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"The effort put into the quality of the working environment in our call centre led to our operations in Ireland winning 'Call Centre of the year 2001'." Sheila King, Team Leader, O2 Ireland Customer Services |
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Human rights | Diversity | Training | Communications | Health and Safety | Responding to market change The success of mmO2 depends, above all, on the people who work for the Company and we aim to create a working environment for them that matches our core values: to be bold, open, trusted and clear. Our employment policies are designed to achieve this goal. mmO2 is a relatively new company and the businesses that make up our operations are from diverse traditions and national cultures. We aim to offer genuine equality of opportunity to employees wherever they work. The Breathe O2 programme was launched across the Group during the year. In the first phase, Breathe used training sessions and specially created brainstorming workshops, leaflets and internal communications, plus an interactive CD-Rom, to help our employees understand and embrace our new brand and the values it evokes. The programme guided them through the market position and the commercial goals of the mmO2 Group as a whole and emphasised the importance of employees addressing problems proactively. The second phase of the programme - Breathe 2 - was launched in March 2003 and is focused on making all parts of mmO2 customer centric. We believe this work is of vital importance and will distinguish us from all other operators in a highly competitive market. The second phase of the programme is being led by Danuta Gray, CEO O2 Ireland, and a lead coach for the programme has been appointed in each of the operating businesses. Breathe O2 is supported by "Reflect O2", our channel for regular feedback from employees on their thoughts about the Company and the way they are led. The vast majority of employees have engaged enthusiastically in both of these initiatives and we regard them as highly successful. It is clear that employees are excited by the O2 brand and energised by the values we are trying to instill in the business. We expect both programmes to remain important tools in promoting those values.  
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Human rights One of the most important tests of our commitment to our employees lies in the sort of environment we have created in the Company. Our employment policies respect the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labour Organisation declarations. We aim to treat all employees fairly, impartially and without prejudice, regardless of their gender, age, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation or physical ability. We do not tolerate harassment of any sort. We support flexible working arrangements and family friendly policies for our employees. We have recently carried out a human rights audit across the entire Group to ensure that all the operating companies and our headquarters conform to the relevant declarations and accepted standards. The audit showed that all parts of the Group were fully compliant in areas such as wage setting, redundancy and dismissal procedures, health and safety, freedom of association and general industrial relations policy. Some of the areas that were highlighted for improvement through the audit will be included in the next phase of our work. We will commence by increasing the breadth of data we collect and monitor. |
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Diversity Diversity is a focus for concerted action. We believe that a company is most likely to serve its employees, its customers and stakeholders effectively if it reflects society at large. We are determined to ensure that everyone who works for mmO2 benefits from real equality of opportunity. During the year we launched an increased focus on diversity across the Group. Kent Thexton, a member of the Executive Committee and the Board, has been appointed diversity champion for the Group supported by a steering group of senior directors and managers. He is responsible for driving the diversity work through the Group, identifying risks in our current provision and recommending remedies to the Board. The steering group held its first meeting in April 2003. We plan to create structures to manage the diversity project in all the operating businesses and local managers are being made responsible for spreading best practice in their own teams. The project involves detailed analytical work. A diversity diagnosis for each of the operating businesses and for the UK headquarters is being carried out using face-to-face interviews, focus groups and surveys to find out how people in each of the businesses feel about diversity issues. O2 UK has also joined the Race for Opportunity and Opportunity Now initiatives, which are external diversity benchmarks for companies. In common with the human rights work, the results of the diversity initiative are showing that there are some important weaknesses that we must address in different parts of the Group. For example, women are poorly represented in senior management positions (24.3 per cent) even though they make up 40 per cent of the total workforce and are fairly well represented at junior and middle management levels. We recognise this needs to improve. People from ethnic minorities in the UK represent 10 per cent of our workforce. We want to encourage further development here as well. We are a member of the Employers' Forum on Disability, the UK organisation set up to help companies employ and offer genuine opportunity to disabled employees. We also make every effort to help an employee who becomes disabled to stay in employment. In the UK, we are also a member of the Two Ticks Disability Symbol scheme. This means we honour commitments such as interviewing all candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and consider them on their abilities. We recognise that there is more we can do to ensure we optimise the skills and abilities of our disabled employees. A key challenge in the current year is to establish our vision for diversity and inclusion, translate this into effective policies and make a genuine impact on the day-to-day behaviours of our people. This is a business imperative and our aim is to encourage employees at every level to see this as an important operational issue.  Error: The pie-chart below represents the total number of senior management within the mmO2 Group, including both female and male. 
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Training mmO2 is committed to learning and development for all employees. Our focus is on promoting a culture of continuous learning and knowledge sharing, which maximises personal performance and growth within the context of our business. Employees are required to agree a development plan with their line manager as part of their annual performance review, and progress with development is regularly reviewed during the year. We expect our people to constantly update and extend their skills and knowledge. While the key focus is experiential "on-the-job" development, a range of training options is available including e-learning and, throughout our operating businesses, traditional classroom training for skills development. Employees are given time away from their normal work to complete training. |
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Communications We communicate with employees regularly through a number of channels, not least the company-wide intranet, Vital O2, and our employee magazines. We encourage them to engage with the work they do, the people they work with and with the customers we serve. The Breathe and "Reflect O2" programmes play a vital role in encouraging greater involvement as well as facilitating regular feedback from employees. Employees are also consulted through trade unions, works councils and elected employee representatives. Approximately 67 per cent of our permanent employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. These agreements are kept under review, with changes being made through discussion with the relevant representative body as required. Our employee grievance procedure spells out the informal and formal procedures in place for employees who want to escalate a complaint against the Company. We have a code of Business Principles and demand that all employees act ethically in all their dealings with each other and with people and organisations outside the Company at all times. |
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Health and Safety The health and wellbeing of our employees and all those that work for the Company are of paramount concern. We have an established, Group-wide health and safety strategy agreed at Board level that is kept under constant review and commits us to seeking continuous improvement. Ultimate responsibility for health and safety rests with Peter Erskine, CEO mmO2. Dave McGlade, CEO O2 UK, has been appointed health and safety champion for the business as a whole. As an absolute minimum we aim to comply with all EU and UK safety legislation and relevant industry standards. Our stance is uncompromising. We expect zero-tolerance of injury and ill health arising from work activities. Our accident reporting arrangements are in line with the ILO Reporting Code of Practice 1995. We have systems in place to report and record the details of all accidents occurring within the Company. These systems will allow us to report any notifiable incident to the relevant national authority, to their stated time scales. The data from these systems allow us to analyse our accidents, identify trends and issues and develop robust solutions. A formal consultation process exists across each of our Business Units engaging Trade Union representatives and other employee representatives in dialogue with managers about our occupational health and safety arrangements. In addition the Company is represented at the European Commission Social Dialogue Committee (Telecommunications Sector) Health and Safety Working Group where discussions between the employers and European Telecommunications Trade Unions (UNI Europa) address opportunities for pan-European solutions to sector specific health and safety issues. Our health and safety arrangements have all of the key elements contained in the ILO Safety and Health Management System 2001, the UK's HSG65 and the guidelines documented in OHSAS18001, in terms of policy, organisation, planning and implementing, evaluation and action for improvement. Our main UK based operation, O2 UK, is accredited to the OHSAS18001 Standard by the British Standards Institute and O2 Ireland is currently engaged in achieving accreditation to the same system. The management of the health and safety procedures of every operating business is annually reviewed through external audits, which are carried out as part of our insurance programme. In the year to March 2003 mmO2 had 210 accidents resulting in 575 days lost in subsequent sick absence. Based on a population of 12,476 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees this represents 16.8 accidents per 1,000 FTE and 46 days sick absence resulting from sick absence per 1,000 FTE. We have set ourselves a target of reducing the number of sick absences arising from work-related injury or illness by 10 per cent by March 2005. We also have a target of zero enforcement actions by health and safety enforcement agencies. |
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Responding to changing market conditions The re-organisation of the businesses that make up mmO2 into one company has inevitably involved restructuring and, in the last year, there was a reduction in the number of people we employ as we worked to eradicate duplication and sought to boost efficiency. During the year the total number employed in the Group fell from 14,300 to 12,476. Where possible we make reductions in the workforce through voluntary redundancies. When compulsory redundancies are necessary, efforts are made to help people find alternative employment. The management of our call centres in the UK is undergoing considerable change as we seek to make them more efficient and effective in dealing with calls from our customers. There are some considerable challenges to overcome in this area, including improving the support and training our advisors receive in dealing with customers. We are beginning to manage our call centres by work streams rather than as separate geographic units. Many of our call centres in the UK, where we employ up to 1,400 on our biggest sites, have a high proportion of temporary employees and higher levels of staff turnover, although this is below industry norms for our employees. We are seeking to increase the number of permanent employees in call centres progressively. Pay and conditions for our permanent employees are above industry norms. We work hard to take account of the diversity of people working in these relatively large units and to provide ways for employees to become involved in the local community. Details on our employee volunteering can be found in the community section of this report. In the UK we employ a number of people from a diverse range of cultures. We make provision for the different religious beliefs of our employees by allowing them to book meeting rooms should they wish to pray during their working day. |
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