We are committed to promoting and maintaining a culture of respect and equal opportunity in which all decisions about recruitment, hiring, compensation, development and promotion are made solely on the basis of a person’s ability, experience, behaviour, work performance and demonstrated potential. Every manager is responsible for implementing this policy.
Our continuing challenge is to ensure that diversity is appropriately supported in our workforce and reflected in our leadership. Talent management, including diversity, is included in our Senior Executive Team objectives and we have a set of minimum standards that support global alignment in the integration of diversity into our Human Resources processes, including staffing, performance review, learning and development, and reward. The introduction of objective and evidence-based approaches to reviewing the performance and potential of individuals has brought clarity and transparency to the identification of high potential talent within the Company.
To further enhance our focus in this area, we created a new position during 2007– Vice President of Talent Management & Workforce Planning, and her role includes global responsibility for Diversity and Inclusion.
We also appointed a woman to the Senior Executive Team (SET) during the year. Responsible for Human Resources and Corporate Affairs, she is the first woman to join the SET and reflects our continued focus on ensuring diversity is appropriately reflected in our leadership.
As an indicator, 26% of the 81 senior managers reporting to the Senior Executive Team (SET) are women. The change in ratio from 2006 (33% of 79 senior managers) is not the result of a reduced commitment to diversity, but was due to re-organisations within the Company at a senior manager level, which meant that reporting lines were changed in some areas. As a result, some roles are now reporting directly to the SET that did not in 2006, and others are no longer reporting to SET members.
Our latest global employee survey in 2006 (they are conducted every two years) showed that, overall, 63% of our staff believe that management supports equal opportunity for all employees and 69% of women and 70% of men said they had not encountered any bias or discrimination towards themselves or others in AstraZeneca. The survey results also included a geographic and functional breakdown of these overall figures, which has enabled us to identify areas where further improvement activities need to be focused.
The implementation of the global Human Resources information system will also make a significant contribution to driving consistent application of our standards and increasing our understanding of performance in this area.
The content of this page was externally assured by Bureau Veritas, February 2008 |