We believe that the movement of employees across GBUs, Functions, and Locations is a key to promoting our culture, sharing of management practices, and ensuring the necessary transfer of scientific, technical and commercial expertise across the organization.
All of this contributes to a motivated workforce, the sustainability of the Group and the employability of our people throughout their careers.
A set of Employee Mobility Rules have been defined in order to:
Foster internal mobility across the Group in a transparent way;
Ensure fulfillment of commitment to employees that we will enable them to develop and provide interesting career opportunities, all in a fair and respectful way.
Keep in mind that an open discussion about your career aspirations with your manager is important.
Find the Employee Mobility Rules in several languages below:
Job evaluation (Grading) is a process of determining the level of one position in relation to another in the context of an organisation.
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Click in the areas below to view the Career Ladders and Job Descriptions.
CAREER LADDERS | HR RESPONSIBLE FOR EACH AREA |
Cornelia Anderson | |
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Cornelia Anderson | |
Cornelia Anderson | |
Angela Jean Reganall | |
Angela Jean Reganall | |
Angela Jean Reganall | |
Angela Jean Reganall | |
Rutger Milders | |
Cornelia Anderson | |
Angela Jean Reganall | |
Angela Jean Reganall |
At Syensqo Positions are maintained by the Managers, who ensure the correct and timely update of the Position data for their teams.
Positions are created based on generic Jobs. As of February 2022, following a significant simplification of the Job Catalog, the Jobs represent a Domain of activity inside a Function.
In case you have doubts regarding the correctness of your position data, please check with your Manager, who is accountable for position data accuracy.
A promotion is a very important part of the employee journey and life-cycle. It allows the employee to grow in their career by taking on more complex and challenging tasks and responsibilities/an increase in scope of the role or complete change of the role (move to another pre-existing position), and is justified with a real business need and must result in a significant increase in value created by the person promoted.
What to do as a leader
As the manager you are directly involved in the next career steps of each member of your team, therefore, it is important to know what steps you need to take, what the best-practices and guidelines are, as well as the tools you need to use.
Promotion is a moment in an employee's journey that requires changes in the expectations of what the employee needs to do and deliver - increase in the scope and complexity for which the employee should also be rewarded accordingly.
As a Manager consider the following:
- As a direct manager, you are the one to put in motion the promotion process - follow the step-by-step process guide below;
- Consider what customer or organizational problem the promotion will solve. Is there a clear business case?
- That not all changes in the role and the complexity require a promotion or a pay increase as expectations from the existing role might be higher than the employee's current contribution! In that case no pay increase should be granted and expectations towards the role need to be clarified to the employee.
- That not all changes in the role or scope require a grade increase; promotion can also mean that the scope increases within the same grade and also pay can increase within the same pay grade. Pay grade should only increase at the times of a clear and significant change in the role.
What a promotion should not be:
- Used as a recognition for past achievements or tenure (while those are to be considered as an important input during Promotion planning to determine if the candidate meets the expectations);
- Used as a retention tool to counteroffer a move that employees is considering inside or outside of our Group to retain the incumbent in the current role;
- Used to reduce high compa-ratio of base salaries for employees when it is above 120%.
For more information on Fixed Compensation click here.
The following scenarios are not considered as a promotion case:
- Change in the Job Title;
- Change in Compensation Information or Pay Rate (increase of salary during the year for any reason other than change of scope or job, for example off-cycle pay increase);
- Change in Department or Team; this type of career development is referred to as "Transfer."
A Transfer is an internal move of an employee to another position in another team/site/entity as a result of internal recruitment project or in the framework of a career development plan of the employee.
Manager planning a promotion
Before entering the promotion in the System, Managers should discuss the plan for the promotion with peer-management team and self-control on the following (when in doubt, address with your Site HR).
Press here to access this checklist
Manager + 1 to approve the promotion
Once Promotion request is recorded in the System by the line manager the manager+1 will receive an Approval request. Before approval the M+1 runs the following checklist and addresses any concerns with the Line manager.
At Syensqo, the promotions process is owned and initiated by the Leader/Manager who observes a business need or a customer challenge that can be resolved by an employee. Here is a step by step user guide on how to record a promotion in the System - "My HR Services."
Please note:
- For promotion processes for non-Cadre and from non-Cadre to Cadre employees, please speak to your Site HR;
- Strategic Business Partners (SBPs) are responsible for initiating the promotion and pay rate change actions in the tool for Executive (S23+) roles.
- Before you request a promotion in the system, make sure you have reviewed and completed the “Manager checklist”
- Find the employee you want to promote or change salary in My HR Services (type their name in the Search bar or in the Org Chart - for promotion processes for non-Cadre and from non-Cadre to Cadre employees, needs to be performed by the Site HR).
- Open employee Profile and click “Actions” on top right corner.
- Select option “Change Job and Compensation Information”.
- Select type of the change (Job information (Position) or Compensation or Both).
- Select the Change date (first date of the month in the future).
- Adjust position (if applicable); adjust S grade and Pay grade; adjust Bonus plan; record proposed salary after the change / promotion.
- Click “Save”.
- In the “Comments” box record justification for the change and how it adds value to the organization or any other information that might be important for the Approvers to know before they make a decision.
- Click “Confirm” - notification will be sent to the Approvers according the Business rules as explained in the promotions guidelines document.
- You can review the status of your request in “View my pending requests” (use Search bar on top right corner to find it).
- You will receive an email notification once your request has been approved or rejected.
Once approved - you can generate the Promotion statement and communicate the change to employee. Click here to find out how to do that!
Remark for Expatriate employees on assignment
The promotion should be initiated in the host profile of the assignee, following the steps mentioned above. In the comments section, there should be an indication of the Annual Base Salary in the home country's currency. The approval workflow will go to the Global Mobility team and they will request a new expat package calculation from the tax provider. When the package is available, the promotion is approved in My HR Services. The remuneration package will be shared with the assignee.
If the expatriate employee does not have a host profile, please follow the standard promotion process and inform the Global Mobility team of this change (globalmobility@syensqo.com).
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| Useful links | |
| Support Material | |
| Supporting Tools |
A Pay rate change or off-cycle salary increase (external or internal equity) is appropriate if an employee, due to individual circumstances, is paid significantly lower than internal or external peers in the same grade with similar experience / performance. Pay rate change is not directly linked to a promotion as pay rate change is used to adjust the pay for the same work / job completed by the employee; if there is a change in the scope/complexity of the role refer to the Promotion process!
Please note: Strategic Business Partners (SBPs) are responsible for initiating the promotion and pay rate change actions in the tool for Executive (S23+) roles.
If you are new to Syensqo's Wiki space, you may need to link your Google Drive in order to see embedded documents.
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It is the sole responsibility of the Manager to communicate to their employees any changes related to the roles or job of the individuals, this includes promotions and pay rate changes.
Communication should always be completed in a one-on-one environment using appropriate documentation (e.g. Promotion statement) while also paying attention to clarifying the reasons for the change and expectations from the employee in the new role (in the case of a promotion) that should be followed with a dedication meeting to review and document the objectives and deliverables in the new role as part of Performance Management process.
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Following the leader-led model, as a manager you are responsible for taking the action towards the contract renewal/extension or termination of your direct reports.
What to do as a leader?
Managers will now be notified about the expiring contract end date for internal direct reports, 3, 2 and 1 months in advance and be invited to take action:
- Contract Renewal / Extension
- Offer Permanent Contract
- Contract Termination
Why is this important?
It is important for managers to take the time they are notified (3, 2, 1 month in advance) to decide what action to take on their employee's contract.
s a manager, if you decide you want to renew or extend the employee's contract you will have to do the following:
- Step one: Meet and discuss this decision with your Site HR Partner to check the legal compliance for contract extensions;
- Step two: You will have open this Service Request (click here) in Service One.
What are the main changes in the new process of contract extensions?
- The timing of the expiration alert is improved (from 30-15-5 days in advance to 3-2-1 months in advance), giving more time for managers to check and comply with legal regulations, as well as execute the changes in My HR Services including payroll information.
- Site HR Partner is no longer responsible for maintaining the contract end date in My HR Services, but will assure the respect and the compliance of the legal local aspects.
- The Site HR Partner will receive a copy of the expiring contract notification sent to the manager.
- The contract extension in My HR Services will now be performed by the SBS WDA team upon receiving the request.
- The Payroll teams will receive the workflow to approve, and Site HR will be notified when the process is complete.
Important:
When a trainee employee becomes a regular employee, the recruitment process must be followed.
The manager must take the following actions:
- 1st step: Create a new position in My HR Services
- 2nd step: Open a job requisition
- 3rd step: In the recruiting tool, change the field “Have you already identified an internal candidate” to Yes and fill in the field “Name of identified candidate” with the employee's name. - click here and follow steps one and two
Offering a Permanent Contract
- Step one: Meet and discuss this decision with your Site HR Partner to check the legal compliance on offering a permanent contracts;
- Step two: If you decide to offer a permanent contract to your employee, you will have to follow the steps in the Recruiting a Talent section of the HR Wiki - click here and start with step one and get your hiring need validated with your manager.
Termination Process:
- Step one: Meet and discuss this decision with your Site HR Partner to check the legal compliance on offering a permanent contracts;
- Step two: If you decide to offer a permanent contract to your employee, you will have to follow the steps in the Recruiting a Talent section of the HR Wiki - click here and start with step one and get your hiring need validated with your manager.
Contingent workers deliver services to the company on a non-permanent basis, therefore an estimated assignment end date (contract end date) is added upon creation.
Once the end date is reached, the contingent worker will be terminated by the system. Unlike with a regular employee, for contingent workers the Employment Details portlet is managed in the background by the Work Order. To make a change on the end date of if your Contingent Worker got their access revoked follow the steps below.
Assignment end date is the same as contract end date (field available in My HR Services).
2a. If the end date has been reached and the Contingent Worker is already terminated in the system and the access have been revoked, if the decision is that the contingent worker will continue to work at Syensqo, the Manager needs to open a SyRa to request the reactivation:
(Click on the image to go the the ticket)
The Manager also needs to open a ticket to the IT Team to request that the access are reactivated as well.
2b. If the end date has been reached and the Contingent Worker is already terminated in the system and the access have been revoked but the CW will no longer work the Manager only needs to open a SyRa for “Offboarding”.
Why this Moment Matters
Connecting today’s actions and development efforts to the longer term aspirations bring awareness and motivation. Be sure to coach the employee in building a view on possible career paths, working on employability and exposure to new domains or activities.
What to do as a leader
- Invite transparent sharing by employee on career aspirations and potentially concrete positions, based on self-reflection and exchange with peers.
- The Career discussion should take place at least once a year in order to discuss immediate and longer term career aspirations. For further guidance and support on developing your team and having development discussions, please see this article
- Transparent feedback by manager on aspirations based on capabilities/ experience/ performance with potentially new suggestions
- Does the employee have potential for an accelerated career path?
- Discuss concrete and immediately realizable next steps if applicable.
- Hence focus on development, supporting opportunities that may arise;
- To prepare - discuss the promotion intentions or needs for your Team with your superior & your Site HR Partner for promotions and off-cycle salary changes for cadre roles in grades S15 to S22 and your Strategic Business Partner for S23 and above.
Why and when will you give an employee a promotion?
A common reason and a very important moment that matters in the journey of an employee at Syensqo, that allows the employee to grow in their career by taking on more complex and challenging tasks and responsibilities.
At Syensqo, the promotion process is owned and initiated by the Leader/Manager who observes a business need or a customer challenge that can be resolved by an employee. Promotion, besides allowing the employee to grow in their career, should bring a solution to the named business need or to the challenge of the customer.
A promotion is also:
- An increase of responsibility or Syensqope (with or without a change in the S grade) within the existing role or a move to a completely different role with a higher level of responsibility within the same Team.
- Usually is accompanied with an increase of compensation, but it is not required, especially if the change in the role is relatively small.
- One of the most important “moments that matter” in the employee's journey - it matters to individuals and it matters to the organization - it must be a “win-win” situation!
- Always justified with a real business need and results in a significant increase in value created by the person promoted and as such it should be rewarded with an increase in the Rewards package.
Why this Moment Matters
As managers you are co-responsible to develop the skills and competencies of the employee, encourage them to develop a broad internal network, and to support their career growth by fostering their exposure and mobility. A transfer is an internal move of an employee to another position in another team/site/entity as a result of an internal recruitment project or in the framework of a career development plan of the employee.
What to do as a leader
It is important to remember that employees are members of the Syensqo group and as such do not belong to your team, your business or your function. That sounds obvious, though employees moving jobs can of course bring some practical challenges.
- What can be done upfront when an employee expresses the wish to change roles ? Can activities/accountabilities be co-shared and knowledge transmission started ?
- What needs to be done to organize the knowledge hand-over and assure business continuity ?
- Think rapidly about opening the right job to cover the replacement or to reshuffle the team’s activities and accountabilities.
