Investment in people

Sonova and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Through this CR focus area, Sonova contributes to SDGs 5 and 8. More information is provided in the corresponding section of this CR Report: Sustainable Development Goals.

Our employees are key to our success

The success of Sonova stems not only from our innovative products and services, but our people and our culture. Across our business and brands, we all share one vision: to create a world where everyone enjoys the delight of hearing and lives a life without limitations. This unifying vision, together with our corporate values are the foundation of our culture and create a common understanding of how we want to work and have the best possible impact for all our stakeholders. 

Global trends such as demographic changes, a limited availability of specialist talent, and the need to adapt quickly to shifting markets highlight the importance of a proactive staffing strategy for Sonova. We strongly believe that developing talent with the goal of ensuring internal succession is vital to sustainable success. Appointing internally to key positions while retaining and developing skilled employees helps to ensure that Sonova’s specialist knowledge and intellectual property remain within the company, sustaining our competitive advantage. In 2019/20, we were able to fill 67.1% of our open leadership positions with Sonova employees and made good progress towards achieving our long-term goal of 70%. In 2019, the internal leadership recruitment rate (ILRR) includes for the first time data for the whole Group, including Audiological Care Germany. For comparison with the previous year, the ILRR excluding AC Germany would have increased to 54.4%.

Internal leadership recruitment rate (ILRR)

Our conscientious treatment of our workforce, professional leadership culture, and proactive approach to employee retention over the past years have combined to keep our global employee turnover to a level of 14.9%. The average tenure of our managerial staff is 8.8 years, while the total average workforce tenure is 6.7 years.

Employee turnover rates

This year was the second time we conducted Sonova’s anonymized annual employee survey, called HearMe. More than 90% of employees participated worldwide, providing valuable information about ways we can boost collaboration across the Group. Of respondents, 83% reported feeling engaged through their work (81% for men, 84% for women). The first concrete initiatives inspired by HearMe results have already been implemented, aiming to release untapped potential, identify key drivers of employee engagement, encourage effective leadership at all levels, and thus stimulate professional growth and business success.

Personnel figures

The number of employees increased in the current reporting year by 3% to a total of 15,184 full time equivalents. The additional 444 full time equivalent employees stem mostly from growth in manufacturing in Vietnam, our customer-facing staff in the Audiological Care business in Europe as well as some new job positions in R&D.

Employees by region

Employees by employment contract

Human resource organization

The majority of our employees are directly supported by a local human resources (HR) manager. At our corporate headquarters in Switzerland, we develop – in collaboration with our group companies – and monitor a comprehensive set of global human resource processes, standards, and policies, which are implemented locally in line with country-specific regulations and customs. We assess the impact of all our activities through a set of key performance indicators such as turnover, internal leadership recruitment rate, and depth of available in-house talent. Regular audits ensure compliance with internal regulations and local labor law, with the objective to provide excellent working conditions and monitor progress in all our locations. We estimate that around 30% of Sonova’s global workforce is represented by an independent trade union or covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Talent development

We offer a flexible and inclusive work environment and an open culture that inspires personal growth and professional development. Line and HR managers review the competencies, performance, and potential of our employees through a yearly appraisal process. By setting individual and measurable goals, we promote a sense of accountability.

We believe that every employee deserves an individual development plan.  We therefore launched in spring 2019 an initiative that allows employees at all levels to define their development objectives under the appraisal process and discuss them with their managers in designated development conversations. The aim is to ensure that we invest in the fulfilment of each individual’s strengths and preferences.

Our global Succession Planning process allows us to mitigate the risk of losing expertise in key positions while identifying and developing promising candidates for internal succession.

Leadership Development programs

Our leadership development landscape is based on a portfolio of different programs:

Through intensive feedback, coaching, and experiential learning, the programs give participants the chance to reflect on their personal style, to understand and to increase the impact they have on their performance, and to plan how they will continue to develop as leaders at Sonova. In the reporting year, over 561 employees have participated altogether in over 26,569 days of Leadership interventions.

Learning & Development

SonovaLearning is our group-wide education platform. It also serves as a cross-business learning network that provides consistency and supports change throughout our organization. SonovaLearning offers targeted programs and provides an opportunity for all our employees to enhance their skills and competencies. A new e-learning platform has been launched in 2019 to enhance and complement the 24-7 accessible e-learning offerings. Almost 25,000 pages and articles were reviewed by over 2,500 employees during the last year. In addition, mandatory trainings ensure and enable our employees to do their work correctly and according to relevant rules and regulations.

A strong focus on customer service is also reflected in our training programs: we are convinced that a trusting personal relationship, founded on expertise and understanding, is the best way for customers to reap the full benefit from their hearing solution. A new Sonova Academy in Germany opened in summer 2019, offering face-to-face and online training to further develop the ability of our hearing health care professionals to deliver the best service and customer experience. We measure the success of the career development process in two ways: each line manager assesses development planning and employee progress, while Sonova tracks the internal promotion rate and participation in the training programs.

Traineeship programs

Sonova has an excellent network of research collaboration with various leading universities around the world, where students can participate in joint studies and other activities. We offer them the opportunity to work in our organization as a member of one of our Research and Development teams, either in an internship, or as part of their Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD thesis work.

Our talent acquisition process also targets the most sought-after group of professionals in our industry: experts in audiology. To support our constant need for top audiologists, we offer an international Audiological Traineeship program, with training placements in the US, Canada, and Switzerland. This program is an opportunity for ambitious audiology graduates to benefit from a one-year formal development and rotation experience, where they will have the opportunity to work with our talented audiologists in various business units (Audiology, Marketing, Customer Training, Sales, and Research) before starting on their career path with Sonova.

New hire rate

At Sonova we conscientiously support and invest in Switzerland’s effective dual training system, which links formal education with in-company training, providing both theory and necessary practical experience. The number of our apprentices has doubled since 2013, and we train more than 40 apprentices at our headquarters. The range of Sonova apprenticeships is highly diverse, offering training in twelve professions, from polytechnician through logistics clerk to cook. In recent years three apprentices with disabilities successfully completed an apprenticeship at Sonova.

Diversity and inclusion

Sonova has subsidiaries in over 30 countries and a workforce of over 14,000 dedicated employees representing a broad mix of experiences and backgrounds. We consider this diversity to be key to our success, since it fosters innovation and helps us understand our global customer base. All facets of diversity are important to us; we strive to create an inclusive environment where everyone – regardless of age, gender, language, ethnic origin, religion, culture, sexual orientation, or health status – can contribute and realize their full potential. Our commitment to diversity is recorded in our Code of Conduct and is binding for all our employees.

As the world’s largest hearing care provider, Sonova campaigns for equal opportunities and a better quality of life for people with hearing loss. It is our vision to create a world where everyone enjoys the delight of hearing and lives a life without limitations. By offering the most comprehensive range of solutions to treat all major forms of hearing loss, we aim for our consumers and employees to feel fully included in society. To help us reach this challenging goal, our workforce and work culture need to reflect the values of diversity and inclusion.

Building a diverse workforce

Our employees bring different skills and characteristics to the table, depending on their age, gender, origins, and personal background. We are convinced that our success as a company largely depends on the extent to which we are able to realize the benefits of this diversity. A variety of perspectives is essential to meet best the many and various needs of our clients and to make a convincing case for the company over the long term with innovative products and services. We therefore make it a priority to recruit and develop a wide range of people who share our passion and bring in new skills, viewpoints, and experiences.

Employees by gender

Employees by age

To guarantee a balanced mix, we have a special focus on recruiting and promoting women and employees from different cultures in leadership and executive positions. By striving for gender-balanced representation in filling open positions, we aim to achieve a 35% proportion of women in key positions within four years.

We actively support the compatibility of pursuing a career and raising a family by promoting flexible working models such as home office, flexible working hours, and part-time work in leadership positions. Our terms of employment guarantee our employees in Switzerland several additional family-related benefits, including 16 weeks of maternity leave, two weeks of paternity leave, and the possibility of purchasing additional vacation time. In all our production sites, where shift work is standard, employees returning from maternity leave can choose to work at between 50% and 100% of their previous level during their first year back. We operate our own day care center at our headquarters in Stäfa and financially support lower-salary employees in Stäfa and in our production center in Vietnam to help pay for day care.

We are proud that today, women hold 50% of all positions involving staff responsibilities. In lower and middle management, the ratio of women is 56.5% – these are ideal conditions to reach our ambitious gender diversity targets in upper and senior management through professional succession planning and individual development plans.

Our combined efforts have created momentum and produced the following results in 2019:

The positive trend towards gender balance in lower and senior leadership levels gives us confidence that we are on the right track. To fully leverage the potential of our internal talent and to reach our ambitious targets in middle management, we will further strengthen our efforts to remove unconscious barriers at all touchpoints in the talent management cycle and keep a focus on the development of female talents.

Sonova also provides reasonable accommodation in its job application procedures for qualified individuals with disabilities, or to enable otherwise qualified individuals with disabilities to perform essential job functions.

Women in management positions

Advancing our culture of inclusion and innovation

Inclusion is a foundation of our corporate culture, and an integral part of how we benefit from the diversity of our workforce. We embrace the differences that make each of our employees exceptional. We are committed to creating a safe, positive, and nurturing work environment where all people feel appreciated, respected, and taken seriously. And we are convinced that this promotes thoughtful and valuable dialog and fosters innovation.

In this context, we are actively addressing the role of unconscious biases and expectations: we are offering training courses to help recognize and prevent stereotypical (often unwitting) role expectations from affecting HR processes and thus hindering our efforts to increase diversity in senior leadership functions.

In 2019, as part of our employee engagement survey, we calculated and benchmarked for the second time, Sonova’s inclusion score. 78% of respondents reported a favorable result, representing a positive trend compared to 76% in the previous year.

To raise awareness and continuously advance a culture of inclusion, we also support expanding formal and informal employee networks, providing platforms where people can connect and learn from one another. Women’s networks, initiated by our employees, have been established in Canada, the US, Germany, and Switzerland. Since hearing loss should not stop anyone from striving for excellence and innovation nor thriving at Sonova, we have also set-up an informal exchange network with an advisory group of people with hearing loss at the HQ.

Occupational health and safety

Sonova promotes and provides a safe and healthy workplace. Occupational health and safety is an integral part of our activities. Sonova has established an effective occupational health and safety culture that supports and protects our employees. We regularly monitor and analyze the potential health and safety risks of our operations and implement both legally-required and voluntary occupational health and safety programs. Sonova’s operations have a relatively low exposure to health and safety risk, but we are committed to continuous improvement here as elsewhere. We operate within a highly integrated business model: all operation centers are owned by Sonova. We engage only a small number of contractors and licensees.

Each health and safety incident is investigated to determine its cause and take steps to prevent any reoccurrence. Any incident that requires external medical health care is considered as a work-related injury. First-aid level injuries are not included. Any work-related injury that results in the company employee not being able to return to work the next scheduled work day/shift is considered as a lost-time injury. Lost days refer to working days, not calendar days, and begin right after the accident. In general, at Sonova injuries and lost work days are not caused by the manufacturing processes; they are more likely to be sustained during activities such as movement of goods. Employees who work with chemicals and hazardous substances, or come into contact with them, are regularly trained in their safe handling.

In 2019/20, we significantly reduced the frequency as well as severity of injuries compared to the previous year, recording a lost day rate (LDR) of 26.0 (2018/19: 47.0) and lost-time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) of 1.4 (2018/19: 2.5). These improvements can be mostly attributed to strict root cause investigation of each incident, regular local internal health and safety audits, and implementation of action plans, such as intensified local training and awareness raising activities to further reduce exposure to work-related health and safety risks. The most common types of accidents were behavior-based, such as slips, trips or falls. No occupational illness or disease cases have been registered in the past two years, leading to an occupational illness frequency rate (OIFR) of zero.

The LDR, LTIFR, OIFR and work-related fatalities reported for 2019/20 and 2018/19 in the table below cover the operation centers in Switzerland, Vietnam and China, the operation and distribution center in the United States as well as the regional European service centers in Spain and the United Kingdom. We strive to reduce further the number of lost days due to work-related injuries and have defined an internal reduction target covering all the sites mentioned above. Each site has a designated person responsible for local implementation of the health and safety program. The data are not comparable to 2017/18 because of a change in reporting scope and methodology. Gender-specific indicators are not considered relevant on an aggregated level. Sonova does not record health and safety statistics for contractors.

Occupational health and safety

COVID-19
For Sonova, our first priority is protecting the health and safety of our global team, followed immediately by assuring that our operations can continue while complying with emergency regulations. Employees who may be in contact with hearing care patients or consumers work according to the instructions of the relevant authorities and give maximum priority to safety, health, and hygiene. In countries with high infection rates, employees whose presence at the workplace is not absolutely necessary work from home whenever possible. At our offices, production sites and stores, a strict sanitary and safety protocol is in place to protect our people and avoid any further spread of the virus. Group management is helping our individual companies to execute their COVID-19 plans and contingency measures.

Employee wellbeing

Sonova is committed to foster employees’ health and well-being. Our group companies and operation centers take specific prevention and health promotion measures to help maintain and enhance each employee’s capacity for productive and fulfilling work. Sonova’s global Body & Mind initiative aligns and supports its various prevention measures. The health initiative rests on four main pillars:

Our group companies are responsible for implementing Body & Mind measures locally and for continuously refining programs in all the four areas: nutrition, exercise, relaxation, and medical care. An example of an activity at our operation centers is health coaches leading employees in three-minute break-time exercises to reduce muscle tension. At our headquarters in Stäfa, for example, the Body & Mind initiative in 2019/20 included the following offerings:

Responsible reorganizations

At Sonova, we are committed to treating our workforce responsibly. In the event of major reorganizations, such as restructuring, relocation, outsourcing, or mergers and acquisitions, we strive to reduce negative impacts on our workforce, ensure employment security, minimize compulsory redundancies, and mitigate the consequences for those made redundant.

We apply such measures on a case-by-case basis and depending on local conditions. At our headquarters in Stäfa, for example, the applicable measures include early retirements, internal mobility, financial compensation, re-training or outplacement services, case management, extended notice periods, and hardship funds.

In the past three financial years, there were no significant job cuts at Sonova affecting more than 1,000 employees or more than 5% of the total global workforce annually.