people
Growth and change have been key themes in Woolworths over the past twelve months – both of which have a fundamental impact on our people and our ability to meet the capacity and resource needs of the business. Supporting the business strategy by putting the right people in the right jobs, and retaining talented, passionate and committed retailers in the business, remains core to Woolworths people strategy.
In support of this core purpose key people strategies were identified as focus areas for the business during 2006.
- Building a high performance team by:
- building inspirational leadership that creates the right culture to turn strategy into action;
- driving an integrated set of business disciplines;
- driving consistent and transparent processes and practices.
- Developing talented, committed and
passionate retailers by:
- attracting, retaining and developing diverse talent;
- ensuring that structures are designed to deliver business strategy, ensuring accountability at all levels;
- building alignment of pay and incentive systems; and
- creating a culture where people can perform at their best.
In the past year, we continued our review of the organisational structures in order to align these structures to strategy and improve the way we work as a single streamlined business. We envisaged that this structure would create a platform for talent development and drive improved business disciplines. We are starting to see the positive effects of the organisational structure review through clearer job profiles and greater understanding of roles and accountabilities.
2007 focus
We expect the biggest challenge in the year ahead to remain the management of growth – providing the right level of talent to meet customers’ needs as the business continues to grow. Accordingly, the focus will be talent development and retention with priority given to increasing the diversity of the Woolworths team at all levels. Supporting the drive to attract and retain talent, the business will continue to focus on shifting the employment framework and culture to a modern, more energising and brand-aligned culture that continues to encourage, motivate and reward high performance.
BEE and transformation
Woolworths remains committed to responsible and sustainable growth in South Africa and continues to focus on a broad based approach to empowerment covering all aspects of the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) scorecard.
Our understanding has deepened in the past year and we ended the year with a far greater awareness of broad based empowerment across the business. Woolworths awaits the release of the final BEE codes by the dti and, in the interim, continues to drive key aspects of this broad-based approach throughout the organisation. (Note: more detail of Woolworths current position vis-à-vis a broad-based scorecard can be found in the separate Sustainability report).
Woolworths core focus for the delivery of BEE and transformation for the year under review was to:
- finalise a proposal for a broad based share scheme for employees, the majority of whom are black;
- continue to create awareness and educate the Woolworths community, including leadership, on broad-based transformation;
- put structures in place and integrate with existing structures for better implementation of BEE across the business;
- continue to drive towards a more diverse workforce with a specific focus on the recruitment and retention of key black talent; and
- review the BEE scorecard and identify the key challenges for Woolworths.
Against these objectives, certain key milestones were achieved, most notably that transformation, specifically BEE, was embraced as a business sustainability imperative and integrated into the Woolworths sustainability index development process.
The work done during the year in reviewing the scorecard components and understanding each business unit’s current status and targets has been invaluable in both setting clear objectives for the delivery of broad based BEE as well as further entrenching transformation in the operational plans of each unit.
employment equity and diversity
Woolworths is committed to building a diverse workforce by balancing gender and colour in recruitment and development practices and increasingly introducing people with disabilities into the workplace. Black representation at management levels has increased by 1.7% during the past year with female representation at management levels increasing by 2%.
Woolworths remains fully compliant with all the administrative and procedural obligations of the Employment Equity Act.
People with disabilities represent approximately 0.5% of our workforce and Woolworths actively considers the selection of appropriately skilled people with disabilities. We are committed to integrating people with disabilities into the workforce, and ongoing education and training is seen as a critical part of this journey.
| Occupational Levels | Designated | Non- desig- nated |
Total | ||||||
| Male | Female | Male | |||||||
| A | C | I | A | C | I | W | W | ||
| Top Management | 1 | 5 | 6 | ||||||
| Senior Management | 5 | 7 | 11 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 38 | 92 | 161 |
| Professionals and middle management |
39 | 118 | 35 | 43 | 126 | 34 | 278 | 251 | 924 |
| Skilled technical and junior management |
256 | 310 | 85 | 252 | 401 | 81 | 248 | 242 | 1 875 |
| Semi-skilled | 2 409 | 1 134 | 158 | 5 181 | 2 852 | 321 | 330 | 175 | 12 560 |
| Total Permanent employees | 2 709 | 1 569 | 289 | 5 477 | 3 384 | 439 | 894 | 765 | 15 526 |
focus 2007
Business units have now accepted responsibility for driving the delivery of BEE against their agreed targets and will make business decisions better informed by BEE requirements. The dti’s broad based BEE scorecard provides a legislated framework and guide for tracking BEE progress and this will be used as a management tool for quarterly measurement and reporting.
We will continue to work on the hearts and minds of people through very audience specific workshops on BEE, which form an important element of Woolworths BEE strategy given the nature of BEE and its legacy.
Equally important is the retention of black talent at management levels of Woolworths, which continues to be a challenge for Woolworths and needs further emphasis in the year ahead.
organisational development
Our latest organisational development survey has indicated a substantial shift towards our strategy of being a modern retailer. In addition, our continued work on clarifying and communicating our values and new ways of working will deliver our desired culture.
leadership framework
Woolworths has implemented a leadership framework, which provides us with a tool to interpret what our employees know, are able to do and how they behave at all levels. It provides ten unique, business-critical, organisation-specific retail and leadership competencies. This framework is used to identify future leaders and their individual development needs, helping us to retain and develop our talent.
employee benefits
Beyond compliance with statutory benefits, Woolworths remains committed to offering a superior employment experience. Current benefits include:
- legal compliance with all statutory benefits, for example, annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave and family responsibility leave;
- additional benefits offered to all our employees include: retirement funding, funeral cover, discounts on merchandise bought, paid maternity leave, additional annual leave, and educational assistance;
- ensuring access to transport to everyone who works either early or late shifts; and
- access to a confidential Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) services and HIV/AIDS disease management programme that includes Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART).
Note: More information on all benefits and Woolworths HIV/AIDS strategy is available in the Woolworths Sustainability report.
employee relations
Woolworths continues to support the view that a direct relationship with employees is preferred. Employees have a right to union representation but we do not have a recognition agreement in place with any union with the exception of Woolworths logistics division, where employees are represented by SACCAWU. This represents about 4% of our total workforce. During the year Woolworths experienced a strike in this division which lasted for 55 days.
Woolworths is committed to enhancing employees’ understanding and engagement with the business through improving the communication process. “Woolies Way” workshops engage staff throughout the selling environment in key business initiatives. In addition to these ongoing workshops, regular internal communication takes place using different channels including internal publications, television broadcasts, e-mails notifications, notice board communication and dedicated roadshows for specific business initiatives.
Improved communication has been identified as a key focus for the business and employee surveys will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the engagement process, ensuring that the majority of our people are receiving the right message at the right time, providing an enabling environment for the delivery of the business strategy.
Woolworths employee relations principles have been determined to promote and entrench fairness, equity and consistency from the beginning to the end of the employment relationship. This includes enhancing the quality of the employment relationship through promoting wellness, capacity building and proactively managing risks within the relationship.
development of our people
Integrated performance management is now integral to our employment practices and was measured as a key performance indicator across the business this year. 98% of employees participated in this process. We are committed to this practice and believe that this is the key in building a high performance organisation.
Ongoing management of talent remains a key priority for Woolworths. Regular talent audits are done and appropriate retention and development plans initiated. Woolworths learning strategy aims to provide a pipeline of retail and leadership talent at all levels, with ready-now knowledge and skills to develop and execute business strategy. In support of this, we are fully accredited by the Wholesale and Retail Seta as a learning provider and registered 246 employees on learnership programmes during the year.
In addition, we continue to run our Retail academy which helps to grow high potential middle managers into leadership roles – 20 employees registered on the programme in the year under review. The programme provides learning in a broad range of retail leadership skills. Individuals wishing to attend the academy undergo a rigorous selection process and, upon successful completion, graduates receive a Post Graduate Diploma in Management Practice from the University of Cape Town.
We offer a further 212 internal learning interventions to support the development of our people with approximately 86% of all training undertaken by our black employees. 1% of direct staff costs were spent on learning in 2006 compared to 1.4% in the previous year and, on average, each person in Woolworths spent 1.3 days on training for the skills year ended 31 March 2006 against a plan of 1.8 days. The reduction in training spend and training days per employee was as a result of the organisational structure review.
The training days have been spent as follows:
- 64% on job related learning;
- 15% on management and leadership development;
- 14% on learnerships; and
- 7% on customer service, environmental, health, safety and security learning.
| Area | Learnerships offered to | Outputs |
| Product |
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| Selling |
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skills levy
In the last skills year, April 2005 to March 2006, Woolworths paid a skills levy of R9.9m (2005: R8.8m).We recovered our maximum available rebate from the Wholesale and Retail Seta.
remuneration
Recognising the need to continually re-evaluate the business employment proposition, especially in the stores environment as trading hours are lengthened to meet customers’ needs for convenience, Woolworths has embarked upon a review of the selling team’s employment proposition. A revitalised employment proposition for the large majority of our employees will support the business’ focus on attracting and retaining top retail talent.
Over and above ad hoc focused reviews, Woolworths pay and benefits strategy is continuously evaluated to ensure that Woolworths remains at the forefront of market related remuneration for all employees. In support of the development of a high performance culture, Woolworths employee remuneration is performance-based.
Currently our employees own approximately 3.3% of our issued share capital. 251 employees participate in Woolworths Holdings Share Trust. 422 of our employees participated in an incentive scheme in the year under review.
In meeting our objective of attracting and retaining high performing retailers, we understand the value of recognition, through monetary and non-monetary awards. Formal recognition practice is centred on the quarterly Woolworths Difference awards. Annually, the truly extraordinary people are selected from the people who have received Difference awards across the year and they are nominated for a CEO Difference award.
(Further detail regarding remuneration can be found in the remuneration committee report).
