In 2023, in line with the refresh of our company brand, we updated our corporate values, engaging many colleagues throughout the business in the process.
Our aims were to enable our people to align themselves with Tullow’s strategy and goals and create a compelling values and behaviours framework that will empower all our colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day.
Our new corporate values are clear, simply expressed and resonate with our colleagues. They are inspirational while holding us to account for our actions in an inclusive and empowering culture. We shared these values widely across the organisation in an intensive period of communications, discussions and sessions with the senior leadership team and many in-person and online events.
Our values
Aim high
- Have a growth mindset and adapt to change.
- Seize every opportunity to learn and improve.
- Work together to uncover greater impact for our business, stakeholders, and the communities we work with.
Own it
- Take ownership and empower others through trust, clear expectations, and open communication.
- Balance innovation with structure and diligence.
- Deliver results with focus and intention.
Be true
- Promote an inclusive and fair environment where all are supported, and every voice and contribution is recognised.
- Act responsibly, with safety as a fundamental, non-negotiable aspect of our work.
- Do what is right.
We aim to foster an organisation in which all colleagues are motivated to live our values and support our purpose, while realising value for themselves in terms of meaningful work, professional growth and competitive compensation and benefits. The framework which encompasses this ambition is our Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and it is reflected in our human resources policies and programmes, training and communications. We survey our employees every two years to understand how the EVP is delivering value to our employees and assess their broader engagement level in the organisation. The last survey was in 2022 in which 90% of employees participated, resulting in an average positive score of 70% across the sum of all survey questions. Our next survey will take place in 2024.
An important channel for employee engagement and representation is our Tullow Advisory Panel (TAP) which comprises a diverse panel of eight elected colleagues from different functions and locations. The TAP meets at least quarterly with members of Tullow’s senior leadership team and separately, with the independent Non-Executive Directors on the Board, to provide feedback collected from colleagues on a wide range of topics. This year, for example, topics which were discussed included technology hardware issues, remuneration questions and remote or hybrid working arrangements.
Beyond mandatory training on ethical conduct, compliance, health, safety and technical skills development, we invest in providing leadership and development training for employees to complement functional knowledge. We aim to provide at least 20 hours of professional development training per employee per year.
In 2023, we launched an online learning hub to give employees access to self-training resources and support for personal and professional development. We put in place a number of leadership development masterclasses, including peer-to-peer coaching to talk about challenges and share insights. Our employees achieved over 7,000 hours in training during the year.
Our mentoring programme continued during the year with a third cohort of 20 employees being paired with 20 mentors from different parts of the organisation to assist our colleagues with leadership and other skills and support them in navigating job challenges.
As part of our people development, we review succession plans for leadership roles and create opportunities for development for individuals. Our Continuous Performance Management process drives open and honest discussions about performance, opportunities to improve and skills to be acquired.
In 2023, 30% of new hires were women, and 53% of new hires were African.
100% of Tullow employees participated in a performance review in 2023.
Enhancing our inclusive and diverse culture: Inclusion and diversity are defining components of our culture and the way we work and we are proud of our culturally and geographically diverse team. We aim to drive equitable opportunity for all employees in different parts of our business, with particular focus on localisation of African nationals and the advancement of women in our organisation.
We continue to educate for inclusion and 356 employees attended Unconscious Bias training this year, and we held many guest speaker events to raise awareness and further embed our inclusion and diversity culture in the organisation.
Tullow continues to report in accordance with the Gender Pay Reporting set by the UK Government on a voluntary basis, even though out headcount falls below the legally applicable threshold for mandatory reporting. For UK permanent employees, Tullow has calculated the percentage difference in hourly pay for males and females for the month of April 2023 and the bonus paid over a 12-month period to April 2023. For more details, please see our 2023 Gender Pay Gap Report.
Elevating women in finance: We are a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter, which demonstrates our ongoing commitment to improving the gender diversity of our workforce, particularly improving women’s representation at senior levels in our finance function. In 2023, we maintained a level of 50% of female representation in our senior finance team, exceeding our goal of 45%.
Accelerating localisation: Our strategy of hiring local nationals and providing them with professional development as we continue to grow our business is one of the most important ways we can meet our commitment to the socio-economic development of our host nations. Our objective in Ghana is to reach 90% overall workforce localisation, and we made further progress in 2023, achieving 76%.
In Ghana, localisation refers to the extent to which jobs originally held by expatriates are filled by Ghanaian nationals. Accelerating localisation means progressing several opportunities to hire, train and develop Ghanaians in our business. Supported by our human resources inclusion and diversity programmes and processes, we advance localisation across different dimensions of our workforce.
In 2023, we operationalised a Memorandum of Understanding on “Ways of Work” with the Government of Ghana, represented by the Ministry of Energy, the Petroleum Commission and other agencies. The approach and commitments defined in the MOU aligns with our long-standing localisation obligations and efforts to enhance Shared Prosperity and create opportunities for local hiring and local capacity development. These include renewed commitments to localisation, developing people through internships and apprenticeships and other areas of collaboration to help to build resilience in the Ghanaian economy through a skilled local workforce in an essential industry.
Tullow offers internship opportunities in Ghana, which are extremely popular. We generally receive an average of 400 applicants for our six-week internship cycle annually. In 2023, we welcomed 47 interns in different departments.
Our Sustainability Report 2023
This Sustainability Report complements our 2023 Annual Report and provides further details of our environmental and social performance over the past year.
