Senior Leadership as defined in section 3(5) of the Danish gender balance act comprises GN’s Executive Management, Executive Leadership Team, and others with managerial responsibilities reporting directly to Executive Management.

To measure progress of the initiatives implemented, GN has set targets for a number of IROs. To set targets, GN gathers baseline data on the current performance of the material impacts identified. GN also uses data available from employee engagement for setting and monitoring target performance. This includes GN’s biannual employee engagement survey, employee resource groups and representatives, and other channels available for raising concerns. Based on the target performance and recommendations from management reviews and employee engagement, GN continuously identifies lessons learnt and improvements.

We have identified six negative, potential impacts related to our own workforce, defined as all GN employees. Overall, these impacts reflect our business model, which depends on human input as a vital resource for all our key activities in our own operations: hearing aid component assembly in Denmark, manufacturing of hearing aids in China and Malaysia, final assembly of hearing aids in regional operational centers, R&D and product testing, sales and external collaboration, and white-collar back-office functions. Within this assessment, we established that the most helpful grouping principle for the sake of applying impacts to specific employee categories to be blue-collar employees at major manufacturing sites on the one hand and white-collar and all other blue-collar employees on the other. Given that all white-collar-related potential impacts also apply to blue-collar employees, in this report, we report on the management of impacts either for blue-collar workers at major manufacturing sites or all GN employees.

We have identified six negative, potential impacts related to our own workforce, defined as all GN employees. Overall, these impacts reflect our business model, which depends on human input as a vital resource for all our key activities in our own operations: hearing aid component assembly in Denmark, manufacturing of hearing aids in China and Malaysia, final assembly of hearing aids in regional operational centers, R&D and product testing, sales and external collaboration, and white-collar back-office functions. Within this assessment, we established that the most helpful grouping principle for the sake of applying impacts to specific employee categories to be blue-collar employees at major manufacturing sites on the one hand and white-collar and all other blue-collar employees on the other. Given that all white-collar-related potential impacts also apply to blue-collar employees, in this report, we report on the management of impacts either for blue-collar workers at major manufacturing sites or all GN employees.

Finally, we have identified one material negative, potential impact related to other work-related rights, covering child labor and forced labor, where we assess the potentially impacted workers to be either children working in non-certified mineral mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and surrounding countries or bonded workers in regions with systemic forced labor. This potential impact also leads to a material potential financial risk, as non-compliance with forced labor legislation could potentially prohibit us from selling goods in certain markets, leading to a significant revenue loss.

Customer and end user-related IROs: We have identified one actual positive impact related to helping people with hearing loss. This is an 'entity-specific' impact, as it is not covered in any specific disclosure requirement in ESRS S4. This positive impact in 2024 led to an estimated 11.2 million people with hearing loss benefiting from our products. The impact is a consequence of our core activity of manufacturing hearing aids with the impact taking place downstream at the users of our products. Our strategy seeks to increase this impact by helping more people with hearing loss through customer-centric innovation, partnerships, and operational and commercial effectiveness.

Reflecting that GN is a global company with blue and white-collar employees spread across different geographies, we have six IROs related to our own workforce, all of which are impacts (see pages 52-53). Three of the IROs are related to working conditions, specifically addressing negative impacts in terms of working time, adequate wages, and health & safety. The other three IROs relate to equal treatment and opportunities, including equal pay, harassment, and diversity. The IROs are considered in terms of all GN employees, however negative impacts related to health and safety are particularly relevant for blue-collar employees at our major manufacturing sites. Disclosures on employee engagement and remediation and channels for raising concerns are relevant to all IROs, while the disclosures on human and labor rights refer to the material impacts linked to health & safety, diversity and anti-harassment.

We have identified six negative, potential impacts related to our own workforce, defined as all GN employees. Overall, these impacts reflect our business model, which depends on human input as a vital resource for all our key activities in our own operations: hearing aid component assembly in Denmark, manufacturing of hearing aids in China and Malaysia, final assembly of hearing aids in regional operational centers, R&D and product testing, sales and external collaboration, and white-collar back-office functions. Within this assessment, we established that the most helpful grouping principle for the sake of applying impacts to specific employee categories to be blue-collar employees at major manufacturing sites on the one hand and white-collar and all other blue-collar employees on the other. Given that all white-collar-related potential impacts also apply to blue-collar employees, in this report, we report on the management of impacts either for blue-collar workers at major manufacturing sites or all GN employees.

We cannot accurately link the majority of these potential impacts to GN’s activities because they occur in industries that are at tier 2 or beyond supplier level in our upstream value chain. We directly or indirectly have business relations with a very large number of sub-suppliers, in a part of our value chain where we have limited visibility and no direct supplier relationships to leverage an assessment of potential social impacts. For this reason, it is also not possible for these impacts to identify very specific (groups of) people or geographies where GN’s activities lead to impacts. Workers we consider to be at high risk of impact and therefore in scope for this assessment include: Agency workers working on GN sites in countries with weak worker protection controls (this covers agency workers at our manufacturing site in Malaysia), Blue-collar workers working for upstream entities involved in mining, plastic, aluminum and paper production, and electronics manufacturing, Blue-collar workers working for downstream entities involved in freight and distribution, and electronic waste processing.

Finally, we have identified one material negative, potential impact related to other work-related rights, covering child labor and forced labor, where we assess the potentially impacted workers to be either children working in non-certified mineral mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and surrounding countries or bonded workers in regions with systemic forced labor. This potential impact also leads to a material potential financial risk, as non-compliance with forced labor legislation could potentially prohibit us from selling goods in certain markets, leading to a significant revenue loss.