Compensation Report
The year 2024 was marked by a challenging market environment for Tecan. This required us to adapt as an employer by identifying new growth opportunities, implementing cost reduction measures, and investing in innovation, all while continuing to attract and retain top talent in our industry.
To navigate this challenging period, we increased our investment in senior leadership skills by continuing the development journey initiated in 2023. Fostering a unified Senior Leadership Team is crucial for ensuring strong alignment and driving business performance, ultimately enhancing sales and profits across the organization. One of our priorities is enhancing our working environment. A key part of this investment in 2024 included providing training for all employees on the aspects of creating a space of psychological safety1 in the workplace.
To receive direct feedback on our leadership effectiveness, we encouraged our employees to provide feedback through an employee engagement pulse survey, and we were once again impressed by the high participation rate. The results, however, underscore the challenging period we are experiencing and the necessity to adapt. It is crucial for us to stay even more closely connected with our employees to better understand their needs and to communicate more frequently and effectively. It is this close connection that drives high performance also in challenging periods.
Throughout the year, we adopted additional cost-reduction measures, implementing a hiring freeze and reducing headcount in select areas to align with decreased business demands. This understandably raised concerns among our employees, which we needed to address. For many employees, this was a new experience, because Tecan and the market have previously had an unprecedented run of positive performance, and it is essential to keep them engaged, informed, and provide clear direction. Despite these challenges, we successfully maintained stable voluntary turnover rates, indicating that our adapted leadership approach is effective.
We have continued our approach from 2023 to ensure that our compensation principles and systems align with the expectations of our shareholders and stakeholders. To strengthen this alignment even more, we have continued to engage with shareholders actively and have taken into account their feedback and the feedback from proxy advisors. This has led to further improvements at the policy level and in the dissemination of information within our Compensation Report.
Tecan recognizes the evolving need for transparency, and we continue in our 2024 report to include additional information. This includes not only overall target achievement but also specific target definitions and achievements that drive our Short-Term Incentive (STI) payout levels.
The ongoing dialogue with key stakeholders, regulatory changes, and the evolution of Tecan’s approach to compensation and benefits have shaped the content of this Compensation Report. This reflects the continued importance of diligently managing this significant area of our business practices.
This Compensation Report describes Tecan's compensation principles and system. The report provides information about the method of determining compensation and discloses the compensation awarded during 2024 to the members of the Board of Directors and the Management Board. This report complies with the requirements laid out in the Swiss Code of Obligations, the standard relating to information on Corporate Governance of the SIX Swiss Exchange, and the principles of the Swiss Code of Best Practice for Corporate Governance of the Swiss national federation economiesuisse.