Critical anchors

Amid the challenging talent landscape, we have maintained a strong focus on attracting, developing and retaining key talent through targeted actions. These efforts include enhancing our employee value proposition by improving the overall employee experience, accelerating proactive talent mapping and acquisition, and deepening talent development through focused programmes. We also prioritise internal talent mobility and continuously refine our competitive reward strategy to retain top talent.

To nurture our winning culture, we actively respond to feedback from the Voice of Tiger employee experience and engagement survey. Deliberate actions are taken to ensure our people live our values, with our leaders role-modelling these behaviours. In addition, we support the physical, psychological, financial and mental wellbeing of our employees through our holistic THRIVE employee wellbeing programme.

Our people strategy plays a critical role in enabling the execution of our business strategy, helping Tiger Brands succeed in the market. This strategy guides us in developing and mobilising our talent, driving winning performance for both our people and the business. The three pillars of the people strategy – great place to work, leadership and talent – shape our approach to attracting and sourcing diverse talent with the core, future and leadership capabilities needed to achieve our aspirations. These aspirations include igniting execution excellence, accelerating innovation and fostering an agile, consumer-obsessed culture.

Execution excellence is a pivotal aspiration, through which we are harnessing technology, digital solutions and AI to automate processes, driving efficiency, agility and a differentiated employee experience. We leverage people analytics to develop and implement future-fit workforce solutions and track our progress on targets related to talent, diversity, learning and skills development, employee engagement and sustainability.

In 2024, we launched the Rise Future-Fit Tiger Transformation programme, which will migrate all Tiger Brands employees to a single, integrated human capital management system. This system will unlock technical and artificial intelligence capabilities, enabling the digitalised, agile, efficient and effective execution of our people agenda across all sites.

In recent years, we have built a strong foundation in talent acquisition and management by identifying and developing the critical skills needed to support our strategic goals and priorities. This has involved a concentrated effort on promoting internal growth and accelerating the development of core and future-fit capabilities across key disciplines such as manufacturing, bakeries, customer, marketing, and research and development. Regular talent reviews have enabled us to identify core capability gaps, which have shaped our learning and capability development initiatives to ensure we cultivate a future-fit talent base.

Over the last two years, we have sharpened our focus on talent acquisition in response to more challenging market dynamics. We accelerated the development of a diverse talent pipeline for critical skills, strengthened our efforts to build critical capabilities, and focused on cultivating inspiring, agile leaders to drive business performance and support our culture transformation. By enhancing targeted talent management practices across the organisation and at all levels, we have improved our ability to transition talent across categories and functions, enabling more effective internal talent development.

Our talent acquisition hub has continued to deliver results by proactively mapping the market, identifying, attracting, and sourcing talent to minimise business disruption. As a result, we were able to make several internal appointments as part of our operating model and structure review earlier in the year. This included the appointment of five managing directors, one of whom is female, as well as the chief manufacturing officer. These appointments highlight the progress we are making in strengthening our succession bench.

Performance

In 2024, our succession bench strength ratio improved from 2:1 in 2023 to 3:1 and we reduced the average time to fill vacancies from 94 days in 2019 to 60 days. We made 511 new hires in critical and leadership roles, filling 55% of leadership vacancies through internal promotions and career moves. Tiger Brands was again recognised among South Africa's top 20 employers. Despite a challenging talent landscape, our attrition rate for core and leadership roles remained steady at 12%, compared to a market trend of 13%.

We continue to make steady progress in workforce diversity, with increasing African, Coloured and Indian (ACI) representation, alongside efforts to promote gender equity and the inclusion of people with disabilities. During the period under review, we implemented targeted programmes to support the achievement of our gender equity goals. Women acceleration programmes in customer, bakeries, and supply chain gained momentum, while the Tiger Women's Network provided networking and development opportunities, along with personalised coaching and mentorship for women at all levels. Training on unconscious bias and ongoing dialogues around diversity and nondiscrimination remain integral to our leadership development and cultural transformation efforts.

Performance

In 2024, ACI representation remained consistent at 95% of our total South African workforce. At the management level, ACI representation was 88% in junior management, 67% in middle management, 64% in senior management and 58% in top-tier management. Internal leadership placements were 84% ACI, while our Future Leaders Development programme (Graduate Development programme) intake was 100% ACI.

Regarding gender equity, women made up 30% of our workforce, with 39% in junior management, 39% in middle management, 40% in senior management and 25% in top management roles. Notably, 68% of this year's Future Leaders Development programme intake was female.

Most of our new hires were from Generation Y, with 97% ACI and 50% female representation. The percentage of people with disabilities in our workforce decreased to 0,68%. A full employment equity profile is available in the Appendix.

We foster winning performance and ensure talent development across the organisation through our foundational talent programmes. Targeted skills development is facilitated through our learning academies, which align with our core capability development and digitalisation goals. The integration of digital learning has been further enhanced by remote-working arrangements, seamlessly embedding learning into daily work practices. In 2024, we accelerated the implementation of our targeted development programmes to strengthen internal pipelines and support the growth of our own talent.

Performance

In 2024, 2 821 employees participated in our academy core capability programmes. We invested R73,5 million in learning and development across all areas of the business, averaging R8 354 per full-time employee. Each employee dedicated an average of 30,8 hours to training. Learning and development investment as a percentage of labour cost was 2,2% in 2024, compared with 2,8% in 2023. We allocated R7,4 million towards bursaries, with R5,9 million provided externally through the Thusani Trust (2023: R6,4 million) and R1,5 million allocated internally within Tiger Brands (2023: R1,4 million).

Our goal is to develop agile, inspirational and future-fit leaders. We consistently build leadership capacity across the organisation through future-fit development programmes and targeted rotations. By using leadership assessment tools and development programmes such as LIFT, SOAR, WINGS and GAME CHANGER, alongside mentoring and coaching, we are enhancing performance, driving innovation and embedding our desired culture. We track leadership behaviour shifts through our 360° leadership feedback platform, which fosters a growth mindset and brings our values and behaviours to life.

Our first WINGS cohort from 2022 saw three employees promoted to senior leadership roles in manufacturing. The second cohort in 2023 is currently progressing through the programme and we are now working to nominate the third cohort for 2025.

At the start of 2024, two project teams from our inaugural RE-IMAGINE TIGER executive cohort in 2023 presented solutions to challenges identified in relation to Snackification and our operating model. The thinking behind the presented solutions has subsequently informed our business strategy.

As part of our culture transformation journey, we partnered with Free to Grow to deliver the LeadQ and WorkQ programmes. These interventions aim to strengthen the connection between first-line leaders and shop floor teams, enhancing employee engagement across our manufacturing sites.

Performance

In 2024, 123 leaders participated in our leadership development programmes, with 55% of leadership vacancies filled through internal placements. Our succession ratio improved from 2:1 to 3:1.

We are committed to creating a great place to work, continuously enhancing our employee value proposition and engagement to strengthen and grow our culture. Our aspiration is to foster a winning culture that is collaborative, innovative, agile and consumer-obsessed, inspiring our people to execute strategy with excellence. The culture transformation roadmap defines this aspiration and outlines the priority actions required to achieve it.

Employee partnership is a key pillar of our culture transformation journey. Following the implementation of our new operating model in 2024, we prioritised culture transformation as a critical performance enabler. Since April, we have launched several initiatives to bring our values and winning behaviours to life, supporting the integration of the new model and structures. These include executive team alignment, Heart of Tiger dialogues and exponential leadership experience (ELE) in natural teams, alongside Free to Grow programmes designed to strengthen connections between first-line leaders and their teams, boosting engagement and wellbeing.

The next annual Voice of Tiger (VoT) employee engagement survey will be conducted in November 2024. This survey allows employees to provide direct feedback on their experience at Tiger Brands as a place to work and their level of engagement. The survey results offer valuable insights that inform further actions to drive our culture transformation journey. We work with our teams to act on these insights throughout the year.

Performance

In 2024, we implemented actions in response to the previous survey, including an operating model review to fast-track decision-making and execution, a review of short-term incentives (STI) to include A to C bands, adjustments to long service awards, flexible working conditions and digitalisation initiatives to improve work-life harmony and scaling of agile practices.

Our holistic employee wellbeing programme, THRIVE, provides physical, emotional and mental health support to employees and their families. This includes counselling services, online live chat support, life management services (covering legal and financial coaching) and managerial support. In line with our commitment to improving work-life harmony, we have adopted hybrid and flexible work arrangements, offering employees greater autonomy in where and when they work, balancing both business and individual needs.

Performance

In 2024, 5 881 employees accessed the THRIVE wellbeing programme, benefiting from individual or couples support, group training, and online resources on mental health, relationships, personal development, trauma interventions and workplace challenges. Our Employee Assistance programme engagement rate rose from 23,6% in 2023 to 48,2% in 2024, driven by proactive employee education on wellbeing matters.

We reward employee contributions to inspire exceptional performance and attract and retain top talent. Our reward strategy is reviewed annually to boost performance, align with market standards and meet the evolving expectations of both employees and shareholders. We manage rewards fairly and responsibly, adhering to our remuneration policy, International Labour Organization conventions and relevant laws. We also maintain a distinct budget to address any identified pay disparities and assess pay fairness regularly.

Our remuneration policy explicitly addresses unjustifiable pay differentials, ensuring our pay practices prevent discrepancies between employees in the same role, as well as across race and gender groups. We follow a systemic approach by aligning individual pay and pay scales with similar roles in the market and we have clear guidelines to ensure fair execution of new appointments, promotions and pay reviews. During each compensation review, pay differentials are considered, reported and interrogated through various lenses, including gender and race.

Our total reward framework comprises guaranteed pay, variable pay, market-relevant benefits, employee wellbeing solutions, recognition and learning and growth opportunities. Our remuneration strategy aligns with key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure and reward performance against our business strategy. Long-term incentives (LTIs) are designed to attract, retain, motivate and reward eligible executives, senior managers and key talent, aligning their interests with those of shareholders while incentivising long-term growth, sustainability and financial performance.

Short-term incentives (STIs) include both financial and non-financial elements and are indirectly linked to sustainability performance through weighted measures for strategic sustainability-related objectives, including safety, quality, efficiency and carbon emissions reduction. These incentives apply across the group, from senior executives to plant operators. In 2024, we expanded the eligible population to include all employees in the STI scheme, addressing the previous exclusion of entry-level and administrative professional staff. Unionised employees remain covered under collective agreements that govern 13th cheque and other variable pay arrangements.

Beyond financial rewards, we prioritise both formal and informal recognition, ensuring employees are acknowledged by both the business and their peers. Our Tiger Stripes Awards, held annually, recognise employees and teams across various categories for their exceptional achievements while embodying the Tiger values and winning behaviours. More details on our remuneration strategy and structures are available in our IR.

Performance

In 2024, we paid R4,5 billion in salaries and benefits to 8 785 permanent employees (2023: R3,1 billion to 9 296 employees). Short-term incentive KPIs for quality and safety accounted for 10% of variable performance rewards, with carbon emissions reduction contributing 5%, and talent pipeline (internal talent progression) making up an additional 5%. These indicators, set at the group level, operate in addition to core financial measures, and cascade to each business unit, forming part of each individual’s STI calculation. At the annual Tiger Stripes Awards in December 2023, we celebrated employees and teams in various categories, including leadership, manufacturing, execution, safety, innovation, business performance, brand performance and customer performance. Several reward and benefits policies were enhanced in 2024, further improving employee experience and satisfaction.

We strive to foster meaningful collaboration with key stakeholders, including trade unions and employees, guided by our employee relations engagement framework. Through regular engagements, town halls and site partnership forums, we ensure stable employee relations across all our sites. Our CEO and executives actively engage with employees and trade union partners on strategic issues, strengthening communication and alignment.

To manage freedom of association and collective bargaining, we maintain recognition agreements at each site. Where no majority trade union exists, we engage with all representative unions. Employees who have individually negotiated and signed a total reward package are free to join any union of their choice, however, they do not have collective bargaining rights.

We are committed to adhering to International Labour Organization (ILO) core conventions and relevant labour laws in all the countries where we operate. The emphasis of our activities remains on strengthening workforce relationships, partnering closely with union leadership and evaluating the impact of multi-year agreements. In 2024, we focused on improving employee engagement, enhancing line management, advancing collective bargaining strategies and resolving outstanding legacy issues.

Enhancing line manager capabilities and ownership of the employee engagement framework was a key focus this year, with targeted interventions to boost employee engagement and wellbeing. We implemented robust measures to improve management processes and established clear performance metrics to track action plan execution. This approach has driven notable progress, particularly in manufacturing operations, where partnerships between employees and line managers on the shop floor have steadily strengthened. Moving forward, we will continue building employee relations capabilities through monthly coaching sessions and seminars for line managers and HR teams.

Performance

Our collective bargaining environment has stabilised, supported by efforts to strengthen engagement, standardise processes and transition to multi-year wage agreements. In 2024, 49% of our workforce was unionised, and 25 sites engaged in wage negotiations due to expiring agreements. To help reduce CCMA referrals, over 2 700 employees completed an online module on initiating and chairing disciplinary hearings. Thanks to consistent partnerships and targeted engagements with unions and employees across our sites, we experienced no strikes, lockouts or major work stoppages.