Social
policy

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Nornickel regularly offers its employees — many of whom work beyond the Arctic Circle — a wide range of benefits and social care support.

The social package includes the following benefits and compensations:

• health resort treatment and vacation to employees and their families at subsidised prices;
• payment of return travel to and from a place of vacation for employees in the Far North and equivalent areas, and their families, including associated baggage fees;
• voluntary health insurance;
• one-off financial aid to employees experiencing certain major life events or hardships;
• additional employee pensions and other types of social benefits under the existing collective bargaining agreements and internal regulations;
• redundancy payments.

Programme to improve social and working conditions at production sites

Nornickel believes it is essential to create a comfortable and safe working environment. Working conditions play a fundamental role in reducing workplace stress and injuries, fostering culture and employee engagement, and improving their health. By creating comfortable social and living conditions for its people, the Company ensures an appropriate level of production environment and demonstrates a strong social responsibility.

Our sites operate more than 3,200 sanitary, amenity, sports, catering, healthcare, and recreational facilities with a total area of over 350,000 m².

Since 2003, Nornickel has been running the programme to improve social and working conditions at production sites. Since its launch, we have overhauled 416 social facilities and purchased 434 relocatable buildings, investing a total of RUB 6.5 bn.

In 2021, nine divisions and Russian entities of the Group based in Norilsk, Taimyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky Municipal District, and the Murmansk Region took part in the programme. Comprehensive overhauls of 123 social facilities, including those of social importance, were completed. The total area of renovated premises amounted to 19,389 m2. In the reporting year, 15 relocatable buildings were purchased to meet the needs of our employees. In total, the Group improved social and living conditions for 5,351 people in 2021.

In the reporting year, the Group spent RUB 1.9 bn to improve social and living conditions, including RUB 1.58 bn used to finance design and comprehensive overhaul, as well as RUB 323 bn for equipment procurement.

In 2022–2024, the programme’s budget will total RUB 8.8 bn. The Company plans to renovate more than 400 social facilities implementing new corporate design solutions.

Health improvement programmes

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Health improvement programmes are an important element of our social policy, as many of our employees live in the harsh climate of the Far North, and the nature of operations at the Group’s facilities requires special care. For many years now, the Company has been implementing programmes of rehabilitation and health resort treatment for employees and their families.

Like in the previous year, in 2021, in order to organise recreation for children without leaving the region, the Company arranged local summer activities by launching virtual camps for kids in the Murmansk Region, Norilsk, and Dudinka.

Nornickel welcomes regular fitness sessions of its employees and organises and holds annual corporate mass sports events within the Company’s footprint, as well as corporate sports festivals and competitions, attended by over 18,000 employees, their families, and local residents.

Co-Funded Pension Plan Programme

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To support employees after they retire, Nornickel has the Co-Funded Pension Plan, a corporate private pension programme, in place. As at the end of 2021, it covered 10,776 employees across 21 Group companies, with 5,019 retirees already receiving pensions.

The programme provides for two pension plans: Parity and Corporate. Under the Parity Plan, pension savings are co-funded by the employee and the Company on a par (equal) basis. The Corporate Plan is designed for highly skilled employees and/or employees with highly sought-after occupations; within this plan, Nornickel finances private pension plans for such employees.

In 2021, an average participant contribution amounted to 3.38% of the employee’s salary, or the Company’s monthly average of RUB 4,560.

Programmes supporting former employees and their families

The ongoing support of its former employees is part of the Company’s corporate social policy. Nornickel’s Veterans programme has been designed to support unemployed pensioners who permanently reside in Norilsk. The main eligibility criterion is the employee’s length of service at the Company.

The Pensioner Financial Aid Fund grants financial aid to former employees who retired prior to 10 July 2001 provided they had been employed by the Company’s units for more than 25 years and permanently reside outside of the Norilsk Industrial District. The Fund relies on voluntary monthly contributions from employee salaries and charitable contributions from the Company’s budget.

The Company also provides targeted assistance to its former employees and their families to pay for health improvement and medications, funeral services, and helping in financial distress.

Housing programmes

In the reporting year, the Company continued the combined Our Home / My Home programme, with its participants able to acquire ready-for-living apartments on special terms across Russia. Our Home / My Home programme covers employees of Polar Division, Polar and Murmansk Transport Divisions, Kola MMC and 18 more Group companies operating in Norilsk, the Taimyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky Municipal District, and the Murmansk Region.

To do so, Nornickel purchases readyfor- living apartments in various Russian regions at its own expense and provides them to eligible employees under co-financing agreements. The Company pays up to a half of the apartment cost (but in any case no more than RUB 3 mln), with the rest paid by the employee within a certain period of employment with Nornickel Group (from five to ten years). The cost of housing remains unchanged for the entire period of the employee’s participation in the programme. Property titles are registered at the end of the employee’s participation in the programme, but the employee may move in immediately after receiving the apartment. In 2014–2018, apartments were purchased in the Moscow and Tver regions, as well as in the Krasnodar Territory, with the Company buying properties located in close proximity to enhance the employees’ living standards by developing additional infrastructure and optimising the scope of maintenance tasks assigned to the property management company.

In 2021, Nornickel also carried on with Your Home initiative based on similar arrangement as Our Home / My Home programme. The title to Your Home properties is registered right after the purchase but is burdened with a lien to be held until the employee fully pays up the entire cost of the apartment to the seller. Since the start of the programme, the Company has purchased 2,103 apartments with Yaroslavl joining the ranks this time.

Nornickel also runs the Corporate Social Subsidised Loan Programme aimed at providing interest-free loans to the Company’s employees to make a down payment and reimbursing a certain share of interest on their mortgage loan. About 1,000 employees have already taken part. The programme covers employees of Polar Division, Polar and Murmansk Transport Divisions, Kola MMC and 20 more Group companies operating in Norilsk, the Taimyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky Municipal District, and the Murmansk Region.

Those Who Care change management programme

Those Who Care is a change management programme for people of action who have ideas and want to be involved in bringing them to life. The programme is running in Kola and Norilsk Divisions.

It is designed to bring together proactive employees of various professions and from different sites. All participants have one trait in common — they are the ones who aspire to develop and implement the change projects the Company needs, even beyond their functional duties and KPIs.

Any employee of the Company volunteering to take part can join the Those Who Care programme.

Its business product is practical change projects. This is done by establishing change support teams and creating a corporate community — Those Who Care.

Focus areas of Those Who Care projects of changes:

• Occupational safety and promotion of safe workplace behaviour
• Digitalisation (Digital Nornickel)
• Labour productivity and efficiency improvements
• Development of the corporate culture, staff motivation and engagement, internal communications
• Employer brand promotion
• Cross-functional cooperation
• Ecology and environmental protection (Green Nornickel)

In 2021, 576 participants from Monchegorsk, Pechenga District, Murmansk, and Norilsk joined the Those Who Care corporate community; 11 business customers (Deputy CEOs, heads of shops, and heads of business lines) were engaged; interviews with business customers were conducted resulting in 31 new business objectives.

Following the review exercise, all project solutions were accepted by business customers. The expected economic effect of the proposed solutions totals RUB 2.6 bn.

The programme was highly commended by the expert community at the MINEX Russia 2021 mining forum and won gold in the mineHR category.

Sporting and mass public events programme

Healthy lifestyle is one of the focus areas in the personal growth of the Company’s employees facing the harsh climate of the Far North. Corporate sports programmes seek to promote healthy lifestyles, improve interpersonal communication and develop corporate culture.

We have teamed up with various federations to support sports in our regions of operation. Our partners provide training support to coaches, give master classes, and promote healthy lifestyles.

The Company pays special attention to corporate competitions, with hockey, futsal, volleyball, basketball, alpine skiing, snowboarding, swimming and family sporting events being particularly popular with employees. One of Nornickel’s social policy highlights is the support of amateur sports.

Since 2018, Norilsk has been hosting the Night Time Hockey League to promote amateur hockey, with the Company’s employees taking part in the games. In 2019, the Night Time Hockey League was joined by the Moscow head office team.

To ensure the sustainable development of its geographies, Nornickel annually hosts spartakiads and mass sporting events involving not only the Company’s employees and their family members, but also local residents. In 2021, some of the events were cancelled and instead held online due to pandemic-related restrictions.

Our sporting and fitness events drew a total of 20,000 participants in the reporting year. In 2021, all our corporate competitions were streamed online, garnering over 38,000 views.

New Year presents for children of Norilsk Nickel Group employees

Each year, the Company purchases about 63,000 New Year presents for its employees’ children aged 0 through 15. For the past four years, the New Year gifts have included books that introduce children to the key elements: earth, water, fire and air. Insightful and easyto- read, the books explore various physical phenomena, foster a caring attitude towards nature and cover the basics of environmental behaviour and safety rules.

Support to new employees

Many Nornickel employees come to Norilsk and the Taimyrsky Dolgano- Nenetsky Municipal District from other regions. The Company supports newly employed staff, including young specialists, workers, engineering staff, and managers relocating to the Company.

It also offers them financial assistance and reimburses relocation expenses, baggage fees, and living costs for the first three years. On top of that, the Company also pays a one-time relocation allowance to support employees at the new place of work.

To onboard and support new employees of Polar Division, the Company stages Point of Support onboarding events on a monthly basis. The event is held in an interactive format, giving new employees a chance to learn about the Company, its values, priorities and opportunities, basic safety rules, the Business Ethics Code, compensations and benefits, as well as about corporate projects which welcome newcomers, all in the course of a single day. In 2021, the Point of Support onboarding event was held 13 times and involved some 600 employees.

Furthermore, Nornickel organises onboarding and teambuilding events for the participants of the First Arctic leadership programme, helping them to get to know each other, learn about the Company and the city, and immerse themselves in the new production, social and cultural environment.

With 758 employees joining the relocation support programme in 2021, it now has a total of 1,370 participants.

Social support to employees facing redundancies due to closure of production facilities

Following the decision to shut down the smelting facility in Nickel in November 2019, Nornickel developed a programme of social support for the people facing redundancies. This programme was agreed with the Social and Labour Council and trade union organisations of Kola MMC and Pechengastroy. The social support programme developed for personnel of the smelting operations in Nickel was also extended to employees of the metallurgical shop in Monchegorsk.

We provided a full package of social benefits to the people facing redundancies, including comfortable relocation to other sites, retraining, and pension plans.

Between 2019 and 2021, the programme comprised 1,388 people. 698 of them signed employment contracts with the Company and had the same level of pay during the first year. In addition, the Company rendered support to employees wishing to continue their employment with Nornickel. In line with the support programme, the Company reimbursed accommodation and rental costs for employees of the Company’s business units located outside their home region, provided financial assistance for the purchase of housing, and covered relocation expenses on moving luggage and personal belongings. A total of 309 employees attended training, re-training and upskilling programmes.

690 employees covered by the programme decided to leave the Company and were dismissed with additional payments.