German-headquartered global engineering firm Siemens on Monday announced that it had achieved a broad-based black economic-empowerment (BBBEE) level 2 status in South Africa for the first time.
“Siemens has steadily increased its BBBEE points from 51 in 2006, and the new ranking followed a 7.6 point (9%) increase from the 2014 score of 78.31, to nearly 86 points in 2015,” said Siemens executive director Clifford Klaas in a statement.
The company achieved 22 points for ownership, surpassing the target of 20 after an increase in the net value of black ownership of the company and the launch of an employee share ownership scheme in 2012.
Siemens now had a total 30% black ownership in South Africa, with 56% of the 1 460-strong company made up of historically disadvantaged people.
“We saw a particularly large improvement in skills development and employment equity, which are two of the most challenging categories in a BBBEE rating,” Klaas commented.
Siemens scored 11.02 points for skills development, an 84% rise on the 5.98 points achieved in the prior year, as the company injected R40-million to develop staff skills and accrued 3 900 training days in 2014.
In the preferential procurement category, enterprise development and socioeconomic development categories, Siemens retained its 2014 scores of 20, 15 and 5 respectively.
“The new BBBEE ranking has made us a better company. We have better trained staff, we are more diverse and attracting better talent, we are getting positive feedback from customers and the whole Siemens team is motivated by the BBBEE achievement,” Klaas said, adding that a focus on “doing BBBEE properly” had been a winning strategy for the company.
The level 2 ranking was calculated by Empowerdex in line with the Department of Trade and Industry’s 2007 BBBEE Codes of Good Practice.