Great Debate highlights
> 3,867 people took part
> 23 questions were asked and our performance improved in 21 compared to 2008
> 69% agreed with ‘My manager works in accordance with the Carillion values’, a 21% improvement since 2008
> 85% agreed with ‘Health and safety is a top priority where I work’
> 75% agreed with ‘Carillion is a customer-focused organisation’
> 78% agreed with ‘In my work group, we are encouraged to continuously improve the way we work’.

Retaining excellent people

We aim to retain the excellent people we hire and train, and to do that we need to provide a working environment in which they feel they are kept safe and healthy, listened to, free to express themselves, valued and rewarded.

We listen to our employees through monthly Team Talk meetings. These are a means for managers to keep employees informed of business matters and for employees to give feedback and ask questions. Our annual Great Debate survey looks at employee perceptions of Carillion and is an opportunity for our people to let senior managers know if they are dissatisfied in any way. In 2009 49% of employees (2008: 45%) agreed with the statement ‘All things considered, I feel valued at work’. This statement is our key indicator of employee satisfaction, and we set ourselves a Group target for 2009 of 65%, with each of the business units also having an individual target contributing to that. While our ambitious target was not achieved, we are encouraged that the results have improved during 2009 at a time of economic uncertainty – the current average for companies performing well is 41%.

The value of the Great Debate is in the changes we can make once we know where employees think we are falling short. Following the 2008 survey, for example, our Building division launched a new newsletter and helped managers to use Team Talks more effectively. In Business Services, actions have included promoting mentoring and strengthening cooperation between teams.

Carillion firmly believes employees should be free to express themselves and we provide information about freedom of association wherever applicable. No employee is restricted from joining a trade union and we build strong relationships with those unions representing our staff. A total of 19% of UK employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements.

We value every employee and want them to be treated fairly and without discrimination during their employment at Carillion. In support of this, we rolled out an e-learning module on diversity and equality in 2009. Everyone who manages or supervises people in Carillion was expected to take the training, and then cascade what they learned to their teams in 2010. Our requirement that people be treated with respect extends to all employees, and being mindful of others’ beliefs and cultures is part of the induction process for all new recruits. We also want to ensure that women and minority groups are not discriminated against in their career development. So we monitor the diversity statistics of our leadership development programme to ensure the profile of the programme reflects the diversity of our workforce.

Employees are rewarded with our Thank You benefits programme in addition to their salary. The programme enables staff to make significant savings on a wide range of products and services from supermarket shopping and holidays to gym membership and childcare. Through our Holiday Plus scheme, employees can also choose to buy extra days of holiday entitlement each year.

With many of our projects being short term, one of the best ways we can let our employees know they are valued is always to strive to find further work for them within Carillion at the end of their contract. Where this is not possible, we provide at least 30 days’ notice. In 2009 we brought our previously outsourced human resources service in-house and created a shared services team. As this team now serves all Carillion UK business units, it is better able to redeploy those whose contracts have ended. One in three positions they recruited for during 2009 was filled with a redeployed employee and when a number of buildings closed as a result of our office consolidation programme in 2009, employees were redeployed within other offices nearby.