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By creating an environment that supports our employees in their development and helps them to acquire knowledge and skills, our company is better positioned to prevail in the competitive market.

Nuno Cunha, Chief HR Officer

Sustainability

Employee satisfaction

By investing in the development of our employees and creating fair working conditions, we intend to position ourselves as an Employer of Choice in keeping with our corporate strategy. Standardised processes, pay evaluation systems based on objective criteria, and development of our employees with various training programmes are key elements of our Employer of Choice strategy.

Employer of Choice as an element of our corporate strategy
By the year 2030, we plan to increase investments in continuing training for our employees by around 50 percent
Learning organisation as a corporate vision
New training workshop for apprentices in Kremsmünster
Psychological safety and feedback culture were identified as key issues in the employee surveys

Glass production is demanding in terms of manual skills as well as physical effort. This gives us all the more reason, as an employer, to offer our employees fair working conditions and create a working environment where respect prevails, with prospects for personal and professional development. Motivated and dedicated employees are essential if we are to achieve our strategic goals and produce high-quality glass packaging in line with our customers’ specifications. If employees do not feel they are appreciated, they will turn away from Vetropack: that would reduce the productivity and innovative strength of our business, and could negatively impact the quality of our products.

Concepts, policies and measures

Transparent and fair working conditions

Our Code of conduct sets out the framework and defines the requirements for our employees to work together with mutual respect, and to comply with the applicable labour laws. In line with our personnel and management policy, the Code of conduct also states that all employees shall meet their responsibilities for respecting human rights in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fundamental Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It goes without saying that we reject any form of forced or child labour. The Code of conduct also stipulates that employees are entitled to working hours, holidays and remuneration in accordance with the applicable labour laws and industry standards. Further information on the Code of conduct and our overarching Business ethics policy (BEP) can be found in the Compliance section.

Employer of Choice as part of our Strategy 2030+

In keeping with our strategy, we endeavour to position ourselves as an Employer of Choice so we stand out from our competitors. The Human Resources department is responsible for implementing the Employer of Choice initiative. This department provides the appropriate policies, guidelines and instruments. Our managers set an example by putting the strategy into practice in their day-to-day work.

In keeping with our Employer of Choice promise, we opt to implement a Total Compensation Strategy (TCS). This states that pay for all employees is determined according to objective criteria, so the approach is non-discriminatory. The TCS views compensation as an overall package of financial remuneration, holiday entitlement and flexible working hours, and is tailored to functions and overall country-specific conditions in each case. More information is available on this subject in the Diversity, equity and inclusion section.

So we can continuously improve our corporate culture and working conditions, we conduct company-wide employee surveys at intervals of about three years. These surveys aim to identify Vetropack’s strengths and weaknesses as an employer, and to determine our employees’ satisfaction and engagement levels: the findings give us valuable input regarding potential for improvements to our corporate culture.

One relevant performance indicator for our employee strategy is the Great Place to Work® Trust Index, which allows us to benchmark with other companies and motivates us to keep on implementing improvements. For internal purposes, we use the following KPIs to measure the success of our Employer of Choice strategy:

Voluntary turnover: maximum 5 percent (2024: 4.0)
Job offer acceptance: 90 percent (2024: 96.9)
Retention rate of new hires within the first two years: 90 percent (2024: 77.9)

Employee recruitment and development

The environment for attracting and retaining suitable employees is becoming increasingly competitive. This makes it all the more crucial to recognise and promote employees with potential at all levels, and to reduce staff turnover.

In view of the shortage of skilled labour, we are strategically aligning our talent management to focus on the following Group functions:

Talent Attraction and Acquisition
Talent Management
Learning and Development

We are digitalising our recruitment processes in respect of Talent Attraction and Acquisition. For instance: we now have a fully implemented module in SuccessFactors for recruitment, where all recruitment processes are managed digitally; we have remodelled our website; and we aim to target attention at our company as a potential employer through our presence in digital media.

In Talent Management, we have a Talent and Organisation Review (TOR) process that ensures we are effectively managing our workforce and organisational structure so we can sustainably meet our strategic goals. This annual process encompasses on all levels in the company, and consists of two parts:

Talent review: identifying employees with leadership potential or special expertise to support the corporate strategy. A framework programme is in place to promote career development and offer targeted support for future leaders.
Organisation review: evaluating the long-term future viability of our organisation and succession planning. This process identifies future requirements, minimises disruptions when there are personnel changes in key roles and serves the purpose of strategic orientation.

Learning and Development is responsible for initiatives and programmes that benefit our employees’ ongoing professional and personal development. These range from establishing key learning platforms such as Vetrocademy and designing tailored eLearning content to sponsorship of specific and advanced education on strategic topics for our employees.

Transparent processes, guidelines and policies

We continue to use the SuccessFactors software from SAP to digitalise our human resources processes and record Group-wide key figures on employees. This promotes standardisation and helps to make processes transparent. Since 2023, we have been using the new Performance Management module in SAP’s SuccessFactors. The Performance Management module supports us with functions such as conducting standardised employee interviews, and with measuring and reviewing our employees’ development goals. These guidelines and policies help to make our HR processes transparent:

Continuing training guidelines
Recruitment guidelines
Promotion guidelines

Learning organisation

We are endeavouring to create a learning organisation, and to provide our employees with the right tools to support them with acquiring new knowledge. Our corporate vision emphasises continuous learning, and we offer training in both hard and soft skills. In keeping with the blended learning concept, we offer various learning channels such as classroom training, virtual training, and eLearning. We are proud of Litmos, our eLearning platform that offers over 1,500 courses on a variety of specialised subjects. Litmos enables our employees to take part in courses or deepen their company-specific knowledge at any time, and from any location.

To ensure that we are also positioned as a learning organisation in the medium term, we have set ourselves this goal:

By 2030, we intend to increase our investments in continuing training for our employees by around 50 percent.

The Vetrocademy development platform is another element of our pledge to be a learning organisation. This platform offers interactive learning experiences that help employees to advance their personal development by acquiring new expertise – an approach that benefits the entire company. Vetrocademy includes programmes focusing on leadership, sales, glass, and other strategic topics. The Leadership programme equips participants with the skills and tools they need to excel as leaders, fostering a culture where employees thrive, enjoy their work, and consistently perform at their best. We are also stepping up our investments in language and diversity training programmes to facilitate interaction between our locations and, at the same time, to promote knowledge transfer. More information is available on this subject in the Diversity, equity and inclusion section.

Training centres offer instruction on glass production

At our company’s own Training Centre in Pöchlarn (Austria), we train specialists in glass production and offer education for our employees. Aided by virtual reality technologies, employees can acquire industry-specific expertise and craftsmanship in a safe environment at our Training Centre. Through the Centre, we aim to pass on the art of glassmaking to new talents, transfer knowledge, and combat the shortage of skilled workers.

As well as our largest Training Centre in Pöchlarn, we offer similar training facilities on a smaller scale in all our plants so our employees can also learn and perfect their glassmaking skills at local level.

Agility Scouts are key to elevating our corporate culture

We are committed to growing our network of Agility Scouts, as we call them. They comprise around twenty employees from various sites who perform different functions, and they help to find opportunities for shaping and continuing to develop our corporate culture. The philosophy adopted for their mission is: ‘For a working culture that is just as transparent, sustainable and natural as our glass.’ The Agility Scouts trigger challenges aimed at improving processes and fostering our corporate culture. They also provide support for implementing projects linked to working culture. Based on the employee survey conducted in 2023, the Agility Scouts will focus on issues such as improving our feedback culture, with the help of appropriate initiatives.

Progress and events in the reporting year

Training workshop for apprentices at Kremsmünster

In 2024, we opened a new Training Workshop at our Kremsmünster location in Austria. Going forward, therefore, our apprentices in Austria will each complete one part of their training in the Pöchlarn plant, and another part in the Kremsmünster plant. Training content at Kremsmünster focuses on pneumatics, electropneumatics and robotics. To arouse enthusiasm about glass container production among youngsters at a very early age, we also plan in future to invite schools to the new training workshop where we will inspire them by demonstrating the diversity of our activities.

Results from the employee survey

In 2023, we invited our employees to participate in an employee survey carried out by Great Place to Work®, an independent survey institute. Based on the results, we identified two key issues at Group level: feedback culture, and psychological safety. We are now taking a targeted approach to improving our feedback culture, based on the survey results. For example: the Agility Scouts are launching initiatives to promote feedback among employees at the same hierarchical levels. This is because we are convinced that constructive feedback helps our employees to advance their professional development. Psychological safety was identified as the second key issue. We want to give our employees more training on dealing with challenging situations, make communication channels available to them, and enable them to achieve a good work-life balance. The Occupational health and safety section describes other initiatives that benefit our employees’ mental health. Alongside the key issues for the entire Vetropack Group, our individual sites are undertaking projects based on the local findings from the survey.

Performance indicators

GRI 2-30 Collective bargaining agreements

About 30 percent of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements, which are formulated in various ways according to local legislation.

GRI 401-2 Benefits provided to full-time employees that are not provided to temporary or part-time employees

We adhere to the provisions of labour law and take account of customary remuneration practices in each country. In general, no significant benefits are provided to full-time employees that are not offered to part-time employees as well.

Key indicators regarding employees

Composition of the workforce (at year’s end) 1)	Change	2024	in%	2023	in%
Total number of employees in Headcount (excl. apprentices, interns, trainees, contract workers, temporary workers)	– 5%	3 585		3 772
Permanent employees by employment type	– 4%	3 533	99%	3 685	98%
Full time (excl. apprentices, interns, trainees, contract workers, temporary workers)	– 3%	3 501	99%	3 602	98%
Female	5%	859	25%	817	23%
Male	– 5%	2 642	75%	2 785	77%
Part time (excl. apprentices, interns, trainees, contract workers, temporary workers)	– 61%	32	1%	83	2%
Female	– 70%	20	63%	66	80%
Male	– 29%	12	38%	17	20%
Temporary employees by employment type	– 40%	52	1%	87	2%
Full time (excl. apprentices, interns, trainees, contract workers, temporary workers)	– 40%	50	96%	84	97%
Female	– 18%	18	36%	22	26%
Male	– 48%	32	64%	62	74%
Part time (excl. apprentices, interns, trainees, contract workers, temporary workers)	– 33%	2	4%	3	3%
Female	– 33%	2	100%	3	100%
Male	-	-	0%	-	0%

Workers who are not employees 2)	– 5%	39		41
Apprentices	– 8%	33	85%	36	88%
Female	– 17%	5	15%	6	17%
Male	– 7%	28	85%	30	83%
Trainees	0%	1	3%	1	2%
Female	-	1	100%	-	0%
Male	– 100%	-	0%	1	100%
Contract workers	25%	5	13%	4	10%
Female	-	2	40%	-	0%
Male	– 25%	3	60%	4	100%

1) The decrease in overall employee numbers in is associated with the closure of our site in St-Prex in 2024.

2) Newly, figures for contract workers are disclosed for the year 2023. Hence, there is a deviation from the formerly reported values.

New hires and employee turnover

	Change	2024		2023 1)
New hires by gender	Joiners	Joiners		Joiners
		Headcount	Rate in %	Headcount	Rate in %
Total	– 24%	404	11%	535	14%
Male	– 26%	286	10%	387	14%
Female	– 20%	118	13%	148	17%
New hires by age group
<30	– 11%	134	29%	151	29%
30-50	– 11%	250	14%	280	69%
>50	– 81%	20	1%	104	39%
New hire rate in %	– 3.2%p	11.0%		14.2%

1) The new hire rate was newly calculated using the average employee number instead of the end of year value for the breakdown by gender. This results in a slight deviation to the value reported for 2023. Due to lack of data, this methodology is only used for 2024 data in the breakdown by age group.

	Change	2024		2023 1)
Turnover by gender	Leavers	Leavers		Leavers
		Headcount	Rate in %	Headcount	Rate in %
Total	37%	591	16%	432	12%
Male	57%	464	17%	295	10%
Female	– 7%	127	14%	137	16%
Turnover by age group
<30	70%	146	32%	86	17%
30–50	27%	233	13%	184	46%
>50	31%	212	15%	162	60%
Turnover rate in %	4.5%p	16.1%		11.6%

1) The turnover rate was newly calculated using the average employee number instead of the end of year value for the breakdown by gender. This results in a slight deviation to the value reported for 2023. Due to lack of data, this methodology is not used for 2023 data in the breakdown by age group.

Performance reviews

	Change	2024	2023
Regular performance reviews 1)		in%	in%
Permanent employees	28%	17%	13%
Female	23%	29%	24%
Male	30%	13%	10%
Temporary employees	7%	10%	9%
Female	– 38%	15%	24%
Male	94%	6%	3%

1) The Group performance review process applies only to a specific part of employees such as management functions.

Social impact

Occupational health and safety