BT 2016 Annual Report Download - page 29

Overview The Strategic Report Governance Financial statements Additional information
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We’re doing this by:
• Inspiring Kids to connect with exciting and relevant tech
concepts;
• Enabling Teachers to feel confident to teach young people
about tech in computing lessons; and
• Equipping Schools to be able to use technology eectively.
We’re working with our partners – the British Computer Society
and the National Schools Partnership – to deliver the Barefoot
Computing Programme, which helps primary school teachers
across the country deliver the new computing curriculum. Over
the 2014/15 school year we supported 12,500 teachers, helping
to give around 340,000 children better teaching in computer
science. We’re on track to reach a further 15,000 teachers and
400,000 children by the end of the 2015/16 school year.
Getting young people ‘Work Ready’
We’re a founding partner of Movement to Work, a voluntary
collaboration of UK employers committed to tackling youth
unemployment. Our Work Ready programme helps 16–24
year‑olds get better prepared for work, building both confidence
and their core employability skills. It often supports people from
disadvantaged backgrounds.
Our traineeship programme is at the heart of our strategy. Those
not currently in education, employment or training can join BT for
seven weeks of skills development and work experience. So far over
1,000 young people have taken part in this initiative, with more
than 600 gaining recognised certificates in work skills and business
administration. Many go on to get jobs, either in BT or elsewhere.
The Prince’s Trust
BT is part of The Prince’s Trust Technology Leadership Group, which
helps thousands of young people turn their lives around each year.
We’ve donated use of the BT Tower as a venue for the Trust’s
annual ICT Leaders Dinner for the last ten years – raising £96,000
in 2015.
Engaging our people
We continue to focus on the health of our organisation. From the
rapid expansion of our Academy, through to the business initiatives
that are driving ‘Continuous Improvement’ across BT, we are
investing in a culture of strong employee engagement.
This also benefits our customers. We believe that highly‑engaged
employees provide the best experience for customers, helping us
to broaden and deepen our relationship with them.
Employee engagement index
Year ended 31 March
2012 20142013 2015 2016
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.9
Challenge Cup
Challenge Cup is our key people engagement programme. It’s an annual
competition that started in 2003.
It encourages people to form teams and come up with insights and new
initiatives, including ideas for changing business processes.
The aim of the Challenge Cup is to improve customer experience while
generating ideas for creating growth and saving money for BT. This year
over 4,300 people came together to form over 900 teams across 24
countries. The number of people participating has increased year on
year, with 67% of those involved this year doing so for the first time.
Twice a year, more than 72,000 people provide feedback on
working for BT through our employee engagement survey. It helps
us develop a focused people strategy and support action planning
at a local level. Engagement levels have remained stable for the last
two years at just over 3.8 (out of a maximum of 5, with a telecoms
benchmark of 3.95).
We keep our people informed about company results, major
business decisions and other things that aect them using a
variety of digital channels. Leaders regularly connect with their
teams through roundtable meetings, town hall debates, site visits,
webcasts and blogs.
We consult with our people or their representatives on a regular
basis, taking their views into account on decisions that aect
them. In the UK we recognise two main trade unions. The
Communication Workers Union represents people in engineering,
administration and clerical positions. Prospect represents
managerial and professional people.
Diversity at work
Diversity is part of our heritage – as far back as 1880 Henry
Fawcett, who was blind, was appointed Postmaster General.
Improving the mix of our people remains a priority and, in
particular, we’re encouraging more women to take up a career
in technology. We’re proud of our Tech Literacy programmes and
events like the BT Young Scientist and Technology exhibition
that target young women in education. We’ve run recruitment
campaigns in Openreach to attract more women into engineering
and redesigned our entry schemes to try to get rid of any
unconscious bias.
19,000 women now work for us – many with exible contracts.
That’s 21% of our workforce and there are more than 11,000
women in our management team (corresponding to 26%).
We aim to have at least 25% female representation on our Board,
and it currently sits at 27% (three out of 11 Board members).
Our maternity return rate, measured one year after women come
back, is 86%, well above the industry average.