HR management

Contribution to the UN SDGs

Human resources

HR policy: investing in human capital
RUB 182.5 thousandData for 2022.
average monthly salary of the Norilsk Nickel Group employees
6%
proportion of the benefits package in the compensation packageData for 2022.
25.8 %
average wage growthIncluding one-off payments. across the Norilsk Nickel Group in 2022

Nornickel retains leadership in key Russian and international rankings of the best employers

(Thousand people)

Nornickel’s main value is its people.

The Company is committed to providing safe and high-quality working conditions, decent wages and a benefits package. Nornickel views its employees as its key asset and invests in their professional and personal development while creating an environment promoting employee performance and engagement.

Рабочие

The Company’s stance on human rights

The Company respects the rights and freedoms of its employees as well as those of its stakeholders – partners, investors, contractors, local communities, customers, and consumers.

Nornickel upholds the principles of international standards such as the UN Global Compact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labour Organisation’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Nornickel complies with the laws of the countries in which it operates.

The Company implements programmes for the development and social support of its employees, upholding their rights in respect of social security, education, family welfare, shelter, freedom of artistic expression, and participation in cultural life.

The Company has created workplaces tailored for people with disabilities. According to the employment quotas, the share of such employees starts from 2% of the average headcount, excluding employees involved in hazardous or dangerous work. We provide necessary working conditions for this category of people with regard to the work and rest schedule, duration of the annual paid leave, extra days off, additional financial assistance, and other parameters.

The Company strictly adheres to the following principles with respect to its employees:

  • Zero tolerance for the use of child labour, forced or slave labour
  • Zero tolerance for the employment of persons aged under 18 for hazardous and/or dangerous work
  • Zero tolerance for violence or discrimination
  • The Company does not engage female employees in extreme or dangerous working conditions
  • The Company ensures its employees’ right to safe working conditions
  • The Company makes sure all employees enjoy equal rights and opportunities regardless of gender, age, race, nationality, and origin
  • The Company provides all employees with equal opportunities for unlocking their potential. Employee performance is evaluated on a fair and impartial basis, and recruitment and promotion decisions are tied exclusively to professional abilities, knowledge and skills
  • The Company respects the right to form trade unions and does not prevent employees from joining them.

The Company has adopted internal labour regulations, which are approved in consultation with the trade union organisation and which establish employees’ working hours. The Company has a standard working week of 40 hours as determined by the applicable Russian laws and regulations. Employees involved in hazardous or dangerous work enjoy a reduced working week of not more than 36 hours. Women employed in the Far North and equivalent areas work 36 hours per week unless a shorter working week is stipulated by Russian laws and regulations. The Company arranges for accurate work time control for each employee.

Awards and industry recognition

In 2022, Nornickel entered a number of best employer lists:

  • Best employer in the metals industry for students of leading universities according to Changellenge’s Best Company Award ranking;
  • Gold in Forbes’ ranking of Russia’s best employers;
  • Best employer in the metals industry as well as 8th best employer for its target audience in Future Today’s ranking based on a survey of Russian university students;
  • Best employer in the metals industry as well as 12th place (out of more than 600 companies) among the largest companies in the national employer ranking by HeadHunter and RBC.
worker

Since 2020, Nornickel has been a co-founder of Women in Mining Russia, a project to support women’s development in the mining industry. In 2022, 134 female employees of Nornickel submitted applications to participate in the all-Russian contest Talented Woman in the Extractive Industry, with 34 of them short-listed and 12 winning the contest.

Staff composition

In 2022, the Group’s average headcount was 78.4 thousand employees, of which 99% were employed by its Russian companies. In 2022, the Company’s turnover rate stood at 10.5%. Nornickel is among the main employers in the Norilsk Industrial District and Kola Peninsula, employing 67% and 15% of the regional workforce, respectively. Local population accounts for 99.7% of the headcount. The average headcount increase in 2022 was driven by the Company’s investment strategy as well as organisational and technical changes. Since Nornickel is a production company, the proportion of men in its workforce is significantly higher than that of women.

Average headcount
Location 2020 2021 2022
Russia 71,447 73,061 77,980
Africa 519 151 38
Europe 323 317 331
Asia 15 15 15
USA 10 10 10
Australia 5 3 0
Total 72,319 73,557 78,374
Headcount by category and gender (%)Russian enterprises.
Headcount by age and gender (%)
Employee turnover (people)The ratio of resignations, dismissals for breach of labour discipline and negotiated terminations, to the average headcount as of the year-end.

Recruitment

In 2022, the Company’s recruitment efforts included off-site events in cities across the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Khakassia. Nornickel’s HR specialists met with more than 1 thousand applicants for positions within the Company.

In 2022, Nornickel opened recruitment centres in Yekaterinburg, Orsk and Ufa, where applicants could promptly receive advice on open vacancies within the Company and on employment terms and conditions.

Engaging young people

To spark the interest of young people in professions of mining and metallurgical engineers and the industry on the whole, the Company has launched programmes for undergraduate and graduate students of Russian industry-related universities.

The Company focuses on training and upskilling students majoring in professions that are highly valued at Nornickel. For example, our standard format of the Conquerors of the North educational programme moved online and became available to a wider audience of students from Russian universities involved in the industry.

The Conquerors of the North online educational course has served as a tremendous library of knowledge for students. The programme comprised 10 modules and 37 video lectures, and its participants did a case study to consolidate their knowledge. Nornickel was the first Russian mining company to engage undergraduates and graduates in addressing real business challenges and promptly move the programme online in response to the pandemic spread in Russia.

In 2022, an online apprenticeship programme was run remotely for the Moscow office. The best graduates of the leading Moscow universities took part in the programme.

The Company continues to support talented students from industry-related universities, with the Company’s corporate scholarship awarded to 76 students in 2022.

students

Employee development

Nornickel offers ample opportunities for retaining and developing human capital as the Company’s key resource. One of Nornickel’s priority goals in 2022 was to build a proactive training ecosystem that enables employees to achieve the Company’s business goals, which underlay our training strategy for 2022–2025.

The transition to the ecosystem approach helps solve the following tasks:

  • Build a culture of continuous learning;
  • Boost managers’ professional qualities;
  • Improve professional skills;
  • Build critical competencies.

To address these challenges, the Company’s training strategy highlights key priorities of the new training system.

Energy of Change (Top 100)

In 2022, we launched Energy of Change, a modular corporate development programme for Top 100 managers. The programme was delivered in a mixed format and included the following modules.

  1. Energy of Change (change management)
  2. Energy of the Manager (the manager’s awareness)
  3. Energy of the Team (teamwork)
  4. Energy of Performance (ownership of the result)
  5. Energy of Well-being

A total of 106 managers were trained. The programme was built around three focus areas:

  • Way of thinking
  • Mastering new skills
  • Effective interaction

On the Path to Efficiency

In 2022, the Company continued implementing its On the Path to Efficiency programme online. The programme traditionally includes training and project activities. A particular feature of the programme includes the transformation of middle managers’ online behaviour: they develop the habit of acquiring knowledge in a digital environment and interacting with each other. For many participants, this transformation has meant a dramatic change in their attitude – from passive online listeners to active doers.

The programme participants completed five modules aimed at improving the management skills of middle managers. In addition, the programme was supplemented with workshops on topics critical for the Company, such as ESG, safety culture and risk management.

A total of 113 people from the Company’s 22 branches completed the training, including 106 managers and seven young specialists.

360-Degree Management

In 2022, management training under the updated 360-Degree Management programme was continued, with 360-degree assessment of managers’ skills.

The programme focused on the development of corporate and management skills. Participants could select training topics themselves based on their assessment results and development areas highlighted in their individual development plans. In 2022, the programme was substantially modified to include basic courses in management skills and enrichment courses in line with current trends. Training was offered on seven topics:

Basic courses:

  • Management Decision Making
  • Ambitious Management
  • Leadership Driving Development
  • Master of Management Communication

Enrichment courses:

  • Change Management
  • Leveraging a Resourceful State
  • Team Management

The programme stands out for its concise, hands-on format that includes interactive training sessions, business games, real-life cases, and a review of real-life management situations.

A total of 252 managers from the Company’s 17 branches completed the training.

Training in new skills and technologies

Developing digital skills and improving employees’ digital literacy remains a key area of training. With this in mind, the Company continues implementing its Digital Nornickel educational programme focusing on digitalisation and designed to offer all employees an opportunity to learn the technology and skills required to work in a modern digital production environment and live in a digital environment.

A total of 65.5 thousand people completed the course by the end of 2022.

The educational project seeks to explain in simple terms what digital solutions, technologies and tools are available on the market today, what Nornickel has in place, and what everyone can leverage in their work.

In addition to the training course for its employees, the Company expanded the target audience by launching the Digital Nornickel.Junior project in September 2022 for employees’ children aged between 8 and 12.

Digital Nornickel.Junior is a fascinating quest where a child can learn about Nornickel’s advanced digital technologies in a gamified format by taking tests and completing tasks. Simple tasks show the course participants how digitalisation is linked to daily work and why it is critical to development and progress.

Building an environment for continuous learning

The Company places a strong emphasis on building a modern learning environment by creating technological learning spaces. In 2022, with the commissioning of a new campus in Monchegorsk, the Company expanded its corporate university’s area by almost 1 thousand sq m.

The Company continues to develop training courses across its assets, offering professional training and skills practice on simulators. In 2022, industrial tourism gained wide popularity. The Company’s underground training base was among its production facilities actively involved in promoting industrial tourism.

Nornickel Academy is Nornickel’s core educational digital resource featuring training courses designed to develop employees’ professional competencies across all relevant areas, a reading room with free books on personal growth, as well as materials presenting the latest trends in training and specific tools that can help employees in their work.

In addition to the physical and digital environment, the Company supports its concept of continuous learning through educational events (Biblionight, Knowledge Every Day, New Life on Monday), public lectures, masterclasses (Tribune, workshops for schoolchildren), and regular communications (L&D Digest, posts on social networks, publications in mass media).

Assistance programme

Since the Company’s production sites are located in remote areas, Nornickel actively sources staff for its production facilities from other regions of Russia. The Assistance programme helps new hires adapt to their new environment and settle into their new communities on the Taimyr Peninsula. The programme targets not only highly qualified specialists and managers but also young talent and workers with hard-to-find skills. Today, it covers 3,224 of Nornickel employees, including 1,659 new participants, who joined in 2022. With this programme, the Company seeks to provide the participants with comfortable living conditions and reimburse them for relocation and resettlement costs.

Relocation programme

Since the beginning of 2022, the Company has been running the Employee Relocation programme aimed at implementing a range of measures to support employees relocating to another region with their current employer or through internal transfers to other employers within the Group following changes in job duties. Along with the reimbursement of general travel, baggage and subsistence costs, a relocation allowance and an additional leave for settling in, the programme’s distinctive feature is a supplementary payment for relocation (up to 40% of the salary) offered to employees. The amount of this relocation payment is capped depending on the new job’s location.

Relocation to a new place of work provides employees with opportunities for growth and development, both personal and professional. The programme benefits the Company by addressing its staffing needs in a particular region where candidates with the right skills are absent from the local labour market or the local workforce.

Corporate culture development

Nornickel nurtures its corporate culture to build corporate communities bringing together activist employees of different professions and from different enterprises as well as to enhance the engagement of production site employees in achieving the Company’s strategic objectives and involve them in the corporate and social activities of Nornickel’s facilities and regions of operation.

Focus on safety culture

In 2022, the Company paid particular attention to fostering a strong safety culture, with a dedicated project launched to set up the function of corporate safety culture coaches. Within the project, we selected and trained 43 coaches and seven supervisors, who will provide training and mentoring under the Dynamic Risk Assessment and Behavioural Safety Audit programmes. The financial incentive framework was also updated to encourage risk identification and elimination. By 2022-end, corporate coaches had already conducted more than 700 training sessions for employees.

Youth programme “In a Good Company”

Nornickel’s youth programme, In a Good Company, is designed to create a community of young employees aged under 35, encourage their professional and creative growth and unlock their potential in various areas and spheres. The programme’s another focus area is to identify gifted students and young talents from outside the Company and bring them to Nornickel, ensuring their onboarding in the fastest and most effective way.

An analysis of expectations among young people (aged between 18 and 35), who account for a third of Nornickel employees, showed that their needs are primarily related to experience build-up, individual development, recognition, and self-fulfilment. They also need not just to be part of a team, but work in an environment of like-minded people. And this is what the Company is ready and willing to offer them. Over 4.4 thousand users registered on the programme’s unified mobile platform during а few months pilot.

Those Who Care programme

The Those Who Care programme targeting activist employees of different professions runs in the Kola and Norilsk Divisions. The programme is designed to bring together a business customer who has a task to solve and proactive employees who, working as a team, offer a solution and bring it to life. The matters discussed are not limited to production and can deal with any activities, from waste recycling, more efficient use of resources, and internal communications to a culture of training, industrial safety, and recruitment.

In 2022, the programme became the gold winner of the Employer Brand Award & Summit in the People Management category.

summit

Since the programme’s inception, the following results have been achieved:

726 employees
applied for participation in the programme
31  managers
have become business customers
33  out of the 56 business tasks
have been addressed as part of relevant projects
35
project teams
33
design solutions have been accepted for implementation
10%
of active programme participants have made career moves within the Company
1.3 billion rubles
the economic effect of the proposed solutions.

Corporate volunteering

The Plant of Goodness project is the main example of cooperation among the business, local communities, the Company, and its employees: it has institutionalised and consolidated Nornickel’s existing experience and traditions of social and environmental initiatives. Today, the programme is implemented across all the regions of Nornickel’s operation, including Norilsk, Monchegorsk, Zapolyarny, Chita, Krasnoyarsk, Saratov, and Moscow. Each year, around 3.5 thousand employees along with representatives of non-profit organisations and action groups volunteer as part of the Company’s Plant of Goodness project. After being active volunteers for some time, Nornickel employees often come up with their own initiatives. The skills and expertise they obtained doing this kind of work help them not only in everyday life but also in their career pursuits as well as in developing beyond their professional competences.

Dialogue between senior management and employees

Nornickel is strongly focused on engaging with its employees and continues to promote regular practices that expand the dialogue between its senior management and employees. To that end, the following activities were held in 2022:

  • Nornickel Live, a Q&A session;
  • Spring corporate dialogues.

Employees’ sustained interest in the programme is reflected in a large number of questions from employees (more than 5 thousand over the year) and the audience’s active involvement. For instance, over 15 thousand viewers joined the direct line while about 3 thousand people participated in corporate dialogues.

Nornickel places a particular emphasis on building communications about the most important topics: remuneration, bonuses, social support, and safety. Specifically, in 2022, the Company ran eight major information campaigns on:

  • salary increase from 1 January;
  • additional payments in April;
  • increase in the business performance bonus;
  • golden rules of safety;
  • Nornickel with You programmes;
  • pulse survey about engagement;
  • VHI;
  • improvements to the Together We Decide – Together We Do and Let Everyone Be Heard programmes.

Effective engagement within such programmes is supported by both the multichannel format and a vast number of in-house speakers. In 2022, the Company trained over 1 thousand in-house speakers, who maintained live contact and engaged with employees.

The total audience of the information campaigns exceeded 250 thousand people (i.e. each employee was contacted on average more than three times over the year). Effective communication channels between management and employees and an open information environment help build trust, reduce stress and increase employee engagement.

In addition, the Company conducts regular targeted polls and surveys to measure employee engagement and assess social programmes.

Engagement

Nornickel goes through the engagement management cycle every year to maintain an environment conducive to integration.

This cycle includes three phases:

  • The Let Everyone Be Heard. What Do You Think? survey
  • Analysing the survey findings
  • Developing and implementing resulting solutions.

According to the survey, the Company’s engagement index grew by 8 p.p. to 63% in 2022. The following factors had progressed the most over four years:

  • Trust in, and accessibility of, senior management: +22 p.p. (driven by an open dialogue with management and consistent delivery on promises);
  • Career opportunities: +18 p.p. (driven by increased availability of information about vacancies, the internal career moves programme, active communication about internal promotions, training and development programmes);
  • Remuneration and recognition: +18 p.p. (driven by regular and anticipatory wage increases, elimination of imbalances in the remuneration system, and grading of information campaigns on wages).

The survey includes polling and focus groups. In 2022, 50.5 thousand employees were covered by the survey, up 6% y-o-y.

All governance levels, from units of individual entitles to the Group as a whole, are involved in both survey data analysis and the development and implementation of improvements.

Adoption of the Business Ethics Code

To ensure that employees understand and embrace the principles and basics of the Business Ethics Code, the Company continued relevant training in 2022 to explain its employees the Code’s content. A training module on the Code is integrated into the Our Values programme, the Nornickel Live – Direct Live Line with Vice Presidents project, and corporate dialogues. By 2022-end, training in the Business Ethics Code covered 80% of the Company’s headcount.

Remuneration

Key performance indicators

Nornickel’s remuneration system is linked to key performance indicators (KPIs) for different job grades. KPIs include social responsibility, occupational safety, environmental safety, operational efficiency, and capital management metrics, with due consideration of cross-functional interests. In 2022, more than 18 thousand employees of the Group were assessed against their KPIs.

KPI setting is driven by the Company’s well-established principles of balance, regularity, KPI achievement validation, decomposition, and ambition as well as the SMART criteria. Cascading is one of the tools used in KPI setting: a manager breaks down their KPI into components and cascades them to subordinates. Therefore, when each employee meets their KPI targets, their superiors’ KPIs are also achieved.

The KPI framework is instrumental in streamlining performance evaluation criteria, identifying top priority targets for managers and employees for the current year (aligned with the Company’s strategy) and link an employee’s pay to their performance.

The Company has a procedure in place for evaluating the performance of the Head Office employees and, separately, of Group company managers. In 2020, a new incentive system was introduced for all employees of project management offices (PMOs): project bonuses and traditional annual bonus were replaced with a project completion bonus. Bonuses are paid for the achievement of key project parameters and are aimed at motivating and retaining key project employees until project completion. In 2022, the project bonus system was used to evaluate the performance of 1.5 thousand employees of the Group’s PMOs.

The performance evaluation process is supplemented with an automated 360-degree assessment procedure run at 30 Group enterprises. In 2022, the 360-degree assessment covered almost 4 thousand managers at all levels, including top management, and 3.8 thousand specialists. Following the assessment, employees receive feedback from their superiors, discuss further development areas with them and build their individual development plans for the year.

In addition to remote learning opportunities offered by the Nornickel Academy platform, employees who develop individual development plans based on the 360-degree assessment results can benefit from access to the corporate electronic library and take training on the 360-Degree Management programme.

Salary and benefits package

Nornickel has in place a comprehensive employee incentive system, which comprises both financial and non-financial components.

The employee incentive system is aimed at improving operational efficiency and boosting labour productivity, delivering robust performance as well as retaining highly skilled employees.

The Company prohibits any discrimination in terms of setting and changing wages based on gender, age, race, nationality, origin, or religion.

The use of financial rewards is governed by the Company’s remuneration policy. The Company’s compensation package comprises salary and benefits. The salary consists of fixed and variable components, with the latter linked to the Company’s operational performance and achievement of relevant KPIs.

Nornickel has in place a grading system, which is a key tool to develop and implement various HR-related programmes. Positions are graded using the point rating method, which takes into account the required knowledge and skills, the complexity of tasks involved, and the responsibility level in each job.

As far as annual bonuses are concerned, back in 2021, the annual bonus rate policy for employees covered by the performance management system was aligned with an approach according to which the annual bonus rate depends on the employee’s job grade. In 2022, the transition to target annual bonus rates was completed. This approach ensures higher transparency of the Company’s remuneration system.

In 2022, we also continued our efforts to transform the bonus system for employees of PMOs. The updated incentive system, which is linked to the achievement of key project indicators, aims to motivate and retain key project employees until project completion.

The Company makes regular reviews of pay levels and trends as well as the cost of living – both the nation-wide averages and the average figures for each of its operating regions, with wage indexation done annually based on the review results. From early 2022, Nornickel increased employee remuneration by 20% in Norilsk and in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and by 10% in the Murmansk Region and other regions. In April 2022, the Company also decided to provide additional support to employees and pay a one-off bonus for their Q1 performance, equal to the monthly base salary but at least RUB 50 thousand per employee.

The Company constantly evaluates its pay levels to make sure they are not below the established living wage. Monitoring results suggest that all employees at the Company are paid above the minimum living wage.

Employee compensation package breakdown
Average monthly salaries of Nornickel employeesBased on the average annual RUB/USD exchange rate given at the end of the Report.
Minimum living wage and employee remuneration by region
Region Established minimum living wage Average monthly salaries of Nornickel employees
RUB thousand USD RUB thousand USD
Norilsk Industrial District 39.7 580 185.6 2,708
Murmansk Region 35.1 513 128.3 1,872
Moscow and other regions of Russia 23.5 343 298.8 4,359
Krasnoyarsk Territory (excluding NID) 24.4 357 98.5 1,437
Zabaykalsky Territory 22.9 334 170.4 2,486

The benefits package includes the following benefits and compensations:

  • Voluntary health insurance (VHI) and major accident insurance coverage
  • Discounted tours for health resort treatment and recreation of employees and their families
  • Reimbursements of holiday travel expenses for a round trip and baggage fees for employees and their families living in the Far North and territories equated thereto
  • One-off financial assistance to employees experiencing major life events or in difficult life situations
  • Complementary corporate pension plan
  • Other types of social benefits under the existing collective bargaining agreements and local regulations

Benefits package costs at Nornickel’s Russian entities

Total
Per employee

Additional employee incentives

Nornickel’s Award Policy is closely linked to its values and strategic priorities. The Company rewards its employees for outstanding professional achievements and contribution, innovations that drive growth and add value, efforts going beyond formal agreements with Nornickel, and contribution to overall performance of the business.

There are several levels of awards and incentives.

1. Governmental, agency and regional awards. Nornickel welcomes recognition of its employees and nominates those who achieved outstanding results in operations and management and made a significant contribution to production development.

2. Corporate incentives. Company-wide awards assigned by resolution of the Company’s President.

3. Internal incentives at enterprises. Initiated and awarded to employees on behalf of the enterprise where they work.

Employee awards in 2022

Social partnership

We establish social partnerships regulating labour relations as a key tool to build dialogue with our people. Moreover, the Company has in place offices for social and labour relations, a response centre and task forces at branches.

Trade union organisations

The Group has 58 primary trade union organisations united into local trade union organisations of the Norilsk Industrial District and Murmansk Region, which are part of the Trade Union of MMC Norilsk Nickel Employees, an interregional public organisation.

The trade unions of transport and logistics divisions of the Krasnoyarsk region are members of the Yenisey Basin Trade Union of Russia’s Water Transport Workers, headquartered in Krasnoyarsk.

In 2022, trade unions contributed to:

  • collective bargaining on a three-year extension of Collective agreements at 10 Group enterprises
  • inspecting the quality of public catering and dietary meals
  • conducting a special assessment of employees’ working conditions.

In 2022, the trade union was also involved in an information campaign run by the employer to inform employees about the change in the corporate approach to the bonus system. The Company sees such meetings as an opportunity to maintain a constructive dialogue with employee representatives and receive timely feedback on changes introduced at the Company.

Social partnership framework at Nornickel
Social partnership

Social and labour councils

Social and labour councils have been in place since 2006 to represent the interests of all employees within the framework of social partnership at the local level. Social and labour councils are authorised to raise matters relating to health resort treatment, recreation and leisure programmes for employees, disease prevention, provision of personal protective equipment, workplace and catering arrangements, and much more.

In addition to the Corporate Trust Line speak-up programme, the Group set up offices for operational, social and labour matters back in 2003. They are primarily tasked with response to employee queries, follow-up, and prompt resolution of conflicts. On a regular basis, the offices monitor social environment across operations, enabling timely responses to reported issues.

Queries submitted to offices are reviewed by relevant specialists or forwarded to functional or production units depending on the issue raised in the query. The offices control turnaround time and quality of responses. When handling complaints, the offices adhere to the principle that precludes sending complaints to the managers whose actions are being challenged. In 2022, Group enterprises in the Norilsk Industrial District operated 27 offices, which received over 52 thousand queries and requests from employees (81%), former employees (18%) and other individuals (1%).

Offices for operational, social and labour matters

Main topics of queries and requests (%)

Collective bargaining agreements

Collective bargaining agreements at the Group’s Russian enterprises comply with the applicable laws and adequately reflect employee expectations.

In 2022, the Group enterprises extended for another three years 10 collective bargaining agreements, which have historically provided one of the industry’s best benefits packages. Every year, Nornickel reimburses holiday travel expenses for employees and their families, offers medical insurance, health and recreation programmes as well as a complementary corporate pension plan and develops housing and professional training programmes.

At present, all collective bargaining agreements of the Group’s Russian enterprises are based on unified approaches to regulating social and labour relations within the social partnership framework.

No breaches of collective bargaining agreements and no strikes or mass layoffs were recorded across the Group enterprises in 2022.

Interregional cross-industry agreement

The interregional cross-industry agreement, along with collective bargaining agreements, regulates social and labour relations at the Group enterprises. Participants in the agreement define uniform corporate approaches to compensation, provision of guarantees, allowances and benefits to employees, work and rest hours, occupational health, and other matters, enabling the implementation of a uniform corporate social policy across Group enterprises operating in different industries.

In December 2021, the agreement was extended for 2022–2025 with a number of amendments. Currently, the Association of Employers comprises 21 entities.

Social programmes for employees

Social expenses for employees (USA mln)

Health improvement programmes

The Company has been consistently investing in health improvement programmes for employees and their families living in the harsh climate of the Far North. Health resort treatment programmes are among the most popular programmes offered by Nornickel as part of its social policy.

In 2022, 17.8 thousand employees and their family members improved their health at the corporate Zapolyarye Health Resort in Sochi; 7.4 thousand employees spent their holidays at other health resorts, with 1.5 thousand employees’ children visiting children’s health resorts. The Company compensates its employees an average of about 86% of the trip voucher cost.

Sports programmes

Nornickel offers its employees, most of whom work in the Arctic Circle, a wide range of social support programmes. Promotion of corporate sports and a healthy lifestyle among employees is one of the key priorities on Nornickel’s social agenda.

The Company regularly holds corporate-wide sporting events. The programme aims to improve the quality of life, build a more attractive employer brand and make sports more accessible to employees and local residents. The Company support sports in its regions of operation by joining efforts with various sports federations that provide training support to coaches, run masterclasses and promote a healthy lifestyle.

Nornickel pays special attention to corporate mass sports events, with hockey, futsal, volleyball, basketball, alpine skiing, snowboarding, swimming, and family sports contests being particularly popular with employees.

The Night Hockey League with teams made up of Nornickel employees was established to encourage involvement in amateur hockey.

Other activities include annual Spartakiads and mass sports events involving both Nornickel employees and local residents across the Company’s footprint.

In 2022, the Company collaborated with Hero Race to organise the Nornickel Run Race at the Norilsk and Kola Divisions. This format gave a new impetus to the event and attracted a larger number of participants.

A total of 24 thousand employees participated in sports and recreational activities in 2022. All corporate competitions were broadcast live in 2022, with the total reach exceeding 60 thousand views.

Sports expenses

Voluntary Health Insurance programme

Voluntary health insurance (VHI) covering all Group employees is an important form of social support for Nornickel employees. In addition, the Company allows employees to insure one close relative at the attractive corporate rate.

The VHI policy entitles employees to various healthcare services. Employees living in the Far North can use their VHI policy in the region of permanent residence as well as outside this region. The range of services is the same under all insurance programmes. The programmes for different employee categories differ only in the level of clinics and the region of coverage.

In addition, Company employees can do specialised genome sequencing tests and get advice from geneticists to help identify and assess potential risks of serious diseases.

Housing programmes

In 2022, Nornickel continued its housing programmes, Our Home / My Home and Your Home, whose participants were able to purchase ready-to-move-in apartments on preferential terms across Russia. The Our Home / My Home and Your Home programmes cover employees of the Norilsk and Kola Divisions.

Under the programmes, Nornickel purchases ready-for-living apartments at its own expense and provides them to eligible employees under co-financing agreements. Under the programmes, the employer pays up to 50% of the apartment cost (but in any case no more than RUB 3 million (USD 44 thousand)) with the rest paid by the employee within a certain period of employment with Nornickel (from five to ten years). The cost of housing remains unchanged for the entire period of the employee’s participation in the programme.

Under both programmes, the property title is registered in the name of the employee: under the Our Home / My Home programme, at the end of the employee’s participation (the participant, however, may move in immediately after the apartment is purchased); under the Your Home programme, from the start of participation (with the title encumbered by a mortgage, and encumbrance removed from the property once the employee fully repays the debt to the seller).

In 2014–2022, apartments were purchased in the Moscow and Tver Regions, Krasnodar Territory and Yaroslavl; the Company purchased closely located properties to create a more comfortable living environment for employees by developing additional infrastructure and optimising maintenance of residential premises for the property management company.

A total of 5,842 apartments have been provided to Nornickel employees since the start of the programmes.

Nornickel also operates the Corporate Social Subsidised Loan Programme offering Nornickel employees an interest-free loan to pay the initial instalment and reimbursing a certain percentage of interest paid to the bank on the mortgage loan. Overall, more than 1.3 thousand employees have already taken part in the programme that covers the Norilsk and Kola Divisions.

Support programmes for former employees and their families

The ongoing support of its former employees is part of the Company’s corporate social policy. The Company’s Veterans programme has been designed to support unemployed pensioners who permanently reside in Norilsk. The main eligibility criterion is the employee’s length of service at the Company.

The Pensioner Financial Aid Fund grants financial aid to former employees who retired prior to 10 July 2001 provided they had been employed by the Company for more than 25 years and permanently reside outside of the Norilsk Industrial District. The Fund relies on voluntary monthly contributions from employee salaries and charitable contributions from the Company’s budget.

The Company also provides targeted assistance to its former employees and their families to pay for health improvement, medicines or funeral services, and help in difficult life situations.

Corporate pension plans

Nornickel offers its employees private pension plans. Under the co-funded pension plan, Nornickel and its employees make equal contributions to the plan. The complementary corporate pension plan provides incentives for pre-retirement employees with considerable job achievements and a long service record at Nornickel enterprises.

Contributions to, and participation in, corporate pension plans
Contribution, USD mln
Number of participants, thousand people
doma