Central to this is a restructuring undertaken at the end of 2021, to put in place an organisational structure to support our new Operating Model. This involved careful management to ensure we have the right individuals, in the right place, doing the right work.

This restructuring involved introducing the new Operating Model and its supporting organisational structure to new business units, functional support roles, mandates, reporting lines and systems. At the time the organisational restructuring took place, we had started a culture and values transformation journey with a strategic intent to create an inspiring work environment for our people to ensure the delivery of sustainable business goals.

We relocated our corporate office in Johannesburg to Rosebank, a developing business district north of the downtown area with distinct advantages for employees over our former location. During all of this change, our staff demonstrated great resilience, especially since we were in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

NEW OPERATING MODEL AND PROJECT THRIVE

In 2021 we launched Project Thrive with the aim of structuring the Company in the best way possible to ensure its long-term success. As part of the project, which aims to streamline the organisation and bring significant efficiencies, we introduced a new Operating Model. This is now being embedded through all our regions and operations across the Group. We have updated role descriptions and made clear role accountabilities. KPIs have been better aligned and we will hold functional clarity workshops in 2022.

Functional support roles that used to reside at three or four places in the Company now sit in two. As a result of the restructuring, we reduced the number of roles, particularly those located in the central function structures.

We limited retrenchments by offering early retirement and voluntary severance packages late last year. It was a challenging time for many, and Human Resources and Group Communications worked to ensure that employees were well informed through the process and that support was provided.

In South Africa, we ran a series of town halls and further information – in the form of employee briefs, presentations and updates on the new structure – was issued group-wide.

The workforce transition process was rolled-out in line with the applicable regulatory requirements of the various countries in which we operate. We worked to provide a meaningful consultation process and considered, among other things, ways in which we could minimise the number of potential retrenchments and options to mitigate the adverse effect of any potential retrenchments.

Employee consultations took place in a genuine and procedurally fair way and decisions were made without bias and grounded by our core organisational values. Key to this process was treating people with dignity and respect.

Employees were urged to contact their respective Executive and Human Resource Business Partners when, and if, they needed support and information.

We understood that the process could cause anxiety and we set up an on-site counselling service at our corporate office and offered other aspects of employee support, such as continuing to offer further counselling services through our partnership with Careways / Life Employee Health Services.

We continued to offer our longstanding employee support options at our corporate office where employees could, and can, contact Careways – available 24 hours a day seven days a week – for assistance using a toll-free number, or by contacting the national care centre. People can also SMS, email or use WhatsApp to contact a counsellor.

TALENT MANAGEMENT

AngloGold Ashanti acknowledges that effective talent management practices are important to ensure the long-term sustainability of our operations and our global competitiveness. We have made important strides in strengthening talent management practices in line with industry and global best practices.

A comprehensive talent and succession planning guideline was developed, including standards and toolkits, to ensure a consistent approach across business and to equip line managers to make effective talent and succession decisions. The Group talent team worked with regional and functional human resources teams to run capacity-building sessions with line managers to introduce the new guideline.

One of the most significant enhancements to the 2021 talent and succession review process was the reintroduction of levels of work used in the determination of successor potential and readiness levels. In line with this, we have strengthened our approach in successor capability building into senior roles for purposes of effectively identifying successors for critical roles and to address development gaps to ensure professional growth and career progression of successors. This was complemented by a focused drive to ensure manager once removed (MOR) discussions took place during the year to strengthen the engagement of talent and to ensure the execution of planned development interventions and readiness of talent (i.e. 91% of Executive Committee successors participated in MOR discussions).

The 2021 talent and succession review process resulted in a succession coverage of six successors per role for all roles at stratum IV level and higher across various readiness levels ranging from ready now to three to five years. There is also a respectable age distribution among successors, with 52% of successors in the age 40-49 years of age category and 36% between 50 and 59 years.

Due to the changing future of work and evolving learning and development landscape, we are leveraging virtual learning to meet the need for continuous learning and professional growth of our employees. An online learning and development platform was piloted to provide learning and development interventions on demand.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

AngloGold Ashanti remains committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce, aligned to the UNSDGs (SDG 5, 8 and 10) and the UNGC. Leadership teams are responsible for the delivery of diversity targets, which better enable the organisation to achieve its goals. In this regard there are clearly defined priorities and actions for the next two to five years, with associated implementation guidelines to ensure diversity and inclusion objectives are embedded in all processes.

Diversity and inclusion assessments

Regional assessments were conducted to better understand the barriers and challenges to increased diversity and inclusion that exist on mine sites. The findings from the assessments remain our compass to guide the application of our diversity and inclusion principles across our operations through our Global Women’s Forum and Global Diversity and Inclusion framework to foster the empowerment of all staff irrespective of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation.

To address the findings of the regional assessments, we have:

• Conducted unconscious bias workshops for the board, the Executive Committee and all senior leaders across the organisation
• Established Diversity Committees across our operations
• Reviewed and updated our Sexual Harassment Policy
• Shared successes through networking, including through annual diversity and inclusion conferences and a new Diversity and Inclusion portal
• Participated in the Bloomberg Gender Equity Index to benchmark progress and achievements

While there has been a reduction in the total average number of employees over the years due to strategic business decisions, the Company has remained focused on ensuring that the diversity and inclusion profile of the workforce is not significantly affected by the ongoing strategic changes in the organisation.

Prioritised SDGs

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