British American Tobacco Annual Report 2010 - Strategic review

Our employees come from diverse cultures and backgrounds, and our business benefits from the breadth of ideas and experiences they bring. We aim to recognise individuality and encourage people to perform at their best.

In attracting, developing and retaining talented individuals, we have the opportunity to build a winning organisation. Having a strong and clearly differentiated reputation as an employer is therefore critical to our long-term business sustainability.

Recruitment and induction

Our employer proposition, which is based on the experiences of existing employees, was rolled out in all but one market in 2010, where we are expecting full alignment by the end of 2011.

As well as launching a Group-wide programme for new joiners that includes a standard 90-day induction plan, we conduct exit interviews for all of our losses at management level. We hope that by better understanding their reasons for leaving, we will be able to further improve our retention of key talented employees.

Learning and development

In 2010, we introduced a combination of face-to-face and online development programme for managers at global, regional and local levels. We are also developing a global training management system that gives our regions and functions a clearer view of the capability gaps in their operations.

It is our long-term aim to have succession plans in place for every senior role, with at least one local successor ready in the short term and two local successors identified for long-term development.

Diversity and equality

British American Tobacco is dedicated to providing equal opportunities to each employee. We do not discriminate when making decisions on hiring, promotion or retirement on the grounds of race, colour, gender, age, social class, religion, smoking habits, sexual orientation, politics or disability – subject to the inherent requirements of the role to be performed.

We are committed to providing training and development for people with disabilities, tailored where appropriate. If a British American Tobacco employee becomes disabled while in our employment, we will do our best to retain them and make appropriate adjustments and provisions.

We continue to support the career development of our talented female managers, with a view to increasing the number of women in senior management. This includes tracking development plans for our senior women, assigning mentors and encouraging recruitment consultancies to draw up gender-balanced shortlists of candidates when we recruit externally.

Work environment

Our environmental health & safety (EHS) policy sets out detailed requirements for all Group companies and applies across our own activities as well as our approach to managing our supply chains. It requires our companies, as well as complying with all applicable laws and regulations, to establish procedures for regularly assessing and reviewing the EHS impacts of their present and future activities. They must also identify cost-effective measures to safeguard the physical environment and the health and safety of all personnel on company premises.

The Group's Lost Workday Case Incident Rate (LWCIR) in 2010 was 0.27, an improvement on 0.37 in 2009. However, this was largely the result of the acquisition of our business in Indonesia, which significantly increased the total hours worked for the Group. Excluding Indonesia, the Group's LWCIR is 0.38 – a small increase from 2009.

The number of actual lost workdays increased to 212 compared to 206 in 2009, however, 62 per cent of our sites were accident-free in 2010.

The highest proportions of injuries were vehicle-related at 25 per cent (2009: 25 per cent), manual activity at 25 per cent (2009: 20 per cent) and slips and trips at 21 per cent (2009: 22 per cent). Entrapment accidents decreased to 9 per cent (2009: 12 per cent).

There were 29 serious accidents in 2010, involving 25 employees and four contractors. Of these, four were fatalities (three employees and one contractor), compared to three in 2009 (all employees). One was the result of a fall from height and the remaining three resulted from vehicle accidents. We greatly regret this loss of life. We systematically review every major incident to identify any ways in which we can prevent a recurrence.

Employee opinion survey

Our 'Your Voice' employee opinion survey is conducted every two years and benchmarks our performance against a comparator group of FMCG companies. The survey was conducted in 2010, with 90 per cent of employees participating.

In all 11 categories, employee opinion of British American Tobacco was more positive than the benchmark for businesses in the FMCG sector. We either maintained or improved on our 2008 scores in eight of the 11 categories.

Employee engagement

British American Tobacco is committed to employee engagement throughout the business and this includes acting on areas identified as needing improvement in our employee survey.

Employees are kept well informed of the strategy, performance and objectives of the Group through communication cascades at key points in the year, which involve video broadcasts from the Chief Executive, face-to-face presentations and Q&A discussions. Global, regional and local intranets, web-based meetings and presentations, and electronic employee magazines also provide important information, while feedback is encouraged through open forums and Q&A sessions.

All UK employees are eligible to join our Sharesave Scheme, our Partnership Share Scheme, as well as the Share Reward Scheme. In addition, senior management participate in our executive share incentive schemes. UK employees on international assignment are eligible to join the International Share Reward Scheme.