Employees

Responsibility for the employees

The employees of Knauf have a high share in the success of the company. We therefore protect them against health risks and continue them in order to maintain their capacity, competence and motivation. Personnel development also takes account of the increasing internationalization of the Knauf Group.

Safe and healthy jobs
The safety and health of employees is a very high priority at Knauf. This applies both to work safety, mainly in the commercial sector, such as health protection in all areas. In a declaration of principle for occupational health and safety policy adopted in 2012, the following objectives were defined: the consistent prevention of safety risks through training and education, effective work safety management in all areas of the company, continuous improvement measures, the analysis of accidents at work and not least the enforcement of the Knauf safety standard.

The Knauf Safety Standard (KSS) is a binding instruction for occupational health and safety, which is binding for all executives. Its main components include the definition of responsibilities and areas of responsibility as well as regulations on risk assessment, the effectiveness assessment of workplace safety measures, emergency planning and the content of training programs. The KSS fulfills the criteria of the international occupational safety standard OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series) - our international locations have been certified accordingly, although this is not mandatory in some countries. In Germany, the KSS does not only meet the OHSAS criteria, But is certified with the seal of quality "Sicher mit System" (SMS) by the trade union for raw materials and chemical industry (BG RCI). As an integral part of our work safety management, we publish an internal newsletter ten times a year, which addresses our specific safety requirements.

Training and actions for health management

Knauf supports the health protection of its employees with a comprehensive training concept and regular actions within the "Fit @ Work" program. The locations carry out regular health days, in which the company's health management is explained in detail and trainings are completed. In the two large works in Iphofen, the health days were held in October 2014 together with the AOK Bavaria, which drove to the factory grounds with the "AOK Gesundheitstruck". Under the guidance of a sports scientist, exercises were carried out which made the employees aware of how they can protect their health in the workplace and in private life. On this occasion, we also interviewed our employees about possible safety- and health-related weaknesses in the company.
Knauf employees also work on their own initiative in numerous health initiatives and are supported by the company. This is how new training programs are being developed, which Knauf promotes, for example, by taking over rental costs for sports facilities. These include sports such as football, basketball, beach volleyball, gymnastics, yoga, swimming, hiking and visiting fitness studios.

Strategic personnel development

Knauf is and will continue to be a family business that sees the various locations as network partners in a decentralized structure. An important focus of the personnel work is from the main administration in Iphofen. The provincial and partner companies of the Knauf Group are independent on most of the personal themes.

Regardless of this autonomy, shared identity and corporate culture have increasingly become the focal point of strategic personnel development beyond national borders. This area is currently undergoing a dynamic change phase. The aim is to centrally control the purely regional responsibility for personal themes, at least in core areas. This is not about the pruning of responsibilities, but about living together values and, if necessary, balancing the "person body" meaningfully.

In order to make the Knauf values tangible, the identity-defining goals of the work at Knauf are to be adjusted worldwide. This ranges from global concept definitions for processes and areas of responsibility to comparable career paths in the Knauf Group. Employee interviews, feedback for managers, target agreements and the like will be carried out in the future according to comparable processes. For example, employee discussions for performance assessment are still very different. At most sites, such talks are only intended for employees as well as the superiors in production. For the companies in this report, the proportion of employees with regular performance assessments varies between 50 and 100 percent depending on the company.