Managing our people
Human Resources Standards
Our Human Resources Standards cover topics such as employment relations (including diversity), resourcing, talent management and rewards, and set out the basic standards required in all parts of the business, together with best practices in the spirit of on-going improvement.
Linked to our Standards are a number of more specific documents, policies, practices, frameworks and guidelines. One such example is our global HIV/AIDS guidelines. These include guidance for our business on employment practices, awareness education and activities to help with prevention of HIV/AIDS, medical treatment for employees and families and community involvement.
Our People Strategy
As a fast moving consumer goods business, we trade in a competitive and dynamic environment. The expectations of our consumers, shareowners, customers, external bodies and society are growing and evolving all the time, as are the needs and expectations of our employees. Our People Strategy helps us ensure we can meet these current and future business needs. Our goal on sustainability is to nurture our Company as 'The Place to Be', where diverse colleagues are proud to work and are committed and engaged.
Human resources governance
Our global Human Resources Leadership team comprises HR leaders from our four regions and the centre. It shapes our overall people agenda and priorities. The team makes sure that we embed our human resources strategy in all that we do.
In 2001, we created a Human Rights and Ethical Trading Working Group. Its initial focus was to establish standards, and it now meets regularly to review company-wide progress on human rights matters.
Open communication
We are committed to open and honest dialogue with colleagues and respect their recognised representative bodies. We were among the first companies to grant recognition to trade unions in the early 20th century and were again one of the first to set up European Works Councils in our confectionery and beverages businesses in the 1990s.
When we were planning the sale of our Europe Beverages business, we communicated closely with our people and with various works councils. This not only kept our people informed, it helped us manage and mitigate any adverse impacts on those colleagues who were most closely involved.
Developing and rewarding our people
Capabilities For us, capabilities are the skills, knowledge, behaviours and experience a person needs to do his or her job.
At Cadbury Schweppes, we have developed a comprehensive approach to developing our people and ensuring we have the right people and skills to meet our current and future business needs. We identify and describe in detail the capabilities we need in our jobs, and we assess our people's current skills and provide opportunities for development. We offer on-the-job assignments, executive education and coaching.
We actively nurture existing talent and increase our pool of managers with global capabilities by providing opportunities to gain international experience and development.
Our aim is to improve individual skills and transfer learning and knowledge as well as enhance teamwork and build networks across the Company.
Learning and development At Cadbury Schweppes, learning and development is about providing opportunities for our people to enhance their capabilities and to realise their full potential.
We view learning and development as a shared responsibility between the Company and our individual employees, with the Company providing the resources and individuals providing the essential motivation and commitment. We design learning and development activities to help in this. These focus on increasing the knowledge, experience, skills and behaviours of individuals and teams.
Part of our line managers' responsibility is to identify the training needs of his or her direct reports, match those needs to training and development opportunities and ensure that learning is transferred back into the workplace.
Rewards – fair remuneration
Our reward policies are in line with our HRET commitments and are shaped by business objectives. They are aimed at both motivating our people and providing fair remuneration, with rewards linked to individual and business performance.
Our reward policies are designed to meet the needs of the particular labour markets in which we operate and are competitive locally. At the same time, they comply with or exceed our global Human Resources Standards. For example, our businesses adhere to global guidelines on retirement and related benefits plans. At a global level, we aim to facilitate international movement and management development. Naturally, in all our markets we comply with statutory minimum pay provisions.
Our share plans are promoted to eligible employees every year (around 49%). Of these, 40% choose to participate yearly.