Peachtree 2013 Annual Report Download - page 52

Equipping our people for change
Our people are at the centre of our ability to continuously
deliver an extraordinary customer experience. Ensuring
our people are equipped with the relevant skills and
training is a key focus for us.
In many regions we’ve invested heavily in bespoke
learning and development support for our people:
we’ve established a Development Academy in
Switzerland to highlight career paths for potential future
leaders; introduced extensive online training resources
in Spain and North America; developed youth training
programmes in France, Spain, and the UK & Ireland;
and helped people in our European mid-market
business develop their English language skills. In South
Africa we have introduced a regional on-boarding
programme to engage employees in the re-branding
from Softline to Sage.
We have continued to invest in global mobility with
over 30 key moves in 2013 to deploy talent around the
globe. We’ve seen a number of notable success stories,
including the secondment to Europe and North America
of two of our research and development leaders working
on hybrid cloud solutions.
To enable stronger tracking and delivery of projects,
we’ve established clear project management
frameworks, including a Europe-wide project
governance model and customised training programme.
Employees Europe Americas AAMEA
Group and central
operations Total
2013 6,909 3,546 2,006 299 12,760
2012 7,593 3,695 1,929 292 13,509
Leading the way with confidence
In 2013 we continued on our journey to create a more
common culture across Sage that has inner confidence
at its heart. We believe this work will help our people
support our customers with conviction and also help
us attract new talent.
People and organisation continued
Transforming the way we work
Our global strategy is exciting and we want our people
to feel truly inspired by the important part they have
to play in bringing it to life.
We also recognise the importance of supporting them
through the organisational changes that our strategy
demands. Each region has introduced a phased and
targeted change programme including coaching and
skill-building programmes, global brand immersion
workshops, change champions and business-wide road
shows. Regional CEOs and their leadership teams have
relished the opportunity to personally share our vision
and progress with their people and to hear their
responses first-hand.
A particular highlight has been the North American
Sage Confidence Tour, which visited seven Sage offices
across North America during July and August 2013.
The purpose was to further engage employees with our
global strategy and help them understand the skills and
behaviours we need to deliver on our plans. Activities
included personalised talks from local leaders, “shop
local” contests to promote our customers, and team
games designed to push our people out of their
comfortzones.
In addition, we have continued to build on some
of the processes already in place. We have refreshed
our induction programmes and redesigned intranet
systems to facilitate greater global collaboration.
In many business areas we have launched improved
performance management frameworks to ensure our
people’s personal objectives are clearly aligned to our
business strategy. This also allows us to more closely
align our performance measures to the way we reward
our people. We’ll continue to listen to them so that we
can improve and embed these processes during 2014.
Our RV visited seven Sage oces in North America to talk to our customers as part of our Condence Tour.
50 The Sage Group plc | Annual Report & Accounts 2013