CIE employs over 26,000 employees across its 98 production sites and 7 Research and Development (R&D) centers worldwide. Of these, over 4,600 are employed across production 9 facilities in Mexico, and the company plans to have about 5,000 employees in Mexico by 2020 owing to the project. Approximately 80% of the staff hold open-ended contracts, while about 20% are employed on contracts ranging up to 2 years. Non-production related activities like canteen, housekeeping, gardening, security, are outsourced to licensed contractors.
Human Resources Policies and Procedures
As articulated in its corporate vision, mission and values, CIE “…attaches importance to its people: by respecting their fundamental rights; By providing them with fair employment conditions and by fostering their capacity for initiative, creativity and innovation, participation and teamwork, their ability to achieve goals and add value, a positive attitude to change and to constant improvement”.
CIE’s Human Rights Policy formalizes its commitment to human rights, in a manner consistent with the Code of Conduct and the ten principles of the UN Global Compact ( www.unglobalcompact.org/ ).
CIE has its Code of Professional Conduct for its employees and a set of corporate policies in relation to HR, working conditions, terms of employment, non-discrimination, freedom to establish or join unions, equal opportunity, and grievance handling. These are consistent with the applicable local regulations, IFC PS2 and GIIP.
CIE has a corporate HR department lead by a Director and supported by HR managers and other team members. There is a divisional HR manager to oversee the HR management across all the facilities in Mexico, in addition to HR department at each facility, which is responsible for day to day management of HR matters at the facility level. All the facilities are connected to the corporate office through SAP platform, including special modules for evidence based reporting. All the facilities are required to report on specified HR related KPIs through this system monthly.
Working Conditions and Terms of Employment
Building upon the corporate policies and code of conduct, PS2 compliant national labor laws, and agreements with the relevant trade unions CIE Mexico has developed its operational procedures and terms of employment for all the employees in Mexico. Accordingly, each employee receives a contract clearly indicating i) the terms and conditions of the employment; ii) the compensation to be expected; iii) the benefits included, iv) requirements for following the company’s code of conduct, including EHS standards and v) the grievance mechanism (viz. the Ethical Channel, as described below).
CIE Mexico has instituted a performance bonus system, in addition to the negotiated salaries. These bonuses are reaching all direct employees as negotiated with the trade unions, without any discrimination based on gender.
In addition to regulatory compliance and the terms of collective agreements, CIE offers various incentives and benefits to its workforce, to attract and retain its workforce. Accordingly, 49 factories have flexible working start and finish times; 21 factories offer teleworking arrangements; 15 factories have paternity and maternity leaves that are longer than the legally stipulated times. Moreover, CIE spends more than €10 million each year in employee welfare measures such as: scholarships and financing text books, private health insurance, in-house medical services, salary advances if needed, canteens, transportation from/to the plants, among others. As a result, CIE has historically reported very low employee turnover rates.
Training
With a view to developing employees’ skills, there are two training plans in place: (i) Training at plant level: those interested are offered highly specific training. Most of this training is operational in nature and oriented towards improving safety and efficiency in the use of resources and enhancing employees’ performance; (ii) Training at group level: focusing on advanced management and inter-personal skills. The total number of training hours provided in 2016 were 504,812 for 16,325 employees (80% of the workforce), receiving an average of 30.92 hours of training per year.
Workers’ Organization
In line with its corporate policies and local regulations CIE respects the freedom of association of its workforce and workers at CIE are represented in negotiations (including collective bargaining) by their respective trade unions. Globally, 90% of CIE plants have collective agreements, with 376 recognized workers’ representatives (unions). In Mexico 100% facilities have collective agreements with a total of 48 workers’ representatives (unions), workers have the option to join (or not) the union of their choosing.
Non-discrimination and Equal Opportunity
As per CIE’s Code of Conduct, the company “… is committed to maintaining an environment free from any form of sexual or other harassment, whether it be harassment by one worker to another, or by a worker to a client or supplier, or vice versa… any discriminatory practice on the basis of race, color, sex, age, religion, ethnic or geographical origin, disability or any other illegitimate cause will not be tolerated”.
CIE is focusing on and publicly disclosing its efforts in promoting gender equality, in a sector typically dominated by male employees and women employees constitute only about 15% workforce globally. For instance, of the total 5,839 new employees hired globally in 2016, about 20% were women. In Mexico, of the 2,159 new employees hired in 2016, female workforce constituted about 32%.
Grievance Mechanism
CIE has formal and well-established grievance mechanisms based on a corporate set of guidelines. The employees can file their grievances and suggestions from right on the production floor by using suggestion boxes to using CIE’s Ethical Channel.
CIE Automotive has an ethical channel through which everybody in the organization can report any irregularities or infringements against ethics, integrity or the guidelines laid down in the Code of Conduct. All communications received are treated confidentially. Submissions can be made electronically or postal mail, which are received directly by the Compliance Department in the corporate office in Spain. ( http://www.cieautomotive.com/reports-channel )
Protecting the Work Force
As a signatory to the UN Global Compact through its Human Rights Policy CIE states that: “... CIE is committed to ensuring that none of its activities involve the use of forced labor or child labor.” CIE conducts surveys annually at all its facilities asking for information regarding suspected cases of forced and child labor.
Occupational Health and Safety
As articulated in its Code of Conduct, “CIE is committed to providing its employees with a safe and healthy work environment in strict compliance with the applicable legal requirements”.
To operationalize this commitment, CIE has developed a robust safety management culture and systems, with a strong emphasis on training and continual improvements; safety is a key element of the company’s Balanced Scorecard program. The safety standards upheld by the company in all its workplaces are more stringent than those legally required by the health and safety authorities. Moreover, they are audited annually by the corporate head of safety, except for the plants in the Americas, where the plants audit each other.
Currently, about half of its facilities globally are certified compliant with the OHSAS 18001 international standards for safety management, and the company has rolled out the program to achieve this certification for all its plants by 2020.
During the visits to all CIE facilities, safety systems were found to be vigorously implemented, with safety messages and statistics prominently displayed on the shop floor. Production areas are clearly marked and housekeeping was found to be of very high standard. All the machines were provided with automatic safety features with limited human contact and adequate redundancy to minimize the chances of accidents. Adequate personal protective equipment (especially the ear plugs in the high decibel areas) are provided to all the employees and visitors commensurate with the specific requirements. CIE’s safety management policies and systems also cover the contractors and their employees working on the company’s premises.
The safety related KPIs tracked by CIE are its injury frequency and severity rates. The frequency rate was 15.1 in 2016, compared to 14.4 in 2015. This indicator tracks the number of lost-time injuries (more than one work day lost) for every million man-hours worked during a defined period of time (year). The severity rate (an average of the number of lost days per recordable incident) was 0.4 in 2016, improving on the rate observed in 2015 (0.6). All of the accidents are investigated using Eight Disciplines (8Ds) Problem Solving method developed at Ford Motor Company with a view to establishing corrective measures. The company expects its injury severity rate to continue to improve as the new facilities deriving from recent acquisitions are certified.
Supply Chain
CIE has established a comprehensive supplier screening mechanism for all its facilities globally. It has articulated its values and mission for purchasing, and has a documented Procurement Policy, to guide the procurement process and engagement with supplier. As a first step of engagement, every new supplier must endorse and sign the “Commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility for Suppliers”, along with their initial contracts or maiden orders. By signing this document, the suppliers pledge to respect the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) conventions. On the environmental front, they have to uphold the principle of precaution, take initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility and encourage the development and dissemination of environmentally-friendly technologies. In all, over 850 firms signed the social responsibility declaration.
CIE’s supply chain management team regularly interacts and visits its supplier base which helps in monitoring the suppliers for this commitment. Moreover, CIE’s technical teams regularly provide technical assistance and support to small and medium scale suppliers.
With the aim of extending its pledge to reducing its carbon footprint to the entire supply chain, CIE sent the top 10 suppliers (by invoicing volumes) at each factory all over the world a survey in order to find out which suppliers are already certified environmental-wise and make sure that those that are not understand their impact on the climate and can display diligence in managing, controlling and reducing their GHG emissions. Over 80% of the main suppliers surveyed reported that they were in possession of an environmental certification such as the ISO 14001. However, some 99% said they did not report to either the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) or any other equivalent platform. Rather, these companies take measures to control specific consumptions, such as: Fossil fuels, Electricity, gas, compressed air; and they also reported initiatives designed to cut emissions and streamline energy usage. Going forward, CIE is exploring the possibility of supporting its suppliers in the areas of resource efficiency.
