Attracting and retaining talent

To ensure our ongoing success, we are focusing on the future by creating meaningful impacts and building needed capabilities. At the same time, we must respond to changing demographics and adapt to the behaviors and expectations of the highly competitive talent market. Therefore, in 2022, we enhanced our talent acquisition strategy with a more personal, employee-focused approach. Our goals include reinventing our talent sourcing approach to build targeted and integrated pipelines and effectively recruiting diverse talent to our organization.

We have designed our compensation structure to provide valuable benefits to our employees and their families. Our reward system recognizes the uniqueness of our employees while providing flexibility wherever possible. Through our competitive compensation structure, we aim to be attractive to future employees in particular. Additionally, our international employee mobility programs create an environment suited to the needs of a rapidly evolving workforce.

We have revised our talent retention approach by tailoring our retention efforts more strongly to different target groups and countries as well as striving to create an inclusive environment that sparks our employees’ creativity and growth.

In 2022, the average length of service for employees Group-wide was 9.2 years (2021: 9.5 years), with 15.4 years (2021: 15.7 years) for employees of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.

Roles and responsibilities

Group Human Resources (HR) supports and advises all business sectors and Group functions within our organization regarding our human capital, especially topics related to recruiting, vocational training and advanced training. Across all our sites, HR employees work with leaders from various functions and business sectors to employ strategies that engage our people in line with Group-wide HR guidelines and requirements, including attractive compensation models and benefits. Every two to three years, we conduct internal audits to ensure that we implement our guidelines effectively.

The Chair of the Executive Board and CEO is responsible for Group Human Resources. Our Chief HR Officer, who leads the HR function and oversees all our HR activities, reports directly to her. Our Business Services unit oversees the operational tasks of HR work, such as drafting contracts and payroll accounting. The Chief Financial Officer is responsible for this unit.

Our commitment: Group-wide policies and guidelines

As set down in our Social and Labor Standards Policy, we will respect our employees’ legal rights to form and join worker organizations of their own choosing, including labor organizations and trade unions, and will not discriminate based on an employee’s decision to join or not join a labor organization.

Our High-Impact Culture is founded on six behaviors (obsessed with customers and patients; act as the owner; be curious and innovate boldly; simplify and act with urgency; raise the bar; disagree openly, decide and deliver). We regularly inform executives and employees about these behaviors through global campaigns.

Our People Development and Learning Policy provides a Group-wide framework that guides employees in managing their professional growth. It defines requirements for our development opportunities, roles and responsibilities. The associated processes are described in our People Development and Learning Standards. Our flexible work guideline details our approach to evolving work environments and our aspiration to create a more agile organization.

A competitive compensation structure

We reward the performance of our employees in order to maintain a competitive edge in attracting qualified professionals. Within our Group, we base compensation on the requirements of each position and each employee’s respective performance. We make no distinctions based on gender or any other diversity criteria.

To ensure we maintain a competitive compensation structure, we regularly review our compensation policy based on data analyses and industry benchmarks. This enables us to compare internal factors and market requirements in equal measure. Before making changes to our compensation structure, we consult with key stakeholders such as employee representatives. In 2022, we introduced a sustainability factor into our Long-Term Incentive Plan (LTIP). More information on the LTIP can be found in the Compensation report.

Strengthening our sustainability culture

We launched two e-learning courses in order to strengthen the sustainability culture in our company. The first one is for employees and was already rolled out at the end of 2021. The second one has been available since September 2022 and is targeted to managers with personnel responsibility. The two courses are mandatory for the relevant employees and are available in nine and seven languages, respectively. As of the end of 2022, 83% of all employees had completed the training.