Vodafone 2015 Annual Report Download - page 30

Our people
During the year we employed an average
of 101,4431 people and had 105,970
employees as of March 2015, as well
as 25,267 contractors. The number of people
in our business increased during the year
following our acquisitions of Ono in Spain,
Cobra Automotive in Italy and Hellas Online
in Greece, plus the purchase of over 130
Phones 4u stores in the UK.
The following sections highlight our progress
in the key areas behind our people strategy.
Increasing employee
engagement
For our strategy to work we need our
employees to believe in us. Every year all
our employees are invited to participate
in a global survey which allows us to measure
engagement levels, compare ourselves
with other large companies and help
us identify ways to improve how we do things.
Our employee engagement index measures
how committed our employees are, their
desire to continue working for us and
their willingness to recommend Vodafone
as an employer. The index remained stable this
year at 77 points, still in the top quartile.
Our employee turnover rate, measuring the
rate at which employees leave us, increased
to 18% reecting the increased level
of acquisitions and integration in the business.
We provide information to our employees
in a variety of ways, including our intranet
sites, email, text and video messages, as well
as through individual teams. We also provide
online platforms for employees to feedback
their comments.
Valuing diversity
We believe that a diverse workforce helps
us achieve our goals by helping us better
understand and meet the needs of our
customers. We are both a multinational and
a multicultural company and employ people
from 130 countries, with 24 nationalities
in our Senior Leadership Team (our top
224 managers).
Gender diversity is a key goal for us. At the
end of the year we employed 67,657 men
(64%) and 38,313 women (36%). We have seen
a slight decrease in the proportion of women
in senior management (top c.1,600 managers),
now 23% compared with 24% a year ago, while
the proportion in our Senior Leadership Team
has remained stable at 22%.
To help push our progress in gender diversity,
we launched a new maternity policy in March
2015 that provides mandatory minimum
maternity benets as standard across all our
markets, including 16 weeks’ full pay followed
by full pay for a 30-hour week for the rst
six months after employees return to work.
We believe this will help redress the gender
balance in our business.
We believe in treating all employees equally
and offer equal opportunities in all aspects
of employment and advancement regardless
of race, nationality, gender, age, marital status,
sexual orientation, disability, religion or political
beliefs. This year’s people survey showed that
88% of employees believe that Vodafone
treats people fairly.
Improving our customer focus
All of our employees are expected to work
in the “The Vodafone Way”. This is about
ensuring that we work with speed, simplicity
and trust so that we can be customer-
obsessed at all times. We have run
development workshops for all our senior
management for the fourth consecutive
year and will hold further workshops in the
coming year.
Training our people
We want people to grow their careers
at Vodafone and develop the skills and talent
needed to grow our business. We do this
through formal training, on the job experience
and regular coaching from managers.
We have global training academies for key
areas such as marketing, technology, enterprise
sales, retail, nance and supply chain.
Nationalities in top senior %
leadership roles
Women in senior management %
The people behind
our business
Our people are behind every aspect of our strategy so it is important that
we attract, develop and retain exceptional people so we can always deliver
the best experience for our customers.
Average number of employees
91,272
2013 2014 2015
92,812 101,443
0
90,000
60,000
30,000
120,000
Employee engagement index
78
2013 2014 2015
77 77
0
75
50
25
100
Employee turnover rates %
16
2013 2014 2015
15
18
0
15
10
5
20
26
2013 2014 2015
24 24
0
10
20
30
22
2013 2014 2015
24 23
0
10
20
30
Employees by location %
Italy 6%
Vodacom 7%
Germany
14%
UK 16%
India 18%
Other 34%
Spain 5%
Vodafone Group Plc
Annual Report 2015
28