Motivating and inspiring our people 

Engaging with our employees

We have a unique recruitment profile because around 70% of our people transfer to us from other organisations under new outsourcing contracts or through acquisitions. This brings us a constant flow of talented and experienced people but also creates a challenge to establish and maintain a group-wide company culture.

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. We have an open door policy throughout the Group, which is supplemented by more formal communication channels such as our employee intranet, newsletters and Group-wide emails. 

We use a range of communication tools and encourage open, two way communication, listening to our employees and taking action where appropriate. We also organise a number of Group-wide activities to encourage our employees to meet and share knowledge with their colleagues from other parts of the business.

Where employees have any concerns we try to deal with these on an informal basis, causing the least amount of stress to all parties concerned. However, where an informal approach does not resolve an issue we have a formal grievance procedure. This provides employees with a framework in which to raise issues and express their concerns so that they can be dealt with equitably. Any employee who believes that they have been discriminated against should raise the matter under the grievance procedure, or where appropriate, the Anti-Harassment and Bullying Policy. By having clear and well-publicised grievance and harassment procedures in place, we ensure that every opportunity is given to address any area or situation where discrimination is perceived to have arisen.  

We also have a formal policy on whistleblowing which we are committed to applying as it is in the interest of our employees, clients and industry regulators. Any matter raised through this policy will be treated with confidentiality, seriousness and investigated quickly.

Employee Survey

An annual employee survey helps us to identify and track where our policies and initiatives are working well and where we need improvement. In 2009, in particular, employees reported that we were doing well in embedding our equality and diversity action plan, and had good processes in place for whistleblowing and treating customers fairly. We showed improvement in communicating our corporate values and the implementation of our CR strategy, especially through our community investment programme; but we still need to improve on the environmental management of our offices, increasing recycling and introducing new initiatives. The survey response rate rose from 44% in 2008 to 68% in 2009. We will continue to encourage our employees to provide feedback in this way.

Recognising success

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

We recognise and reward the individual success of our employees, both financially and through our Capita People Awards programme. This celebrates employees who demonstrated their commitment to our values: leadership, effective teamwork, cost savings and efficiency, and community engagement. In 2009 nearly 3000 employees were recognised through this programme, encouraging them to achieve further.

We also offer our employees the opportunity to benefit from the company's success through our sharesave and ownership schemes. In 2009 these had 11,042 participants (2008: 8,147), with 32% (2008:23%) of eligible employees taking part.

We also offer our employees various benefit schemes including Childcare Vouchers, HSA Cash Plans, Season ticket loans and Capita Value, a scheme offering employee discounts on a wide range of goods and services.