3.3 Motivated workforce

Capita is a people business. We depend on the dedication and enthusiasm of our 36,000 employees to consistently deliver high quality services to our clients.

To attract and retain the best people, we aim to provide a workplace that is supportive, rewarding, diverse, safe and inspiring. The range of career opportunities within Capita continues to grow as the Group expands. We encourage and support personal and career development with a range of structured training options.

We ensure our managers have the right training and knowledge to embed Group policies at local level and we empower them to make decisions and respond quickly to clients’ needs and business issues. In order to promote knowledge sharing across the Group, we actively reassign managers to new business areas when appropriate and when it will not impact on service delivery to our clients. In turn our managers benefit as they develop their skills and knowledge and remain motivated.

Although few activities at Capita present a high safety risk, we implement robust health and safety procedures company-wide and provide specific training for any employees facing safety risks.

Attracting the right people

It is essential to attract the right people. As the Group has expanded, we have been able to offer broader opportunities to our employees, making us increasingly attractive to people looking for a challenging and varied career.

Because around 70% of our people transfer to us from other organisations, we have a constant flow of talented and experienced people. We work hard to ensure that all employees understand and adopt our company workplace culture and values.

Our relatively flat management structure allows fast decision making, team working and support across the Group and enables open access and communication for all our people. We are continuing to invest in senior management to support the growth we anticipate going forward and in 2008, we recruited 62 senior managers taking our senior management team to 433.

We have created an environment which rewards performance. Remuneration packages across the Group are set at levels that keep us competitive in each part of the business. For our senior people, responsible for the overall direction and performance of the Group or its component parts, a significant element of their financial reward is linked to the financial success of the business.

Diversity, inclusion and human rights

We believe our success is a direct result of our commitment to maximising the potential of each employee. Diversity and equal opportunities are values we take seriously and seek to apply universally across the Group.

Our HR policies cover all forms of discrimination and are designed to comply with or exceed the employment procedures in the countries in which we operate. They meet UK, European and Indian employment law as well as international human rights legislation, including International Labour Organisation standards.

Where possible, we employ local people and ensure that our workforce reflects the composition of the local community.

During 2008, we continued to progress our Diversity Action Plan, introduced in 2007. As part of this, our ‘diversity champions’ held diversity forums to share and promote best practice among our employees and discuss any concerns they have. We also engaged with trade unions and worked with a number of external partners such as the Employers’ Forum on Disability.

Developing and supporting our employees

We invest in our staff, training them in the skills they need to deliver quality services for our clients. We define the skills and behaviour we need from our people to help us to continue to succeed and to meet these requirements. We have an internal training programme, delivered mostly by our own training business.

We ensure our employees have the right skills to deliver quality service through 3 main types of training:

We provide training through the most appropriate channel and where possible we have continued to adapt our training so that it can be delivered online. Both the e-induction programme for new starters and the managers’ guide programme can now be accessed via our intranet.

We recognise that we have to create the conditions for a diverse workforce. This requires a degree of flexibility over working arrangements. We encourage flexible working arrangements and allow job sharing, term time working, flexitime and working from home where possible. We believe this approach benefits not just individuals but the Group as a whole.

We offer employee share ownership enabling our people to benefit from the company’s success. In 2008, 23% of the Group’s eligible employees had share options or owned Capita shares.

Succession planning is a key element of our MOB process. It ensures that we have the appropriate resources in place to maintain stable leadership and to guarantee service continuity for clients. It is continually reviewed by the Board.

Managing and inspiring people

We understand the importance of valuing our employees so that they, in turn are motivated and inspired to give their best. We achieve this in 3 ways:

In 2008 we continued the development of ‘Capita desktop’, an integrated online HR administration system for managers and employees. We introduced e-payslips, significantly reducing the need for paper payslips and piloted annual leave request systems. This has led to greater compliance with our HR practices and employment legislation across the Group.

We recognise and reward success financially, and through our employee awards programmes. Awards reflect the attributes that are core to Capita’s ethos: effective teamwork, innovation, service excellence and community engagement, and offer an opportunity to recognise exceptional individual and team performance.

We engage with our employees, promoting two-way communication and asking them to give their views. We aim to provide a secure, trusting ‘no blame’ culture, where ideas are shared regardless of position, so that everyone can participate in adding value across our business. An open door policy throughout the Group is supplemented by more formal communication channels. Our people also have the opportunity to communicate their views in an annual employee survey.

Our ability to manage employee integration through supportive transfer procedures is one of our greatest strengths. We apply the same principles of support and integration to all our newly transferred employees and new recruits, providing them with the information they need and dealing with any specific queries or worries they may have. To help them integrate successfully into Capita we consult with them throughout the process and provide support, explaining the benefits of the transfer and of sharing Capita’s future success.