Personnel is important
Outokumpu's success is based on the company's most important asset, our personnel. The Group's renewed People strategy aims to attract, retain and develop Outokumpu people globally, enhancing both their motivation and their ability to support the Group in its vision of becoming the undisputed number one in stainless steel.
At the end of December 2009, Outokumpu employed 7 606 people (2008: 8471, figures as full time equivalent). Approximately 42% of Group's employees are white collar workers, 17.9% are women (2008: 18.8%, 2007: 18.0%), and 82.1% are men. Outokumpu employs people in some 30 countries, with 93% located in Europe (35.5% in Finland, 36.1% in Sweden, and 7.4% in the UK).
In 2009, the number of permanent employees who had worked for Outokumpu for more than 30 years totalled 1 168, and for less than 5 years the number employed was 1814 (6-10 years 1 459 employees). The average age of the Group's permanent employees was 43.6 years and the average length of service 15.8 years. The average length of service at Outokumpu and the average age of employees seem to indicate that a "generation shift" is taking place in the company. Average turnover among permanent employees in 2009 was 7.6% (2008: 7.03%), the hiring rate being 5.2% and the leaving rate 10.0%. 198 employees had fixed-term contracts.
| 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | |
| Sales/person, € million | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.8 |
| Incentives of total personnel costs, %1) | 2.3 | 4.9 | 5.6 |
| Training costs of total personnel costs, %1) 2) | 4.2 | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| Training days/person | 2.4 | 2.8 | 3.3 |
| Days lost due to strikes | 911 | 4 | 1 235 |
| Personnel turnover, % | 7.6 | 7.0 | 6.1 |
1) Accounting principles of total personnel costs have been changed from previous year, and thus the figures from previous years are not comparable. 2009 figure includes social security expenditure and other employee benefits that have not been included in previous year figures.
2) Accounting principles of and the way of collecting data for training costs have been changed from previous year, and thus the figures from previous years are not comparable.
| 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | |
| Europe | |||
| Sweden | 2 749 | 3 211 | 3 070 |
| Finland | 2 703 | 2 798 | 2 759 |
| The UK | 564 | 717 | 862 |
| Italy | 292 | 340 | 141 |
| The Netherlands | 240 | 260 | 253 |
| Germany | 197 | 214 | 194 |
| Other European countries | 342 | 388 | 321 |
| 7 087 | 7 928 | 7 600 | |
| North and South America | |||
| The US | 321 | 403 | 394 |
| Canada | 29 | 38 | 34 |
| Brazil | 4 | ||
| 354 | 441 | 428 | |
| Asia | 137 | 72 | 51 |
| Australia | 24 | 25 | 25 |
| Africa | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Group total | 7 606 | 8 471 | 8 108 |
Observations by PricewaterhouseCoopers
HR
Outokumpu reports HR figures in full-time equivalent instead of headcount. In the corporate responsibility context, headcount figures would be more descriptive of Outokumpu's human resources.
Further improvements in HR data collection and management
In May 2009, a two-year project to implement a global SAP HR system was successfully concluded. Our target for 2009 was to develop HR data collection and reporting in SAP HR. Data concerning all Outokumpu employees is now stored in a single HR system and standard SAP functionality is in place to support the most mature People Processes such as Performance and Development Dialogues. All Group managers and employees can now use a portal to access, view and execute HR-related tasks.
The SAP HR development plan has been completed and the system will be developed in accordance with the priorities allocated to Outokumpu's People Strategy and People Processes. In 2010, the first major activity is to build a global interface for the SAP HR system so that HR data can be fed to other Group systems. In this way to reduce manual work and the possibility of human errors. As the data quality improves the aim is to increase the usage of people-related data in the strategic business decision making.