a talent review in which all talent is reviewed. This involves employee input and manager reviews which are consolidated at Group level. In South Africa our training plans are aligned to our workplace skills plans.

Gold Fields training

At Gold Fields we offer a range of training and development interventions. We spent US$1,397 per person on training. The types of training supported are:

  • Induction and onboarding
  • Legal and compliance training
  • Leadership training
  • Technical skills training, including mining, engineering, technical services and other technical skills to keep employees’ skills up to date with modern mechanised mining
  • Safety training
  • A range of soft skills training

Return on investment of training

Gold Fields invests in training that has a clear business benefit. We monitor a range of metrics to determine what is the best training for our business. This includes financial metrics like training spend per person, % payroll spend on training and lead indicators like the % of improvement in performance of employees who have attended training. We also track business benefits including ROI for every dollar spent on training .

We measure the business benefits of our training including the performance improvements seen. This includes monitoring the effectiveness of management and supervisory training in terms of improvements in individual performance as well as the net benefit after all costs for training. As we continue to enhance our systems and processes in line with digital age we continue to evolve our training metrics over time.

Global training and development initiatives

At Gold Fields we encourage our employees to complete any continuing professional development (CPD), attend conferences and seminars specific to their role requirements. In addition we have a number of group training programmes we run across our business. These programmes change and develop each year but include:

  • Leadership programmes – management and supervisory levels (internal programmes and programmes in partnership with accredited learning institutions)
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  • Diversity and inclusion training – awareness training, unconscious bias training, right conversations
  • Code of conduct training – Living the Gold Fields values and abiding by our code of conduct
  • Strategy training for management employees – unpacking the Gold Fields strategy annually to align employees to the Group objectives
  • Performance management training – how to set objectives and conduct effective reviews and manage performance.
  • Courageous safety leadership and vital behaviours – to promote leadership that will drive our safety culture across all our operations