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The Group has put comprehensive policies and procedures in place to increase female representation across all levels of the organisation. Key policies focus on: (i) the attraction, retention, promotion and development of females in the Group; (ii) addressing and combating gender-based violence issues; (iii) cultural transformation within the workplace encouraging an inclusive and diverse environment across all levels within the Group. Targets are to be linked to management performance and ratings.
Women represent 14% of the workforce, 11% of women are in core and critical mining roles while 18.73% of entry level employees are held by woman. In terms of specific functions, 25.32% of the information technology (IT) function and 20.06% of the engineering function are woman. At our US operations, 10% of employees are women.
Approximately 20% of our R23.4 billion discretionary procurement spend was specifically sourced from women-owned businesses, many of which have benefited from the Company’s training and enterprise and supplier development funding.
On 21 December 2020, the appointment of Ms Sindiswa Zilwa (Sindi), an Independent Non-executive Director, improved female representation at Board level, which increased to 31%. In March 2022, the Group appointed its first two female Executive Vice Presidents (EVPs) to senior management – both promoted from their internal positions, bringing our female representation at executive level to 13.5%.
Gender-related matters are progressed through the various WiM committee structures within the Group. All operations have set up gender working groups to ensure women are treated fairly.
The Social, Ethics and Sustainability Committee continues to focus on Women-in-Mining, and promoting women in management and executive leadership.
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In 2021 we continued our anti-sexual harassment campaigns and included anti-sexual harassment training in our induction training. Our sexual harassment policy statement governs procedures to be followed in dealing with sexual harassment. A sexual misconduct unit of Protection Services handles all reported sexual harassment cases, and counselling is provided to affected employees. This year we had 14 cases of sexual harassment of which 12 cases have been closed out.
We launched the anti-GBV Take the Pledge #notinmyname campaign where senior leaders across the Group pledged to stand against Gender Based Violence and took to wearing a black wristband.
In August 2022, we launched GBV support centres at our SA gold and SA PGM operations. We support 17 organisations including schools with GBV awareness campaigns and are concluding training on GBV for faith-based leaders to deliver support programmes for communities around our Marikana operations.
Determining and overseeing ‘fair pay’ is a complex issue and achieving this requires clear rules and principles, aligned to a talent strategy and supported by a policy and governance framework.
The 2020 pay-parity audit established a better foundation for equitable and fair pay practices. The pay-parity project established a framework and a pay model which included targets for adjusting differences as required. The model integrates objective criteria (experience, skills, performance and talent retention) and serves as a guide for HR and line management when setting pay levels during the annual increase. The status of pay-parity will continue to be tracked, and corrected where required, on an annual basis and the model refined as needs be.
The Remuneration Committee is satisfied that there is no institutional pattern of a gender pay gap, and where there are small discrepancies, these are being resolved.
Ergonomic studies are underway to guide the Group in creating mining environments that are safe and comfortable for our female employees. Improvements we are already focused on include the design of PPE suited to the female form; provision of suitable change-rooms and sanitation; and the installation of sufficient lighting in cages and underground.
Sibanye-Stillwater has partnered with internationally renowned Henley Business School to provide an opportunity to Sibanye-Stillwater women to enrol for various relevant qualifications from certifications and diplomas to MBAs.
Known as Steel Women, the programme was specifically designed around the needs of our female employees and many of the aspects of the courses arose as part of the skills identified as needed in the 2020/2021 surveys. A masterclass programme was run for over 100 women candidates to attend the learning journey providing valuable skills to enable our females to navigate their journeys in the workplace, their communities and life. As part of our commitment to developing our women, we will select 26 women to be awarded level-appropriate scholarships with Henley Business School. This will be treated as a pilot project and, if successful, we aim to increase these opportunities year after year.
The GEI “tracks the performance of public companies committed to disclosing their efforts to support gender equality through policy development, representation and transparency” (from Bloomberg’s website). The index helps companies improve their reporting on gender and benchmark themselves against a global standard; and it helps investors identify companies who are committed to gender equality. In 2023 we were included in the Bloomberg GEI, one of 484 companies globally and one of only eight in South Africa. Our inclusion is evidence of a high level of disclosure and overall performance across the framework’s five pillars.
