Aviva 2006 Annual Report Download - page 66

Aviva plc
Annual Report and Accounts 2006 62
Employees and responsibility
Dear Shareholder,
Around the world Aviva is committed to attracting and retaining the best talent available. We aim to engage
our people in their work, achieve our ambitions and provide a great customer experience. The key to our
success is great leaders, making the most of all our talents and exploiting our international opportunities.
Aviva has to be a company people want to work with and our people strategy is focused on achieving that.
Responsibility
We are aware of our responsibilities and are committed to behaving in a socially responsible way. How we
do business helps us to achieve our ambition of being the world’s most trusted savings, investments and
insurance provider.
Iam determined that we will maintain our sector-leading reputation in corporate social responsibility (CSR)
and we have further important initiatives underway to keep us there.
2006 developments
In 2006, we implemented a worldwide employee survey that allows us to benchmark our performance as an
employer against the best in the world, identify and share good practice, and focus our efforts on issues that
mean the most to our employees.
We launched task forces on three key people-related challenges: building great leadership across Aviva;
delivering talent management offerings that enable our people to achieve their potential; and leveraging the
power of the Aviva brand for our current and future employees. I am confident we will be able to report
significant benefit from these initiatives next year.
Keeping Aviva fit for the future remains vital and not all the answers are easy ones. In 2006, we announced
plans to restructure our UK businesses to improve both efficiency and the service we provide to our customers,
with the loss of 4,000 jobs. We will do all we can to minimise the impact on individuals through management
of turnover, redeployment and voluntary departure. We will help those who leave the business to do so with
dignity and support.
The formation of a boardCSR committee in 2006 raised further the profile of our CSR agenda.
Our decision to carbon neutralise our operations worldwide represents a significant commitment. Aviva is
the first global insurer to commit to doing so. We also became a founder member of Oxfam’s 365 Alliance,
ensuring that Oxfam has pre-committed, planned resource in anticipation of any disaster across the globe.
Valuing diversity and respect at work are a fundamental part of our culture. In 2006, we launched a global
senior women’snetwork group, introduced a range of recruitment practices aimed at attracting minority groups
and provided tools to encourage our employees to engage with and understand our diversity agenda.
Our rapid progress as a forward thinking employer has been recognised through several awards, such as
inclusion in The Times “ top 50 places wherewomen want to work,” (Aviva being the only company to feature
in all categories assessed) and the city category award from Opportunity Now.
Outlook
We have begun 2007 by welcoming, as Aviva employees, 1,500 people in India who had been serving our
customers through third-party employers. That process will continue this year.
We will continue to build our reputation as an employer of choice and a responsible corporate citizen.
Our people and CSR agendas are at the heart of that ambition and I look forward to reporting next year
on the progress we have made in 2007.
John Ainley
Group human resources director
Business review continued