Duke Energy CORP

Governance

Our employees are critical to the success of our company. Our Human Resources organization is responsible for our human capital management strategy, which includes recruiting and hiring, onboarding and training, diversity and inclusion, workforce planning, talent and succession planning, performance management and employee development. Key areas of focus include fostering a high-performance and inclusive culture built on strong leadership and highly engaged and diverse employees, building a pipeline of skilled workers and ensuring knowledge transfer as employees retire.

Our Board of Directors provides oversight on certain human capital management matters, primarily through the Compensation and People Development Committee, which is responsible for reviewing strategies and policies related to human capital management, including with respect to matters such as diversity and inclusion, employee engagement and talent development.

Employees

On December 31, 2023, Duke Energy had a total of 27,037 full-time, part-time and temporary employees, the majority of which were full-time employees. The total includes 5,054 employees who are represented by labor unions under various collective bargaining agreements that generally cover wages, benefits, working practices, and other terms and conditions of employment.

Compensation

The Company seeks to attract and retain an appropriately qualified workforce and leverages Duke Energy’s leadership imperatives to foster a culture focused on customers, innovation, and highly engaged employees. Our compensation program is market driven and designed to link pay to performance with the goal of attracting and retaining talented employees, rewarding individual performance, and encouraging long-term commitment to our business. Our market competitive pay program includes short-term and long-term variable pay components that help to align the interests of Duke Energy to our customers and shareholders. In addition to competitive base pay, we provide eligible employees with compensation and benefits under a variety of plans and programs, including health care benefits, retirement savings, pension, health savings and flexible spending accounts, wellness, family leaves, employee assistance, as well as other benefits including a charitable matching program. The Company is committed to providing market competitive, fair, and equitable compensation and regularly conducts internal pay equity reviews, and benchmarking against peer companies to ensure our pay is competitive.

BUSINESS

Diversity and Inclusion

Duke Energy is committed to continuing to build a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve while strengthening a culture of inclusion where all employees and customers feel respected and valued. Our goals include attracting and retaining the talent needed and rewarding performance to enable us to reach our strategic objectives. The Enterprise Diversity and Inclusion Council, chaired by our Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer, Duke Energy Florida and Midwest in 2023, monitors the effectiveness and execution of our diversity and inclusion strategy and programs. Employee-led councils are also embedded across the Company in our business units and focus on the specific diversity and inclusion needs of the business and help drive inclusion deeper into the employee experience. Leaders and individual contributors also have the opportunity to participate in voluntary diversity and inclusion training and facilitated conversations on insightful topics offered to further our commitment to building and enabling an inclusive work environment.

In 2022, our aspirational goals included achieving workforce representation of at least 25% for women and 20% for people of color. In 2023, we established new aspirational goals of 28% for women and 23% for people of color. We continue to strive toward reaching these aspirational goals and as of December 31, 2023, our workforce consisted of approximately 23.6% women and 20.5% people of color.

The Company also has 10 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), with 38 chapters and more than 6,700 employees participating. ERGs are networks of employees formed around a common dimension of diversity whose goals and objectives align with the Company's goals and objectives. These groups focus on employee professional development and networking, community outreach, cultural awareness, recruiting and retention. They also serve as a resource to the Company for advocacy and community outreach and improving customer service through innovation. ERG-sponsored forums include networking events, mentoring, scholarship banquets for aspiring college students, and workshops on topics such as time management, stress reduction, career planning and work-life balance. Our ERGs are open to all employees.

Among other efforts, the Company has developed partnerships with community organizations, community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to support our strategy of building a diverse and highly skilled talent pipeline.

Operational Excellence

The foundation for our growth and success is our continued focus on operational excellence, the leading indicator of which is safety. As such, the safety of our workforce remains our top priority. The Company closely monitors the total incident case rate (TICR), which is a metric based on strict OSHA definitions that measures the number of occupational injuries and illnesses per 100 employees. This objective emphasizes our focus on achieving an event-free and injury-free workplace. As an indication of our commitment to safety, we include safety metrics in both the short-term and long-term incentive plans based on the TICR for employees. Our employees delivered strong safety results in 2023, consistent with our industry-leading performance levels since 2018.