Our workforce

CONTINUING THE DIALOGUE

2022 GLOBAL TOWN HALL

The 2022 Global Employee Town Hall was held at SABIC’s headquarters in Riyadh in January, and employees from all regions had the opportunity to participate virtually. Leaders and employees reflected on the 2021 performance, outlined the priorities for 2022, and discussed the future of SABIC as new norms were adopted for the long-term.

U MATTER 2022

U MATTER 22 was a new corporate HR initiative, an employee interactive global “roadshow,” designed to strengthen connections and engagement throughout SABIC. The ambition was to connect with SABIC employees around the world and showcase all initiatives designed to enable employees to thrive. The roadshow featured over nine booths, covered 37 sites in 17 countries, and engaged in major themes related to a wide range of relevant topics including safety, employee wellbeing, ESG, talent discovery, cybersecurity, strategic growth, and capability building.

The first stop was in Sittard and provided a unique opportunity for employees to connect with colleagues and engage with leaders to explore personal growth and discuss SABIC’s desired future footprint in Europe. The final stop in Greater China closed the roadshow with engaging activities held in STC-Shanghai, Shanghai Plant and Nansha Plant, along with virtual interaction with remote offices. The campaign served as a testament to the collaboration across various teams and communities.

FOCUSING ON EMPOWERMENT

SABIC launched three employee-engagement initiatives this year with the aim of enhancing empowerment perception and joint efforts with all employees to create a more empowered agile organization. The Empowerment Program Portal provides employees with an overview of the Empowerment Program in Greater China, along with latest updates, best-practice sharing, event calendar, and learning materials to create a stronger resilient workforce. SABIC & YOU Empowerment Campaign’s offline campaign roadshow took place across five sites in Greater China, engaging over 700 employees via participation in interactive activities, quiz games, and a special photo session to select the most preferred empowerment behavior that offered employees a deeper understanding of the platform and the program. The Collaboration Roadshow was organized under the theme, “Know Each Other, Grow Together,” to enhance mutual understanding and strengthen cross-function collaboration. Over 250 participants joined the online sessions and answered a survey that would better address their interests in topics for future programs.

GLOBAL REWARD & RECOGNITION PROGRAM

SABIC’s Reward & Recognition program is another important initiative that celebrates and acknowledges great work and role-model behavior. In 2022, 45% (14,096) of our employees across all functions and regions were recognized, resulting in 27,825 awards in total.

FLEXIBLE BENEFITS – ASIA-PACIFIC

With a new generation coming of working age and entering the workforce in the immediate present and future, SABIC recognizes that different generations have different work expectations and needs than their predecessors. Flexible benefits focus on creating greater value for existing benefits to better meet their respective needs. In 2022, we offered flexible benefits to both professionals and paraprofessionals at our sites in India and enhanced our existing offerings in China and Singapore. These three countries comprise 83% of our total employee population in Asia.

SABIC PIONEERS

Our four-decade history has a built-in legacy. To sustain an ongoing dialogue between the employees who joined SABIC in its early days and the new generation of employees, SABIC launched the SABIC Pioneers program to continue nurturing the culture that enabled the company’s success. The program opens an ongoing communication link between retired SABIC employees and the company to form a two-way sustainable relationship, recognizing their expertise and knowledge and providing a sense of belonging to the retirees.

SABIC LEADERSHIP WAY

SABIC aspires to be the preferred leader in the Chemicals industry. To train and prepare leaders at every level who are motivated to reach their fullest potential individually and collectively, we continued the SLW initiative for the second year running to conduct leadership improvement programs for the Yanbu governorate’s leaders. In 2022, we refreshed our in-person core leadership offerings and delivered the new curricula in a hybrid format for the first time, partnering with top business schools extending access to 140 future leaders. SABIC also offered alternatives to formal classroom training, accelerating development through self-assessments, 360s, deeper accountability through talent review processes, and strengthening the talent pipeline through cross-functional talent communities to achieve the goals laid out in Saudi Vision 2030 for improving human capital. SLW also inspired “The Impactful Leader” Leadership programs conducted for Yanbu Governorate leaders, and the SABIC Leadership Program was launched in Madinah for high-ranking officials.

ASIA LEADERSHIP ACCELERATION PROGRAM

Launched in 2020, our Asia Leadership Acceleration Program (ALAP) is a tailor-made leadership development program combining classroom training with real application challenges. It has since become SABIC’s flagship leadership development program, which continues as a two-year program in rest of Asia. In 2022, the second cohort of enrollees (accepted in 2021) graduated and the program accepted its third batch of candidates. ALAP’s comprehensive training and learning approach teaches participants to adopt leadership skills extending to not only their mindset, but also their actions and behaviors to help them solve challenges or create opportunities to engage and inspire employees.

SABIC MENTORING PROGRAM

Mentoring has been practiced in SABIC informally since inception. We place great importance on focusing on people’s capability, capitalizing on tacit knowledge and mentoring our employees. After launching our mentoring pilot in 2019, it has grown in popularity and in October 2021, we officially launched our in-house mentoring module system. In 2022, the Global Mentoring program grew to almost 700 employees while an additional 14 professional in-house coaches were accredited by the International Coaching Federation. We have grown our mentoring relations to over 650 formal relations being tracked and continue to grow organically by 10% per month with a total of 1,500 employees being signed up at any given time. This is an encouraging indicator of the program’s success and critical to fulfilling SABIC’s 2025 vision and ensuring future growth.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Even as the working landscape undergoes dramatic shifts, it is vital to keep a pulse on what is happening with our employees. Every year, SABIC’s professional population, including executives, participate in a globally defined and managed performance annual review. This year, employee participation stood at 16,354 employees, which amounts to 51.3% of the workforce. In addition, SABIC paraprofessionals participated in locally defined and managed performance appraisals suited to local requirements. For the 2022 talent review process performance cycle, 88.7% of eligible employees completed a midyear review, re-visiting and updating their annual objectives.

CAREER CHOICES TAMKEEN

As technological changes reshape the labor market and work environment, it is important to ensure that employees are prepared to make any shifts and adapt to external forces that affect their job. Additionally, we worked to empower our employees by launching an internal campaign, “Empower Yourself, Empower Others!” and also empowered more than 4,700 non-technical professionals at our Career Choices program, Tamkeen, to apply for high positions such as managers and senior managers.

PROJECT GAUGE

To address changes in US manufacturing sites in the most complex areas of operations, our Building a Future Workforce for Manufacturing project (Project Gauge) created career paths to train and develop highly skilled critical chemical operators, revised compensation strategy, incentivized rotating shift work, and set up SABIC to meet the challenges of a competitive labor market and become an employer of choice.

EMPLOYER AWARDS

SABIC continued to be recognized for its outstanding performance in talent strategy and longstanding commitment to personal development. For the ninth consecutive year, we were named “Top Employer Asia Pacific” in 2022. Additionally, our Mexico sites were awarded “Best Places to Work,” and we were bestowed the 2022 STEP Ahead award for our employee engagement efforts. The STEP Ahead Awards are highly regarded in the industry for recognizing the accomplishments of outstanding women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Production (STEP). SABIC is proud that four of its employees were recognized for demonstrating leadership and excellence in their careers and community. This award also coincided with the re-launch of the SABIC Women’s Network (SHE), and will help to encourage female participation at SABIC and the chemicals industry at large.

SAUDI VISION 2030

SABIC SUMMER PROGRAM FOR EMPLOYEES’ CHILDREN

More than 700 male and female students— including children of SABIC employees, beneficiaries of the Takaful Foundation, and children from other backgrounds—participated in the annual SABIC Summer Program 2022, held in Riyadh, Jubail, Yanbu and Abha under the theme, “Grow with Sustainability.” The three-week program focused on three main tracks (track one: sustainability, the environment, and their relationship with the UN SDGs, SABIC’s sustainability strategy, and Saudi Vision 2030; track two: society, energy efficiency, water, and the human impact of carbon and water; track three: economics, recycling, lean manufacturing, and circular economy) to create a learning environment around the concepts of sustainability and its applications, developing creative skills and encouraging innovation using various educational means.

SABIC SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The SABIC Scholarship Program 2022 is SABIC’s investment in human capital, scouting for prospective talent to help them successfully graduate in key academic disciplines such as Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Finance & Accounting, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain, and Business. The Scholarship Program is part of our talent-development strategy, aligning with a key pillar of Saudi Vision 2030 in growing human capital.

EHSS WORKSHOP FOR SABIC SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

Before our future employees even join SABIC, we conduct the EHSS Workshop for the SABIC Scholarship Program students at our manufacturing site in Selkirk, New York. The purpose of this program is to train prospective employees in important safety measures to observe in their line of work.

SABIC YOUNG LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

The SABIC Young Leadership Council (SYLC) was launched to empower young leaders to shape future business decisions via direct interaction with the CEO and executive leadership. It opens a dialogue between SABIC and young leaders to propose new solutions to new challenges, creating a forum for the company to engage with the youth who will be leaders one day. This year, SYLC 2022 welcomed six new members to be a part of the council as part of its diverse and inclusive culture, and updated its priorities under the endorsement of the CEO to include People Engagement, Organization Behaviors and Business & Industry Engagement.

SABIC INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING FAIR (ISEF)

This year, we partnered with Mawhiba to sponsor the 2022 Saudi science and engineering team that won 22 awards at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2022 held in Atlanta, USA. The long-running partnership with Mawhiba enables SABIC to contribute its extensive resources to help unlock the capabilities of youth. We recognize the youth as a driving force for building excellence in the future and support Saudi talent to excel in international forums and demonstrate competitive advantages in science and innovation, contributing to achieving Saudi Vision 2030 goals.