Workplace

Workplace

In 2006 we set out to be an employer of choice and to develop a growing reputation as ‘a great place to work’.

During the year we integrated with Telefónica, S.A. and our 29,366¹ employees have generally welcomed this as a positive move.

A key theme in the year was to continue to make O2 a great place to work. We aim to help employees achieve a good work-life balance.

During 2006 we successfully reached our key Group targets to:

• Become an employer of choice.
• Raise awareness of health and wellbeing.

We want to enable employees to work to the O2 brand values – to be bold, open, trusted and clear – and to fulfil our commitment to put customers at the heart of everything we do.

We aim to provide a work environment where employees feel involved, well rewarded, inspired, appreciated and fulfilled, by offering the conditions, business strategy, rewards and work-life balance that persuade people to want to work for O2 and make them proud to stay with us.

¹ People in post as at 31 December 2006

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Awards and recognition

Our efforts in the workplace were rated highly during the year, and we were recognised publicly for our programmes.

Telefónica O2 Europe

• O2 Germany and O2 Ireland were placed in the Top 10 of Europe’s best workplaces in the Great Place to Work® Institute survey.

O2 UK

• Named fifth best company to work for and the highest-scoring telecommunication company in the Sunday Times ‘Best Companies to Work For’ in the ‘Big Companies’ category. 
• Special award from the Sunday Times for wellbeing in the workplace.
• Named among 30 great places to work by the Great Place to Work Institute, published by the Financial Times.
• Investor in Excellence Award at the London Excellence Awards.
• The O2 pension scheme was voted Scheme of the Year (medium sized) at the Professional Pensions Awards and Scheme of the Year (small and medium sized) at the Pension Management Awards.

O2 Germany

• Voted into the Top 10 of Europe's best workplaces in the Great Place to Work® Institute survey.
• Ranked 9th in Germany's Best Employers 2006 awards, published by Capital.
• Special award for our health activities.

O2 Ireland

• Voted overall best company to work for in Ireland in 2006 and best company to work for with more than 1,000 employees from the Great Place to Work® Institute.
• Won the Chambers Ireland Presidents Award 2006 for best workplace-based CSR project for a multinational company.

Manx Telecom

• Investor in Excellence Award at the British Quality Awards.

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Case Study: O2 UK

In the UK, our People strategy is to make O2 a place where happier people perform at their best and are more loyal. Following our UK-based Better Place Summit in January 2006, we developed a ‘People Promise’, together with our employees. This is a key element in our business strategy. It underpins our customer promises, which were developed by each business in 2005.

Our People Promise covers seven key elements:

• A warm welcome.
• Part of something special.
• A great place to work.
• The opportunity to get on.
• Trusted to do a good job.
• Managed with a human touch.
• Thanks for a job well done.

The initiative inspired our UK business to show appreciation for hard work and improved performance through the Thanks A Million scheme. This challenged all employees to work together for a net increase of one million added customers during the year. Having achieved this goal, all permanent full-time employees were rewarded with an extra £1,000 in their March 2007 pay packets plus an extra day’s holiday – pro-rated for part-time employees. The scheme has been extended in 2007 with the current challenge to remain number one in UK customer satisfaction ratings at the year-end.

In early 2007, O2 UK and Airwave were named one of the top employers in the UK, being ranked fifth in The Sunday Times’ 2007 Best Big Companies to Work For list.

O2 also achieved the highest ranking ever for a mobile operator and has been awarded a two-star accreditation denoting an ‘outstanding’ company’. O2 was also given first place in the ‘Best for Well Being’ category and short-listed in the ‘Best for Giving Something Back’ category.

This ranking is based on extensive third-party research of company employees, assessing workplace culture, practices and how employees feel towards their employers. The 'Best Companies' accolade is awarded through three separate lists to the best small, mid-sized and large companies that achieve the highest scores in their categories.

These accolades recognise that O2’s culture stands out.

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