Human Values

Gender Equality

We are aware that one of the most fundamental conditions for ensuring equal opportunities is to eliminate gender inequality. We pursue policies that encourage women’s employment in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and encourage women’s involvement in decision-making mechanisms. As an organization that adheres to the Women’s Empowerment Principles, established in partnership with the United Nations Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Unit and the United Nations Global Compact, we have been working to increase the active representation of women employees in business life since 2016.

We have been working to maintain these rates since the day we were founded. In this regard, we aim to increase the proportion of female employees working in the production stages.

Female Employees in Numbers

• Female employees account for approximately 50% of our total number of employees.
• 77% of white-collar employees are women.
• 68% of the management team consists of women.
• Approximately 70% of senior management consists of women managers.

Awareness Activities

It is one of our fundamental responsibilities to raise awareness among our employees on universal human rights, equal opportunities, diversity and inclusion. We hand over a copy of the Aromsa Human Rights Policy to our employees upon recruitment, convey it to them through our ‘HR Listens and HR Shares’ meetings that we hold at least once a year, and ensure that an increasing number of our employees participate in the awareness trainings that we organize every year. There were no cases of human rights violations in our Company during the reporting period.

TALENT MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT

Talent and Career Management

We want to make Aromsa to be a centre of attraction for young talents with high potential. In our recruitment processes, we use competency-based, objective methods based on equal opportunities with the philosophy of ‘recruiting the right person for the right job.’ Within the framework of talent management, we monitor the performance development of our employees based on objective criteria and update their career plans accordingly.

We implement a goal and competency-based performance evaluation system to increase efficiency in line with our strategic goals and to promote a success-oriented performance culture within the organization.

Our Performance Management System is essential in evaluating employee performance and identifying areas for improvement. In this context, since 2016, we have started to reward total success by integrating the Company’s achievements into the performance evaluation process with our Performance Management System application. We inform our employees about the Company’s strategies and priorities and evaluate their contribution to the organization’s goals.

In line with the annual Individual Goal Card set for each employee, the performance of our employees is measured against objective criteria, based on goals and competence, according to the principles of transparency and equality. We evaluate the results through effective feedback and feed-forward methods in the face-to-face meetings we hold at the end of the year and reward our employees who perform to high standards. We take performance evaluation results into account as input in our Individual Development Plans, Succession Planning and Career Management practices.

As part of the ‘Motivation and Loyalty Increasing Process for Employees in Physically Demanding Jobs,’ which we launched in 2021, we provide feedback to our employees in physically demanding jobs on a quarterly basis and reward their success with financial incentives.

For the sustainability and effective management of human resources, we review the succession plans on an annual basis within the framework of Company strategies and make standard staff planning. We establish our organizational structure in light of discussions with the Company’s Senior Management, taking into account feedback from the bottom up, and update it as necessary.

We transparently share with all our employees the vertical and horizontal organizational changes that we implement in accordance with Aromsa Human Resources Policy and equal opportunity principles.

The job description, job family and step of each employee affected by such changes are updated accordingly, and they are ensured to progress with goals and competencies appropriate to their new role. Organizational changes made during the reporting period were announced, and the effectiveness of these changes were measured annually through surveys.

While we bring young talents to our Company, we encourage our senior employees who are eligible for retirement to continue their working lives at Aromsa.

Aromatist Training Program

As part of our program, which aims to create our own talent pool for aromatists, i.e. a critical area of expertise in our industry, new aromatist candidates at Aromsa undergo a comprehensive two-year training process.

180^o Leadership Effectiveness and Leadership Styles Survey

We conduct a Leadership Effectiveness and Leadership Styles Survey every other year to improve the leadership competencies of our managers. During the reporting period, a survey was conducted with our managers’ subordinates and superiors, and the sub-behaviours of the relevant leaders regarding these competencies were evaluated based on 10 different competencies. Training and development plans were made for competencies that needed development in line with the prepared individual result reports.

Young Aromsa Trainers Program

As part of the program for young talents who have just started working at Aromsa, we organize training on Strategic Management, Project and ACID Management, Process Management, EFQM Model, Corporate Culture, Sustainability, Innovation, Problem Solving Techniques, Feedback Giving and Receiving, Flavour Journey and Sensory Discovery of Flavour. With a mentoring program, which complements the training, we support the development of young talents by pairing them with our experienced employees who have been working at Aromsa for over 15 years.

Internship Programs

We see investing in the development of young talent and providing them with opportunities at the beginning of their careers as a fundamental part of our social responsibility and sustainable human resources strategy. In line with this vision, we allocate a significant portion of our total employee base to our student interns every year. We provided internship opportunities to 7% of our staff in 2022 and 2023, and 6% in 2024. We position our internship programs not only as a learning experience, but also as a talent pool from which we can discover and find our future colleagues. As a result of this approach, we are seeing a steady increase in our hiring of full-time positions following completion of the internship program. While 8% of our total recruitment in 2023 will consist of young people graduating from our internship program, we aim to increase this rate to 11% in 2024, thus acting as a bridge to the industry for qualified young people.

Aromsa Information & Documentation Centre (Library)

Our employees can borrow and use domestic and foreign books, articles, periodicals, and e-books in our library at the Aromsa Information & Documentation Centre, which was established in 2007 to increase their knowledge about the food industry and flavours. In this way, we ensure that scientific and technological developments concerning our industry can be closely followed, access to relevant literature is increased, and employees can meet their information needs in the easiest and most accurate way.

Education Support

We provide education support to our employees (a maximum of four hours off their weekly working hours) if they meet one of the following conditions:

1. In requests for master’s or doctoral programs, the area of study must be related to Aromsa’s operations.

2. The area of study must support professional and career development

3. The study program must support the position that the employee concerned is expected to fill in the short and medium term as part of succession planning

We support our employees to continue their master’s or doctoral theses using the Aromsa’s laboratories and equipment, and we also encourage our employees with academic titles and technical expertise to give lectures at universities and make publications.

EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING, SATISFACTION AND LOYALTY

Remuneration Policy and Fringe Benefits

At Aromsa, we have a compensation system that is based on job families and managed through a hierarchical structure. To ensure that employee wages do not succumb to inflation, we implement annual wage increases based on general economic indicators, market wage research and inflation expectations.

We protect the health and safety of our employees from recruitment to retirement, and offer private health insurance and life insurance to all our employees. All employees can benefit from personnel transportation shuttles and cafeteria services.

Internal Communication Activities

We carry out internal communication activities that strengthen the sense of belonging and support employee participation in order to improve communications among employees and between employees and the organization. Through the platform ‘30 Minutes for Development,’ we offer our employees an interactive environment where they can share information, knowledge, and experiences that support their development. We utilize our web-based intranet site and a mobile app, ‘Aromsa.Net,’ which is accessible to all employees to ensure a healthy flow of information within the company. We create communication channels to provide our employees with information about the Company’s goals and strategies, and to ensure that questions from employees are answered by authorized personnel, through monthly worker representative meetings, quarterly sustainability bulletins, social club meetings, HR Listens and HR Shares meetings, on-the-job field orientation programs, human resources and worker representative meetings, and employee and general manager meetings. Additionally, we keep all our employees and subcontractors informed of internal developments through our monthly broadcast of Aromsa TV.

At Aromsa, we care for a sound work-life balance. Beyond providing our employees with a safe work environment where they can realize their potential, we also strive to provide a social living space that will support their personal development with our social factory vision.

We periodically improve our recognition and reward system, which we believe is one of the driving forces of employee engagement, by adding new criteria in line with employee expectations. Thus, while the rate of employees being rewarded and the resources we allocate to recognition and reward have increased over the years, the performance scores of employees have also increased.

We attach great importance to suggestions from our employees to further improve our working conditions and increase the efficiency of our business processes. We collect employee suggestions through the suggestion system, evaluate their feasibility, and reward the owners of those suggestions that are implemented. During the reporting period, we implemented 142 of the 243 improvement suggestions submitted to our suggestion system by our employees.

The management approach at Aromsa, which is based on open communication and encourages employee participation, is one of the underlying factors that increase employee satisfaction and foster a culture of innovation.

We value the opinions and suggestions of all our employees, including new hires, and take into account creative and innovative ideas to improve our business processes. We monitor, through the reporting system, all feedback received via communication channels such as Surveys, Suggestion and Complaint Boxes, Orientation Evaluation Meetings, HR Shares and HR Listens Meetings, Human Resources and Worker Representative Meetings, Employee and General Manager Meetings, Aromsa TV, Aromsa.Net, ASİT and Project Teams, and plan improvement activities accordingly.

Employee Loyalty and Satisfaction Survey

We conduct a company-wide Employee Loyalty and Satisfaction Survey (ELSS) to measure the effectiveness of our human resources practices and the satisfaction level of our employees. According to the results of the Employee Loyalty and Satisfaction Survey conducted in 2023, the overall satisfaction rate of our employees increased by 3.7 points to 83.2%. Aromsa’s strengths include its corporate culture, strategic management style, internal communication, OHS practices, work environment, competitive wages and benefits. During the reporting period, the work-private life balance measured at 73.3% in the ELSS were among the highest rated parameters in the survey.