The Group is committed to a working environment: in which personal and employment rights are upheld; which ensures equality of opportunity for all employees and job applicants; and which enables employees to realise their maximum potential and to be appropriately challenged and fully engaged in the business, with opportunities for skills enhancement and personal development. NIE and Powerteam are Investors in People accredited.

Equal opportunities

The Group is pro-active in implementing human resource policies and procedures to ensure compliance with fair employment, sex discrimination, equal pay, disability discrimination, race discrimination, sexual orientation and age discrimination legislation. The Group’s equal opportunities policy commits it to providing equality of opportunity for all employees and job applicants and it regularly monitors its actions to promote compliance with legislation and to ensure that it provides equality of opportunity in all its employment practices. Equal opportunity measures and statistics in respect of the relevant businesses are reported formally to the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.

Disability

It is Group policy to provide people with disabilities equal opportunities for employment, training and career development, having regard to aptitude and ability. Any member of staff who becomes disabled during employment is given assistance and re-training where possible.

Remuneration

The Group operates fair and visible remuneration policies which are externally benchmarked to ensure that employees are paid an appropriate salary for the work they undertake. The Group seeks to align employee interests with those of other key stakeholders through an effective approach to recognition and reward, based on business and individual performance. Various reward schemes are in place including incentive schemes, out of hours schemes, time banking arrangements, bonus schemes and skills progression arrangements.

Learning and development

The Group aims to align its human resources policies with key business drivers, which include performance and productivity improvement; cost reduction; business growth and innovation; and providing value to customers. These policies are supported by clearly defined values and behaviours, a robust performance management process, a strong commitment to employee and management development and organisational competence built upon appropriate capabilities and skills. To ensure a highly skilled, multi disciplined workforce, a multi skilled approach has been taken to vocational training schemes. Learning and development needs are identified through performance, planning and review processes.

Policies

There are formal employee complaints and grievance procedures and the Group has a wide range of family-friendly working arrangements including enhanced maternity and paternity provisions, adoption, parental and dependant leave, a child care scheme, career breaks, job sharing and flexible working hours.

Sickness absence

The Group believes that the pro-active management of illness and absenteeism is to the mutual benefit of the Group and its employees. An employee health and well-being policy is in place with specific policies on stress management, mental health, alcohol and drug-related problems, smoking and first aid. External occupational health and counselling services are available for employees. Sickness absence for the Group was 2.61% in 2008/09 compared to 2.73% the previous year, below the national average of 3.5%.

Employee participation and external engagement

The Group places significant emphasis on internal communications. Employee communications occur through team briefings, employee surveys, engagement groups, communication and involvement groups, project groups, electronic communications, company forums and through interaction, consultation and negotiation with trade unions. Employee relations in all businesses are positive and constructive. Approximately 64% of employees are union members. There are well established arrangements for consultation, involvement and the promotion of employee relations through a framework of company councils. Several consultative committees are also in place dealing with areas such as health and safety and business improvement ideas. A managed process of communication occurs at the individual employee level and the performance, planning and review processes are designed to include upward feedback.

The Group has defined a number of principal corporate social responsibility (CSR) themes and priorities relevant to the management of SEE-related risks that may impact upon the short and long-term value of the Group. These are classified below under the headings of Workplace Safety,Workplace Employment,Environment, Marketplace and Community.