Talent Management

Talent management involves finding and retaining the right people at all levels of the organization and in a wide variety of functions, including equipment operators, laboratory analysts, office staff and production engineers. For Umicore the main drivers are linked to the Horizon 2020 growth ambitions in the sectors and regions where we are active.

The number of employees in fully consolidated companies increased to 11,152 at the end of 2019 from10,420 in 2018, in line with Umicore’s growth trajectory and primarily reflecting new hires in China, Korea and Belgium and the acquisition of a new site in Kokkola, Finland. This growth shows that Umicore continues to be an attractive employer with wide recognition of its pioneering role in sustainability.

Umicore can attract, develop and retain high caliber leaders by offering attractive and challenging leadership roles.

In 2019, we implemented new measures to improve both the candidate and the new hire onboarding experiences, and a new Learning & Development curriculum for both managerial and non-managerial staff. These efforts are positively reflected in our overall retention rate of 94%, up from 92% in 2018. Significant regional differences in retention rates continue, with Asia-Pacific reporting the highest voluntary leaver rate at 11.87%, an improvement from 16.55% in 2018. This is not unique to Umicore and is due to the highly competitive and fluid labor market in the region.

Umicore provides managers with a training curriculum aligned across all regions and promotes career development using an internal online vacancies tool, promoting greater internal mobility. Training at Umicore encompasses traditional classroom-type modules, e-learning and in-service instruction.

In 2019, the average training hours per employee reached 48.7 hours, an increase from 2018. While overall managers’ training hours (43 hours) are up from 2018, they remain lower than for other employees (49.5 hours).