Valuing our employees
We are committed to building a diverse workforce that is highly motivated, customer-focused and proud to work for us.
Empowering our employees
Through our people management processes we seek to develop our employees, enabling them to reach their full potential. We continue to enhance and develop our learning and development programme to ensure that every employee has the opportunity to improve and develop.
A key part of this programme is our continued commitment to increase access to workplace learning. This is now supported by a Skills for Life strategy which seeks to optimise opportunities for employees to develop their numeracy and literacy skills.
These programmes actively support our ability to recruit and retain employees with the appropriate skill levels and to encourage them to progress through the organisation.
This year we have sought to enhance these processes through the development of a performance management framework. A framework for managers and supervisors and engineering staff has been piloted this year and will be rolled out during the coming year. A framework for drivers will follow. Through the development of these processes we can ensure that all our employees receive an effective annual appraisal that will allow us better to manage their development and progression through the business.
Engaging with our employees
We recognise the importance of engaging with our employees to ensure our policies and programmes meet both our employees' and business needs. Informal communication is promoted on an ongoing basis at operating company level and includes regular meetings with staff, Trade Unions and focus groups and the production of regular newsletters.
Staff notices are used to share news and are supported by regular communications to employees from the Chief Executive. Communication for functional staff includes, for example, the annual union learning conference and awards and the Group annual safety and environmental conferences.
We now intend to support this with a formal employee opinion survey. A division-wide survey will be launched in Summer 2008.