Our people

A few things to be proud of

• The best company to work for in Ireland with over 1,000 employees
• Top 5 best places to work in Europe
• 80 per cent of our employees are  'proud to work for O2'
• O2 Ireland invested e2.6 million last year on employee training and development
• Balanced workforce, almost 50/50 split between men and women
• Our new building in Dublin's Dockland area fully complies with local building regulations including conservation of fuel and energy as well as access for people with disabilities

We were ranked in the Top 10 Best Companies to Work for in Ireland, also winning the overall award for Best Company with more than 1,000 employees. Most recently, we were ranked in the Top Five best places to work in Europe with more than 1,000 employees and we also scooped the 2005 PA Consulting Group Award for Management Excellence.

These accolades come down to the strength and skills of our workforce. Results of the Reflect O2 survey showed that 69 per cent of our employees understand our strategy and what the company is aiming to achieve over the next 12 to 18 months. They feel well rewarded and in fact 80 per cent express themselves 'proud to work for O2'.

We offer our employees a variety of work/life balance opportunities under our Perfect Balance and wellbeing programmes. These include professional workshops relating to pensions and mortgages and creating opportunities for people to improve their health. We do this by providing health and vision screening, parenting courses, yoga, massage, weight watchers and uni-slim classes. More than 500 employees have taken part in the wellbeing programmes to date. Our target for next year is to reduce absenteeism by five per cent as a direct result of these preventative measures.

In the past financial year O2 Ireland invested e2.6 million on employee training and development, which included functional training, personal development and further education for employees.

The balance of our workforce is also very even. We have slightly more women in the business than men and 54 per cent of our 170 senior managers are women. We received an Outstanding Achievement Award at the Irish Institute of Training and Development Awards this year in the category 'All organisations 251 plus employees', recognising best practice in training and development.

We have recently commenced a 'Making it Real' training programme which will be rolled out to every employee by the end of 2005. Its key objective is to help employees better understand how our customers' experiences relate directly to the job that they do every day.

This year we put an increased emphasis on employee communication and engagement by involving our employees in proposed structural changes to the business, and we are involving them in the interior design of our new building which will be ready for occupation in late 2005.
 
Our new building in Dublin's Docklands area fully complies with local building regulations including conservation of fuel and energy as well as access for people with disabilities.

We have already begun to discuss ways to engage with local communities around the new office and are in dialogue with Business in the Community and the Dublin Docklands Authority.

We also engaged our employees in the selection of the charities of their choice to receive funds from our Christmas Card Donation. A number of charities were subsequently selected including Aware and St. Vincent de Paul and they each received a donation of over €5,000.

Willie Murphy from our Access Operations department won O2 plc's first ever Community Investment Awards in 2004. He was selected from the shortlist of O2's employees from across the international organisation, who donate their time and energies to good causes and work with communities in need. These are employees who demonstrate qualities well beyond their jobs.

Willie's success marks a 14-year commitment to the official Air Corps charity, the Cheshire Activity and Motivation Project (CAMP). CAMP's aim is to encourage development and motivate children and adults who have disabilities through a series of adventure and educational activities.

As part of the prize, CAMP received a €14,000 donation from O2's international headquarters. With these funds, CAMP is hoping to extend its activities to Northern Ireland and to organise Mobile MINI CAMPs, a project to get the programme to people with a high level of disability, as well as to organise a fashion show to raise more funds.

O2 Ireland is looking forward to competing in this year's awards and maintaining a high standard of community involvement.