Our people
Being a rewarding, challenging and great place to work
2011 highlights
- 26% increase in total workforce (employee and contractors); 29% increase in employees
- 3.2% staff turnover rate for 2011, which is a modest increase on the prior year and within our baseline target of less than 5%
- Over 84% participation in our global employee and contractor feedback survey, 'Talkback’
- 81% favourable engagement score in Talkback, which is significantly higher than the industry benchmark
- 371 new people joined Tullow in 2011, 36% of which joined our African operations
- Our total workforce increased 26% to 1,548 by year-end
Since 2007 our employee numbers have more than trebled, in line with our transformation as a business. Much of our success has been based on the adaptive and entrepreneurial nature of our culture, with organisation & culture forming a key part of our business model. Our culture is also reflected in our values.
Growth in employees
One of our key people challenges is the need to develop and implement systems and processes that provide both rigour and control but ensure that we continue to foster a values based entrepreneurial culture throughout the organisation.
Significant organisational growth
In 2011, we set up operations in Kenya, Ethiopia and Singapore and expanded our offices in Mauritania, the Netherlands and Dublin. We created new specialist teams such as the Subsurface Technology Group and the Global IS Service Desk. We also reorganised the business into regions supported by a strong Group centre and sought to maintain a sharp focus on 'business as usual’ despite significant uncertainty in Uganda, one of the Group’s major projects.
Our HR function facilitates informal communication and involvement on matters that affect employees. Communication and employee consultation form part of our change management approach and we seek to involve stakeholders as early as possible on any new initiatives. Our Global Share Option Plan provides all employees with the ability to have a stake in the success of Tullow. In addition to this, we have expanded our reward benchmarking in countries where it has not previously existed.
Deployment of employees
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West & North Africa | 31% |
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South & East Africa | 24% |
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Europe, South America & Asia | 13% |
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Corporate functions | 32% |
Workforce diversity
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Female | 27% |
|
Male | 73% |
Maintaining our culture
Maintaining our culture was a key Board-level corporate objective in 2011, and we continue to take a number of clear steps to manage this objective. At the recruitment phase we look for people with the requisite skills who align with our values. We reinforce this through our induction process, employee handbook and universal performance management system, where we seek evidence of our values in individual performance. Through our leadership development and coaching programmes we help people to live our values every day at work and to provide support to their teams to do so as well. Our values are outlined in the living our values page.
We also track staff turnover as one of the Group’s KPIs. Our staff turnover in 2011 was 3.2% (2010: 1.3%). We are conscious of this increase despite staff turnover remaining low relative to our industry. Continuing to offer competitive remuneration, providing people with development opportunities and tracking where we can improve our employee engagement will help us minimise staff turnover. We seek to learn from each person who leaves Tullow to help us to improve our employment offer.
Staying connected
Tullow has operations in 22 countries and 45 nationalities of people managing our business from different cultures and backgrounds means we have to work hard to stay connected, informed and engaged as a group, in all locations and at all levels.
We have an Internal Communications team that are primarily based in London, but have local representation in Uganda and Ghana. The team is tasked with keeping everyone involved and engaged with the Group’s initiatives and activities. We manage a variety of channels ranging from our Intranet, videos, Townhall meetings, informal meetings with Senior Management and e-newsletters. Our Intranet, 'TullowNet’, is accessed by over 1,000 people per day and provides employees and contractors with regular updates on our business and people stories as well as social and corporate responsibility news. Over 300 stories were published during the year.
In 2011, one of the Board’s objectives was to improve its visibility both as a group and as individual Directors. There have been 15 formal 'Meet the Executive’ sessions around our global offices, as well as Executive sessions at our Leadership Development Programme. When visiting local offices, members of the Executive make time to host Townhall meetings, informal lunches and Q&A sessions.
Talkback: global employee and contractor feedback survey
'Talkback’ provides a voice to employees and contractors globally. In 2011, the survey received an 84% response rate. Our overall engagement score was 81% favourable, significantly above the energy benchmark defined by the survey intelligence provider, Sirota. Our employees feel our strengths are in the areas of safety, responsibility, innovation, empowerment and teamwork. The main areas for improvement are the obstacles we face as a growing company in achieving more efficiency and effective change management and in the increasing challenges we have in managing a diverse international pool of talent. There are also regional variations in responses that we will need to address. One of our 2012 objectives is to consult widely and to create action plans to further improve our employee engagement and address priority issues. Overall, 71% of employees responded that they intended to stay with Tullow for four years or more, indicating strong and very encouraging retention. Detailed results from the survey will be published in the Corporate Responsibility Report.
Talent management
In 2011, we introduced a process for succession planning and career development and enhanced our existing global online appraisal process. This will be fully rolled out in 2012. We also launched an employee referral scheme in the UK to complement our internal vacancies board. We continue to support our 'T for Talent’ programme. For example, in 2011 we developed a Well Engineering Development Programme where 17 of our well engineers will undertake a programme to develop best-in-class skills in this critical area of our business. During the year, our Learning & Development teams have supported the development of eLearning training for EHS, Compliance and Employee Induction. In 2011, the Tullow Leadership Development Programme was launched with Ashridge Business School. 123 leaders within Tullow have attended the first module of this training; a four-day session on what leadership is and means at Tullow.
Future talent pool
In October 2011, Chief HR Officer, Gordon Headley made a presentation at the Conference of Ghanaian Graduates and Students of Higher Education in the UK. He discussed the HR challenges in Ghana’s oil industry, and participated in a question and answer session. Reaching out to this Ghanaian diaspora, many of whom are completing oil and gas related degrees, helps Tullow to create an understanding of the Ghanaian oil industry and to listen to their views and concerns about the development of the sector in their home country. 268 people from various UK universities attended.
Attendees at a conference of Ghanaian Graduates and Students of Higher Education held at Coventry University, UK.
Localisation
In 2011, we further clarified our approach to localisation by developing a definition and vision, which provides a common platform for consistent implementation and communication of our localisation aims. We also recruited a Group Localisation Manager to lead the development and implementation of our Group Localisation strategy. In the short-term he is focusing on working with Business Unit management teams in Ghana and Uganda to ensure that our localisation agenda in those countries is executed effectively.
