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Employees, diversity and equal opportunities
Swatch Group is a multinational company with over 30,000 employees worldwide and its own subsidiaries in around 40 countries. It sells its products in more than 160 countries and has a global customer base. Its employees come from a broad range of countries, belong to different ethnic groups and religions and have different sexual orientations and social statuses. Each business entity contains an intercultural mix of people with a wide variety of backgrounds, education levels, skills and talents. Embracing this diversity and integrating it into the larger Swatch Group family as a whole is essential to the success of the company.
Respect, fairness and equal treatment are the fundamental principles within the workforce and are key factors in the success of Swatch Group’s matrix organization. Openness and transparency of information are also encouraged throughout the Group. Employees and stakeholders know that the Group invests in job security and employee health and well-being, even in times of crisis.
Diversity
Swatch Group is committed to promoting diversity among its employees and, in particular, to increasing the proportion of women in management positions. At the end of 2022, the proportion of women in the total workforce was 50% and 36% in management positions, with a disproportionately high number in lower management. As management positions are primarily recruited internally, the conditions are set to sustainably increase the proportion of women in senior management positions in the long term.
GRI disclosure 405–2
Equal pay and pay reviews
In accordance with Art. 13A ff of the revised Federal Act on Gender Equality (GEA) and the Ordinance on the Evaluation of the Wage Equality Analysis as at July 1, 2020, Swatch Group is required to carry out a wage equality analysis every four years for all Swiss companies with 100 or more employees, and to have this independently evaluated. The wage equality analysis must be carried out using a scientific and legally compliant method.
Swatch Group uses the Logib standard analysis tool, which is methodologically based on a semi-logarithmic OLS regression analysis and has been approved for use by the Federal Office for Gender Equality. This analysis checks, via a direct comparison of all employees of different genders, whether a difference in wage cannot be explained by objective, wage-relevant, non-discriminatory factors (education and training, length of service, any work experience, performance level and professional status), and if it cannot, what proportion of the wage difference this relates to.
To carry out the analysis, the total of monthly components is standardized for all employees so that this corresponds to a full-time role with weekly working hours that are standard for the company. If the null hypothesis is not rejected with a statistical significance of 5% (or accepted at 95%), there can be no assumption of wage discrimination. Otherwise, a check is carried out to determine whether there is a wage difference of over 5%, which would exceed the tolerance threshold for wage discrimination.
In accordance with the legal requirements, Swatch Group has used the Logib analysis to review all 33 Swiss companies with over 100 employees for the reference month of December during the analysis and reporting period of July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021. There were no indications that one of the 33 companies would exceed the tolerance threshold for wage discrimination. In addition, the analysis method and the results were verified by Blaser Treuhand AG in Bern. In its reports, the evaluator confirms that all legal requirements that apply to wage equality analysis were complied with in full, and that there were no findings to suggest that the wage equality analysis for the reference month of December during the analysis and reporting period from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 did not fully meet requirements for the evaluation of wage equality analysis.
Results of wage analysis
| Segment | Wage difference1 |
| Watches & jewelry | 3% |
| Production | 4% |
| Electronic systems | 5% |
| General services | 4% |
1. All figures are below the statistical significance level of 5%.
There is no wage discrimination in any segment. Swatch Group carried out the same analysis and used the same method for 13 Swiss companies with a workforce of under 100 employees, even though this is not required by law. For these Swiss entities, there were no indications that one of the 13 companies evaluated would exceed the tolerance threshold for wage discrimination.
Despite these good results, since the analyses were conducted all Swiss companies have begun to monitor wage equality systematically and regularly and to rectify any observed differences promptly.
Wage equality analyses were also carried out for companies abroad, to the extent that this is provided for by the legislation in place locally. For the foreign entities that were analyzed, there were no indications that the tolerance threshold for wage discrimination had been exceeded. Overall, the wage analyses cover 70% of the workforce (Switzerland: 100%; international: 40%).
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The skills shortage – we’re taking action
Under the umbrella of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) promotion, the Swiss economy has set a target of tackling the labor shortage in these professions. STEM expertise is essential to the Swiss economy if it is not only to remain competitive internationally but also be among the frontrunners.
Demographic change and the wide variety of careers are making it increasingly difficult to find enough talented employees from younger generations.
Highly qualified specialists will be in particularly high demand in the future, to ensure Switzerland remains a center for thought, development and work, and challenging areas such as the mechanical and electrical engineering industries, technology, IT, pharmaceuticals and chemistry continue to position themselves and evolve successfully.
In six regions across Switzerland, the tunSchweiz foundation runs work experience shows that give young people aged seven and above a taste of working in a large research laboratory and an inventor’s workshop.
Local companies, universities and interest groups offer a range of workshops, experiments and work experience activities at these exhibitions.
By engaging them at a young age, these extracurricular projects help awaken children’s interest in the fascinating world of STEM. The Swatch Group subsidiary ETA took part in the event tunSolothurn. In eight experiments, highly motivated apprentices and vocational trainers helped spark the interest of well over 7,000 young people in technology and science and motivated them to join our apprenticeships.
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National Future Career Day
On National Future Career Day, girls and boys switch places and receive practical insights into careers and areas of work in which their gender has previously been underrepresented. The National Future Career Day encourages them to put their interests and talents at the forefront of their career choices and to question their prejudices.
As its name suggests, the National Future Career Day aims to shape the future. Girls and boys switch places in order to learn about areas of work and life that are considered non-traditional for their gender, and gain life experience. This opens up new horizons. Young people gain the confidence to shape their future themselves, free from rigid ideas of gender.
The National Future Career Day promotes equality between men and women in career choice and life planning at an early stage. Schools, employers and parents all come together to work on the project.
On November 10, 2022 girls and boys from classes from 5th to 7th grade were invited to accompany our employees during their working days. Employees had the opportunity to show their child where they work and give them a better understanding of everyday working life.
Children learned how broad the spectrum of possible careers special during National Future Career Day. Children usually spend the day at the workplace of their father, mother or another caregiver. In 2022, over 550 children took part in the National Future Career Day at a Swatch Group company.
