BP 2007 Annual Report Download - page 64

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People
We had approximately 97,600 employees as at 31 December 2007,
compared with approximately 97,000 at 31 December 2006.
In managing our people, we seek to attract, develop and retain highly
talented individuals in order to maintain BP’s capability to deliver our
strategy and plans.
During 2007, the group people committee was formed, consisting of
the group chief executive and the executive team. This committee takes
overall responsibility for policy decisions relating to employees. In 2007,
these ranged from a new performance and reward approach through to a
new leadership model for the organization.
The energy industry faces a shortage of professionals such as
petroleum engineers as the number of experienced workers retiring is
expected to exceed that of new graduate entrants. To help address this
issue in 2007, we took new steps to attract talented graduates, including
a new marketing campaign, a new selection process and stronger
relationships with a series of selected universities worldwide.
Our policy is to ensure equal opportunity in recruitment, career
development, promotion, training and reward for all employees, including
those with disabilities. Where existing employees become disabled, our
policy is to provide continuing employment and training wherever
practicable.
We run programmes designed to increase the number of local leaders
and employees in our operations so that they reflect the communities in
which we operate. For example, in Azerbaijan, we achieved our 2007
target of 75% of professional positions to be filled by national specialists.
At the end of 2007, 16% of our top 624 leaders were female and 19%
came from countries other than the UK and the US. When we started
tracking the composition of our group leadership in 2000, these
percentages were 9% and 14% respectively. We have a number of
programmes in place to help raise our senior level leaders’ awareness of
diversity and inclusion (D&I), such as our Managing Inclusion programme
in the US. D&I principles are also being incorporated into the Managing
Essentials programme (see below).
We aim to develop our leaders internally, although we recruit outside
the group when we do not have specialist skills in-house or when
exceptional people are available. In 2007, we appointed 72 people to
positions in the 624-strong group leadership. Of these, 49 were internal
candidates.
We provide development opportunities for our employees, including
training courses, international assignments, mentoring, team
development days, workshops, seminars and online learning. We
encourage everyone to take five training days per year.
During 2007, we launched a top priority programme for BP managers
called Managing Essentials, designed to enhance our leadership
development and drive continuous improvement in performance. In
2007, we launched the programme’s first module on effective
performance conversations, which helps managers to have clear and
constructive discussions with staff about their performance. By the end
of the year, 36 programmes had been run, with more than 700 managers
attending. In 2008, we expect to run around 200 programmes for around
4,000 managers.
Through our award-winning ShareMatch plan, run in more than 70
countries, we match BP shares purchased by employees.
Communications with employees include magazines, intranet sites,
DVDs, targeted e-mails and face-to-face communication. Team meetings
are the core of our employee consultation, complemented by formal
processes through works councils in parts of Europe. These
communications, along with training programmes, are designed to
contribute to employee development and motivation by raising
awareness of financial, economic, social and environmental factors
affecting our performance.
The group seeks to maintain constructive relationships with labour
unions.
The code of conduct
We have a code of conduct, launched in 2005, designed to ensure that all
employees comply with legal requirements and our own standards. The
code defines what BP expects of its people in key areas such as safety,
workplace behaviour, bribery and corruption and financial integrity. Our
employee concerns programme, OpenTalk, enables employees to seek
guidance on the code of conduct as well as to report suspected breaches
of compliance or other concerns. The number of cases raised through
OpenTalk in 2007 was 975, compared with 1,064 in 2006. In the US,
former US district court judge Stanley Sporkin acts as an ombudsperson
whom employees and contractors can contact confidentially to report any
suspected breach of compliance, ethics or the code of conduct, including
safety concerns.
We take steps to identify and correct areas of non-compliance and
take disciplinary action where appropriate. In 2007, 944 dismissals were
reported by BP’s businesses for non-compliance or unethical behaviour.
This number excludes some dismissals from the retail business, mainly
at service station sites, for incidents such as thefts of small amounts of
money.
BP continues to apply a policy that the group will not participate
directly in party political activity or make any political contributions,
whether in cash or in kind. BP specifically made no donations to UK or
other EU political parties or organizations in 2007.