We’ve been working to cement our commitment to our colleagues through a ‘people manifesto’, which will articulate what we’re looking for from our people but more importantly what they can expect from us in return. We believe that our employees have a right to expect a welcoming work environment which:

• is safe and healthy
• is inclusive and free from any form of unfair discrimination, where individuals feel valued and respected
• provides challenging, meaningful and rewarding work
• encourages personal growth, lifelong learning and development
• encourages high performance and recognises and rewards colleague contribution appropriately including an attractive and flexible pay and benefits package
• provides colleagues with open and honest feedback on their performance to assist them in increasing their contribution
• embraces and manages change in a transparent and compassionate way
• values our trades union relationships
• encourages two-way communication that reinforces our One-E.ON Company value

We recognise that we have a responsibility to help our employees flourish and keep us on our toes by challenging the ways we do things and we’ve put in place a number of things to help that happen.

For example, we have a quarterly PRIDE survey which monitors our employee satisfaction and gives people the chance to question us on our approaches as well as highlight areas for improvement. We also have regular focus groups so that we can listen to our colleagues’ opinions in more depth and learn more about the real challenges facing them around our different business areas every day. We’ve also worked hard to find ways of keeping up-to-date our colleagues who spend much of their job on the road. Colleagues are encouraged to use our internal blog sites as well as join in the debate on our Talking Energy YouTube channel and take part in regular Changing Energy sessions which give them the chance to question senior managers including the CEO on our strategy choices

In 2009 we’ve been working to cement our commitment to our colleagues through a ‘people manifesto’, which will articulate what we we’re looking for from our people but more importantly what they can expect from us in return.

Our vision for health and safety is summed up in the statement: “Rule One; we don’t hurt people”. We have set challenging and stretching targets for health and safety performance and attendance throughout the company. Our aim is to deliver a health and safety performance comparable with the best of the petrochemical sector by 2010 and matching the top performing companies for attendance. A particular challenge over the last year has been the level of accidents within our Retail business and particularly amongst our field based Home Energy Consultants (HECs).

In 2008 we implemented a pan-European diversity e-learning programme, which over 300 of our UK managers completed successfully.

During 2008 we invested in developing the skills of our leaders, starting with our Board of Directors and rolling out through our businesses. The leadership programme is designed to facilitate the implementation of our Changing Energy strategy.

In 2008, we gained our first entry into The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers and the highest placed energy utility company.

Colleagues were given greater control over the make-up of their benefits package and just over 5,000 responded by making choices in our Flexible Benefits scheme.

We’re not immune to the impact of the global economic downturn and, in 2008, we announced 400 job losses in our business. The main areas affected were those who provide home energy services, mainly as a result of the downturn in the housing market. Early in 2009 we announced a further 450 reductions, mainly in our Retail business. Our priority is to ensure that any changes are managed in a compassionate and transparent way. Colleagues and trades unions have been involved in detailed consultations and our aim is always to achieve the reductions by voluntary means wherever possible and reduce the impact on affected colleagues, for example, by providing support for them to find other jobs.