People at a glance

Supporting our people through a year of change

In 2022, our people around the globe experienced a year of considerable change. As well as being affected by external developments – including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and economic challenges such as rising inflation and living costs – our organization continued its strategic journey toward becoming a leader in Health, Nutrition & Bioscience. To actively inform and engage with people about this journey and our announcement of the intended merger of equals with Firmenich, many townhall meetings, connects and communication campaigns were launched. These provided people with a place to raise their questions, connect and explore what makes us DSM. Meanwhile, we also worked to develop, among other things, the resilience and change management skills of our people, kept track of the emotions people experienced and made plans to support our people in the future.

Throughout the year, we also supported the health and well-being of our people through a range of campaigns and initiatives, from nutrition and immunity support to mental health webinars. We also took important steps in implementing effective and inclusive hybrid working practices during the year, which will make our organization more flexible and resilient for the future. By aiming for a 50:50 balance between office and remote work, we hope to provide our office-based employees with the flexibility to focus on individual work where needed, while also facilitating the right opportunities for personal development, strong collaborations, and closer relationships. For our employees based in plants or labs, we also continued to explore options for flexibility based on the requirements of specific roles.

Delivering on our People & Organization (P&O) strategy

Throughout the year, we supported our people during a year of change while working to realize our P&O strategy, which was launched at the end of 2020. This strategy comprises four pillars:

• Creating a flotilla-style organization
• Empowering our people
• Resetting the context for leadership
• Creating a contemporary workplace

In 2021, we added a new area of focus with our Inclusion & Diversity strategy, which covers human rights, engagement, and inclusion and diversity. In 2022, we included ‘equity’ as a further component of this part of our strategy.

Aligning our People approach with the Materiality matrix

Our approach to People aligns with several material topics:

• Occupational health, safety & well-being (see Safety and Health & well-being)
• Product quality & safety (see Quality)
• Human rights (see Human rights)
• Talent attraction, development & retention (see Empowering our people and Resetting the context for leadership)
• Employee diversity & inclusion (see Diversity, equity & inclusion)

Activating our Health, Nutrition & Bioscience organization

Building on our 2021 efforts to reshape our company into three new Business Groups – Animal Nutrition & Health, Health, Nutrition & Care, and Food & Beverage – we implemented our updated organizational design in 2022. Our new set-up allows us to get closer to our customers in the industries we serve and develop innovative solutions at greater speed. This is supported by the establishment of a central science organization and embedded innovation teams, providing scientific capabilities and R&D power across all three Business Groups. The new organizational set-up is described in more detail in Strategy.

In our corporate and support functions, the new operating model and principles designed in 2021 were implemented during the course of 2022. Supported by a series of transformation workshops, our corporate functions improved their functional excellence, creating a support model that underpins our business ambitions and adds value to all customers and other external stakeholders. For example, in P&O, our new organizational design enables a more fluid way of working, an improved employee experience, and better development opportunities for employees.

In line with our ambitions to become a company focused on Health, Nutrition & Bioscience, we also supported our people in our Protective Materials and Engineering Materials businesses. We communicated transparently, for example, about the path ahead for both businesses under their new ownership, via townhall meetings and walk-in sessions, and organized leadership events and team connects. We also developed the capabilities of our people managers and employees to manage this next stage in their professional lives, via training and LinkedIn learning paths.

1 As the divestment of DSM Engineering Materials was announced prior to the launch of the EES, people working for DSM Engineering Materials completed a different questionnaire. The scores cannot be aggregated in the total, therefore EES and associated metrics are reported excluding Engineering Materials. The 2021 Employee Engagement scores excluding Engineering Materials were: Employee Engagement Index 77% and Inclusion Index 77%.