Corporate Responsibility Review
Colleague Strategy
As we face the unprecedented financial turmoil in global markets, our focus on colleague development has never been more important. Our ability to execute our strategy within these tough markets relies on engaging with, and motivating, all our colleagues to deliver consistently outstanding performance.
Our colleague strategy is very clear. We aim to have the strongest leadership teams in the sector and we are very clear about the high expectations of both what our leaders deliver and how they do this. HBOS-U, our corporate university for senior managers, has been an outstanding success: 76% of colleagues believe their line manager is good at managing people (against an industry norm of 58%). HBOS-U will be extended to all leaders in 2008.
We provide all our colleagues with ongoing opportunities to learn and develop their careers. We constantly evaluate our efforts to create a positive working environment that reflects the diversity of our colleagues. We are committed to achieving high standards of health and safety across all of our businesses. Our Health and Safety policy is available on our Corporate Responsibility website.
We keep all aspects of our reward systems under continuous review to ensure they deliver the right reinforcement in respect of recruitment, retention and motivation. In 2007, colleagues were awarded £80m in free shares and a total of £270m in cash bonuses. HBOS colleagues across the UK have now received £218m in free shares since our Free Shares scheme began in 2005.
Through our Colleague Opinion Survey we track our
leadership and capability indices as well as employer and product advocacy. Our success is clear, 76% of colleagues would speak highly of HBOS as an employer, well ahead of
the industry norm of 50%.
Last year, we signed a groundbreaking Partnership Agreement with our partner unions ACCORD and Unite. Over the next five years we will seek to increase membership to approximately 70% of UK colleagues. We believe this ambition makes us unique in the UK financial sector.
We have made excellent progress, but we are not complacent. Our challenge is even more pressing given the changed marketplace, but we are confident our work to date has created a platform that we can build on this year in a way that will help truly set HBOS apart from its competitors.