SUSTAINABILITY
REPORT
DEVELOPING OUR
PEOPLE AND CULTURE
| ACHIEVEMENTS 2008 | GOALS 2009 |
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A truly sustainable business is built upon a positive approach to the safety, health, wellbeing and capabilities of our people. The PaperlinX Values reinforce our commitment to developing a culture that allows people to work to the best of their abilities and to achieve a high point of their working life.
Culture and Values
Every one of our businesses has contributed to the wealth of history and experience that make up our worldwide organisation. We operate in a constantly changing industry across 27 countries, so it is important that we share some common beliefs to enable us to realise our goals and vision together, and to set us apart.
In the last year, we strengthened our organisational culture by launching the PaperlinX Values programme (see the case study below). Transcending operational and regional differences, our Values aim to connect everyone throughout the organisation and help us to achieve our business objectives. Together with our Core Operating Principles, they guide decision-making and provide a directional framework for everyone at PaperlinX. The PaperlinX Values reflect the way we do business, the way we welcome new employees, the way we review performance and the way we work together.
Our new Values underpin our efforts to act professionally, treat people with respect and act with integrity and honesty. This reflects on our reputation and the way we are regarded by colleagues, customers, suppliers and the wider community.
As part of our compliance approach to business practice, the competition law compliance programme is available to help employees understand the regulatory and legislative environment. The online training programme on Trade Practices is now available in eight languages, with a participation rate above 95 per cent. We also provide the Speak Up programme, a confidential reporting service in which employees are able to raise concerns about improper conduct via an international telephone helpline, a multilingual online website, email or fax. This encourages employees to keep their workplace safe, fair and honest.
SHARING OUR VALUES AROUND THE GLOBE
The Company launched a set of organisational values to employees to provide a common thread across the organisation and to drive business performance. These values define the qualities we expect all our employees to embrace. They were developed during an 18-month consultation period with all our operating companies to reflect a Company-wide view.
The PaperlinX Values are:
- Success through ideas and partnerships.
- Courage to lean forward.
- Trust and respect.
- Sustainability.
- Respect local and add value with global.
- Passion, success and pride.
- Leadership.
Engaging our People
In an ever-changing environment, we must provide relevant and meaningful information for our diverse employee base. Business strategies, new initiatives and achievements are regularly communicated in a variety of ways, such as the popular conneXions employee magazine, published in five languages, regular face-to-face team briefings, email alerts, video messages and websites.
To encourage team work, we bring multi-country teams together to address common business issues and provide individuals with opportunities to work in different locations on assignments. In the year ahead, we will launch a new online knowledge-sharing tool to help us work together.
We are seeking more feedback from employees on all aspects of the employment cycle through the increasing use of internal surveys and employee focus groups. In Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, the ‘Your Voice’ survey is now used to measure employee engagement. In the UK, our largest European market, the Robert Horne Group uses the ‘Have Your Say’ survey to keep in touch with employees’ views. In North America, we are launching the ‘Bright Ideas’ employee feedback and suggestion programme. We recently conducted Viewpoint, our first global survey of senior managers to gauge leadership engagement.
Strengthening our Leadership
As PaperlinX grows and responds to industry change, we need the right blend of talent to build a long-term, sustainable business. This means understanding and developing our leaders appropriately. The Viewpoint survey showed that we could make improvements in areas such as career development, leadership skills, change management, developing our culture and job satisfaction.
We have been mapping succession plans for the leadership group and, in the coming year, will establish a global talent pool for future business leaders. We also piloted the next phase of the Leadership Development Programme that will begin in 2009.
Learning and Development
The development of the people who work at PaperlinX is a priority in maximising our performance. We invest heavily in providing a variety of internally and externally led programmes. Some are coordinated globally, such as the Leadership Development Programme; others are led by the regional businesses. At a Group level, the Strategic Value Selling Programme was rolled out further in Europe during the year. We held several Internal Selling Programmes to improve the skills of customer service teams that support sales teams.
In Australia, New Zealand and Asia our businesses offer numerous training programmes. LeaderlinX 1 and 2 aim to develop the skills of new and emerging managers who are also required to complete a business project that incorporates the Values and delivers real benefit to the bottom line. The Managing for Success Programme aims to give all staff confidence for performance conversations.
In each of the operations forming Europe, many programmes assist our 5,000 employees with their professional growth. Some examples include: Financial for Non-Financial Managers (The Paper Company, UK), People First Personal Development Programme (Howard Smith, UK), Leaders Today and Diversity Matters (Robert Horne Group, UK), Presentation Skills/Public Speaking (Italy, Denmark), Strategic Thinking, Acting, Selling (Germany), and English Language training (Italy, Czech Republic).
Across businesses in North America, we are rolling out the Strategic Value Selling Programme and the Sales Leadership Development Workshop. Training is also linked to the Customer Service Charter focused on exceeding customer expectations. In addition, each business is assessing the core competencies of their key roles so that appropriate training and development plans are in place.
Improving Diversity
We implemented a Future Workforce Management Plan linked to our businesses’ strategic priorities to identify the skills and capabilities for our future workforce. We developed a Diversity Awareness Programme that aims to educate our people about what diversity is in today’s workplace and how different people’s ideas and experiences can bring innovation and business benefits. It will also address work-life balance issues. Our graduate programme is set to expand internationally to help attract a more diverse workforce.
Seeking Continuous Improvement in Safety
Our safety performance continues to improve as we seek to reach our goal of zero accidents and injuries. This year we exceeded our target of a further 10 per cent reduction in both measures. We reduced our LTIFR by 15.5 per cent and our MTIFR by 14 per cent. In addition, 30 per cent of all our reporting companies worked the whole year with zero injury incidents.
Even with these improvements, unfortunately we report that one of our delivery drivers was killed in a road accident in Belgium. We deeply regret the loss of a valued colleague. It is a reminder that our frequency rates still represent 236 of our people being injured. This fatality challenges us to continue raising awareness about workplace risks and ensuring that our delivery drivers are equipped to deal with the multiple risks on the road where many factors are outside our control.
As we have grown by acquiring businesses, our strategy for improving occupational health and safety focuses on aligning the physical environment, the systems we use and the cultures and behaviours of our organisation. To achieve further improvements, we must now redouble our efforts to create a positive safety culture.
The 2008–2010 ES&H strategic plan has been developed to address the step change required. We plan to align all levels within the organisation with positive performance indicators (PPI) to increase understanding about how to contribute to performance improvement. PPIs are used to measure the effectiveness of workplace health and safety arrangements. In addition, we will strengthen the link between our Values and our safety performance to drive a permanent change in commitment and behaviour.
To continuously improve our performance involves a focus on training and internal auditing. In the last year, more than 95 per cent of approximately 4,000 employees directly engaged in manufacturing and warehousing/logistics received training in more than one safety subject area. As an example, in the UK alone 1,290 employees completed training in 32 different safety disciplines.
To check our performance, members of our ES&H team collected safety statistics and conducted 44 internal safety audits and assessments at our larger sites around the world, providing assurance and identifying any weaknesses. In addition, external audits were conducted at our paper mills for the certification of their various safety systems, licences and insurance status. In all cases these were confirmed.
Over the past seven years, we successfully reduced our overall Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) by
50 per cent, and our Medically Treated Injury Frequency
Rate (MTIFR) by 55 per cent.
Linking Health, Wellbeing and Work
To be a sustainable organisation, we must proactively manage the health and wellbeing challenges across all our businesses, and invest in safeguarding our employees’ health. During the year, we launched HealthLinX (see the case study below), our first global health and wellbeing initiative available to all employees. The initiative is linked strongly to the PaperlinX Values, demonstrating commitment to our employees.
Attitudes to health and wellbeing vary across cultures and countries. Designing a programme to suit our global workforce was challenging. To encourage participation, it was critical to maintain employees’ medical privacy and confidentiality, so we partnered with a third-party health care provider to deliver the programme. It offers our 9,500 employees a health-attitudes survey and a free, confidential on-site health check. Every site has appointed a HealthLinX contact to communicate directly with employees, and posters and flyers promote the programme in various languages to encourage participation. Other ongoing initiatives such as walking groups, gym access and the provision of healthy food are developed and organised at individual sites. (See case study below)
By next year, we intend to improve our absence measurements and data collection and will have evaluated the programme’s impact on our workforce. This will help us develop further health and wellbeing initiatives.
IMPROVING HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Everyone knows their health is important, but some of us just don’t give it the attention it deserves. In the last year, PaperlinX introduced the HealthLinX programme to all employees at 280 sites around the world. To help shape future health initiatives, 65 per cent of employees completed an anonymous survey on attitudes to health and wellbeing, translated into thirteen languages. They could also attend a free confidential health check during work time. The checks incorporate a lifestyle questionnaire and measurements of weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels. It is hoped that HealthLinX will improve wellbeing and attendance rates.