Ours is an exciting and dynamic business - and a demanding one.  We believe that if we are to expect people's continued energy and commitment to achieving our business objectives, we must provide the right environment for that to happen. We want our people to feel positive and enthusiastic about what they are doing, with a clear sense of purpose, confidence in their ability to meet the challenges and pride in AstraZeneca and their contribution to our success. 

This means providing inspiring and effective leadership, open lines of communication, excellent learning and development opportunities and an inclusive culture in which individual success depends solely on personal merit and performance.

Leading the way
Good leadership is critical to stimulating the high-level of performance that is essential to our continued success in a changing and increasingly challenging environment. We know that simply setting high-level performance targets is not enough. Actions must be identified and accountability assigned at the right levels to ensure that these actions are implemented.

The AstraZeneca Board sets the Group strategy and policies, agrees the business objectives and monitors progress towards meeting them. This includes regular reviews of financial performance and critical business issues. Led by the Chief Executive Officer, our Senior Executive Team (SET) is a cross-functional, cross-territorial group that focuses on the day-to-day running of the business, making decisions on major business issues and leading the delivery of our business targets.

For our 66,800 employees worldwide, we work to ensure that everyone has clear objectives and accountabilities, aligned with our high-level business targets. Optimising performance is a priority and managers are responsible for working with their teams to develop performance targets against which individual and team contribution are measured and rewarded.

Strengthening capabilities
To help them deliver their best, we encourage and support all our people in developing their capabilities to the full with a range of high quality learning and
development opportunities. Backed by a set of core principles and common processes that ensure a consistent approach, our managers are responsible for identifying and developing all the talent in their teams. We also have a range of global training programmes designed to strengthen leadership capabilities, enhance core management skills and help our leaders develop good working relationships across the organisation. These programmes are complemented by local initiatives, which include functional or country-specific aspects of leadership development. 

Valuing differences 
We believe that AstraZeneca gains great creative strength and energy from the
diversity of backgrounds and skills that our global workforce offers. We encourage all our people to share their knowledge and ideas across functional and territorial boundaries, and to build high performance teams within an inclusive culture that recognises and values all the ways in which we are different.

And because our business is based on innovation, we also encourage people to be continuously creative, to question assumptions and systems, to challenge each other and build on fresh insights to find new and better ways of doing things. Within our culture, “we have always done it this way” is the best reason to think again.

Our continuing goal is to ensure that diversity is appropriately supported in our workforce and reflected in our leadership. Diversity and talent management are included in our SET objectives and we have a set of minimum standards that support global alignment in the integration of diversity and inclusion into our
Human Resources processes. During 2006, our focus continued to be on ensuring diversity is appropriately refl ected in our senior management teams. As an indicator, 33% of the 79 senior managers reporting to the SET are women (compared with 22% of 88 senior managers in 2005).

Ongoing dialogue
We know that the sharing of information is essential to maintaining people’s confidence in AstraZeneca and their commitment to its objectives. As well as face-to-face meetings, we use a wide range of communications media to ensure our people are kept up-to-date with business developments and are clear about what these mean for them. Feedback is very important to us and opportunities for giving feedback are built into all levels of communication. In addition, our Code of Conduct outlines the procedures for employees to raise integrity concerns,
including a global confi dential telephone helpline number.

We also use a two-yearly, global, web-based survey to track levels of employee
engagement and identify areas that need more attention. In 2006, we conducted our fourth such survey, which generated the highest response rate to date (86%), refl ecting people’s continued confidence in it as a trusted feedback mechanism. Click here to read more about the results of the survey.

Promoting a safe, healthy workplace
Providing a safe workplace and promoting the health and wellbeing of all our people has always been a core priority for AstraZeneca. As we continue to expand and change our activities, we are strengthening and adjusting our commitment, building on our traditional programmes that focus on workplace behaviours and attitudes, coupled with new approaches to managing stress and helping employees understand their personal health risks.  You can read more about our commitment to the safety, health and wellbeing in the Responsibility section of this website.

Every interaction counts

We believe what we do is important. We also believe how we do it is just as important to our stakeholders and wider society. Only by working responsibly can we earn the trust and confidence that make such a vital contribution to our corporate reputation and our licence to do business. This means making every interaction, both inside and outside the Company, count towards building our individual and collective trustworthiness. We are working hard to ensure that our high-level values are translated into consistent and appropriate actions and behaviour worldwide.

Backed by our global Corporate Responsibility Policy and performance measures, we continue to drive the integration of corporate responsibility considerations into everyday business thinking throughout the Company. This includes providing managers with guidance on putting the global standards into practice at a local level, as well as communicating with our employees to ensure their understanding of our commitment and how everyone has a part to play in making sure AstraZeneca continues to be welcomed as a valued member of the global community. You can read more about our commitment in the Responsibility section of this website.