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Our employees

At the end of 2010, Sasol had at total of 33 399 employees in our global operations, with net employment creation at 939 (excluding joint ventures). Our human resources strategy focuses on the sourcing of key skills, promoting long-term talent and career development, ensuring competitive rewards, and fostering sound employee relations and cultural transformation.

Substantial resources are devoted to training and mentoring our staff, and we have re-evaluated our development programmes to focus on career development plans, bursary schemes, our accelerated leadership programme and rotation schemes.

Being an employer of choice is a priority and we strive to offer competitive remuneration, create safe and rewarding workplaces and promote positive corporate values. We continuously benchmark against global and local trends in human resources and labour relations, ensuring that our global human resources policies and practices are compliant with prevailing legislation and international best practice. More than 60% of Sasol employees are members of trade unions and are covered by collective agreements and works council agreements. Based at Sasol Group Services at our Johannesburg head office, group human resources function comprises communities of experts, while our major businesses employ dedicated human resources managers and related functional specialists.

Enhancing workplace diversity

In addition to actively striving to reflect the economically active population of South Africa in our workforce profile at all levels, we are also embarking on a global diversity journey. Diversity forums, set up in our various business units, constantly strive to create co-ownership in the achievement of our diversity aspirations.

In 2009, we launched a disability equity awareness campaign in our South African operations, with the aim of informing employees of their rights as members of this designated group and to encourage them to voluntarily declare their disabilities. The infrastructure to allow people with disabilities to voluntarily declare their status has been developed. We strive to apply affirmative action measures to ensure that people with disabilities are afforded reasonable accommodation, if and where appropriate.

Also, in the interest of increasing diversity, we have developed guidelines for women advancement and representation at all management levels.

Our Women in Leadership programme has since 2007 been helping women in junior and middle management to assume more senior management positions.

Committed to facilitating social and economic development and transformation in South Africa, we award more than 50% of our university bursaries to black - all inclusive - students.

On the labour relations front, more than 60% of our South African employees are members of recognised trade unions. Worldwide, we are a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact. We strive to uphold world-class standards in all areas of employee relations, trade union recognition and human rights.

For a summary of our progress on promoting employment equity in our South African operations, as required by the Employment Equity Act, refer to the table below.

Sasol group workforce profile at Sasol’s South African operations as at 30 June 2010

	Males				Females				Foreign National
at June 2010	African	Coloured	Indian	White	African	Coloured	Indian	White	Male	Female	Total
Top management	9	0	2	71	2	1	1	4	1	0	91
Senior management	31	9	23	205	4	2	6	25	9	1	315
Middle management	851	93	367	2 417	250	43	210	763	123	22	5 139
Junior management	3 595	255	350	4 382	737	136	172	1 468	81	28	11 204
Semi-skilled	6 976	73	82	1 124	884	48	43	613	341	4	10 188
Defined decision (lowest entry level)	1 288	12	1	167	395	6	0	15	37	0	1 921
Total permanent	12 750	442	825	8 366	2 272	236	432	2 888	592	55	28 858
Non-permanent employees	74	2	5	12	18	0	1	7	1	0	120
Grand total	12 824	444	830	8 378	2 290	236	433	2 895	593	55	28 978

Training and development

Sasol is committed to continuous employee training and development and we have entrusted the coordination of our skills development activities to our global learning department, which focuses on developing internal skills and competency. An external pool of experienced and specialised employees is developed who we can rely on during critical project phases, while at the same time growing South Africa’s competency pool.

Global learning

Sasol has established a global learning fraternity that is comparable with world best practice with regard to cost and ratios. The sustainable standardised “new way of work” enables us to enhance learning delivery as well as doing more with less.

Our learning strategy endorses a lifelong learning culture through a standardised curriculum in an application-conducive environment, resulting in sustainable, competent and capable talent.

The global venture support initiative ensures access to experienced people to meet our growth ambitions. The pool of skilled individuals developed through this initiative is exposed to shutdowns, commissioning and startup of new plants, with the objective of ensuring a well-balanced workforce ready for a variety of tasks in new ventures. To prepare for international growth, and to promote job creation in the countries in which we operate, experienced individuals are being brought to South Africa to receive training on critical aspects of our operations, as well as being exposed to the Sasol culture.

Leadership effectiveness

Investing in the holistic advancement of our people is considered a business imperative. During the year, good progress was made in introducing initiatives to enhance our leadership effectiveness, improve talent management and enhance our employee value proposition.

Sasol requires managers who can work in complex, multi-cultural situations; leaders who can manage the balance between delivering for today and investing for tomorrow. We place a high value on leadership development and offer programmes aimed at developing the skills and knowledge of managers and leaders at different stages of their careers.

We provide a full range of leadership and management development initiatives appropriate to the group's strategic objectives. The company develops frontline leaders through focused personal development initiatives. Coaching and mentoring programmes are under way to deepen the succession pool and ensure the transfer of institutional knowledge.

These leadership initiatives are the meeting ground for the identified future talent of our business. It is critical to ensure an effective leadership development process and to carefully manage succession planning.

Technical skills partnerships

The first learners were recruited to the Technical Skills Business Partnership (TSBP) at the end of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009. There are currently 271 learners participating in the initiative. This number will be boosted by the further intake of 103 new learners during the second half of 2010 and first half of 2011. Of the original intake of TSBP learners, 95 are scheduled to qualify at NQF Level 4 between March and June 2011. The aim is to train 900 artisans through this initiative over five to seven years.

Learnerships

Sasol has three distinct learner artisan pools namely:

•	the Sasol learner artisan pool to supply artisans for Sasol’s own future needs;
•	the oil, gas & chemical manufacturing (OG&CM) learner artisan pools, created to build a national pool of competent artisans for industry maintenance shutdowns and major capital projects;
•	the technical skills business partnership learner artisan pool established to build skills for the growth of South Africa.

There are 548 learner maintenance artisans in the Sasol learner artisan pool, 195 learner process artisans and 35 learner miners.

The approved funding for the OG&CM project (R140 million (US$18 million) from Sasol and R32 million (US$4 million) from the Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority) has been fully committed and the project is winding down. By April 2010, 701 learners had qualified as artisans at National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Level 4. A further 417 who are still in the system will be afforded the opportunity to complete NQF Level 4. The last OGSCM learners will exit the system in April 2011.

Training and accreditation at Sasol

Sasol is registered as an Approved Training Organisation (ATO) by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA).

As an ATO, Sasol has complied with SAICA's stringent accreditation requirements and is therefore able to offer CTA graduates an opportunity to be trained as chartered accountants.

Training is provided at our diverse businesses (mining, oil/gas exploration, fuels and chemicals) in Secunda, Sasolburg and Johannesburg and is supported by a formal mentorship programme. Progress is assessed by qualified assessors, while recognition is given for work performance and academic achievement. Talented individuals are identified annually and offered a training contract as well as employment.

As a global player, Sasol offers challenging and rewarding career opportunities in financial management; project accounting; treasury; statutory and management reporting; taxation; corporate finance; and general management. Since the first trainee intake in 1998, 53 individuals have qualified as chartered accountants. There are currently 26 chartered accountant trainees on the programme.

In our 2010 financial year:

•	We invested R421 million (US$55 million) in employee training and development*.
•	Of this amount, R261 million (US$34 million) was spent on training black employees**.
•	There were 64 019 development interventions.
•	We invested R51 million (US$7 million) in bursary schemes, financing 769 undergraduate and postgraduate bursars.
•	There were 210 graduates in the graduate development programme.
•	26 employees went on the chartered accountants’ training programme.
•	There were 778 employees in Sasol’s learner artisan pools.
•	417 learner artisans were trained as part of Sasol’s oil, gas and electrical manufacturing project.
•	There were 271 learners in the external Technical Skills Business Partnership.
•	700 positions were created in the global venture support programme.
•	We invested R25 million (US$3 milion) in South African universities.
•	The number of employees receiving leadership training was 9 785.

*
**

Excluding the compulsory 1% or R98 million skills levy.
African, Coloured and Indian people.

Academic partnerships

We maintain strategic alliances with tertiary-level centres of excellence such as the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg, the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein and the University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town. During the 2009 financial year, 9 785 employees attended leadership development courses at a cost of R101 million (US$11 million).

Sasol Technology R&D has invested significantly in various South African universities to address concerns regarding the availability of highly skilled technical resources at these institutions - particularly within the chemistry and chemical engineering disciplines - and to improve the quality of equipment and facilities in these departments. This year, the fifth year of a 10-year R250 million (US$33 million) investment programme, R25 million (US$3 million) was awarded to South African universities to enable research capacity-building in science and engineering, fund strategic investment in equipment, and promote the development of young academics with a particular focus on diversity. In addition, we invested R81 million (US$11 million) in universities globally aimed at research, with an additional R2,3 million (US$0,3 million) spent on energy-related research in South Africa in collaboration with Eskom.

Promoting the wellbeing of employees

Sasol has initiated an employee assistance programme (EAP) to promote the psychosocial health of our employees and their dependents. We have also been monitoring an employee wellness scorecard for most business units in South Africa. Our programme to integrate occupational health data with other areas pertaining to healthcare and wellness ensures a holistic view of the health risks profile of employees.

Sasol's integrated HIV/Aids Response Programme is now in its eighth year and focuses on identifying and providing support services to HIV-infected employees and their families, as well as on preventing new infections through awareness, education and access to testing, counselling and treatment. Offering free voluntary counselling and testing at wellness days and at our occupational health clinics are part of our drive to increase awareness of the pandemic.

The Sasol HIV/Aids policy commits to providing access to antiretroviral therapy, and disease management is available to employees through the company's medical aid schemes. In addition, a workplace treatment programme is operational at the Sasol Mining Medical Centre in Sasolburg.

Underpinning our testing and treatment initiatives are comprehensive communications that encourage an interactive approach to prevention, support and care, as well as a coordinated system of peer training and education. A comprehensive toolkit was supplied to business units to support our communication campaign, "I am part of the solution", which was based on the 2009 World Aids Day theme "I am".

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Our employees

at June 2010

Global learning

Leadership effectiveness

Learnerships

Training and accreditation at Sasol