Performance
Our people
Rio Tinto employs on the basis of job requirements and does not discriminate on grounds of age, ethnic or social origin, gender, sexual orientation, politics or religion. We actively favour local employment where local candidates meet job requirements and laws provide. We do not employ forced, bonded or child labour
In 2008, we directly employed about 99,000 people with a further 7,000 people indirectly employed at our equity accounted units. Employee numbers increased during the first two quarters of 2008 due to expansion of operations. Many of these are recruited from the local areas in which we operate, but an increasing number of employees are sourced internationally. We employ graduates from many disciplines including mining and process engineering; geology and geosciences; finance; human resources; health, safety and environmental sciences.
During the fourth quarter of 2008, Rio Tinto released a detailed package of measures to preserve value for shareholders by conserving cash flow and reducing levels of debt. This package identified a reduction in global headcount of 14,000 roles (8,500 contractor and 5,500 employee roles) to be completed across the Group during 2009.
We recognise that attracting, developing and retaining a skilled workforce is critical to business performance. We believe that our employee strategy is one of the most competitive in the industry and is based on:
- Engaging with employees about the business, valuing each individual's contribution, and working with people to achieve ongoing change and improvement.
- Addressing talent gaps and managing our internal talent pool to tap into employee potential and jointly discuss career aspirations.
- Entrenching a performance culture, conducting performance reviews, individual development planning, coaching and feedback processes.
- Offering opportunities for technical, professional and leadership development.
- Offering opportunities for working across a range of our international businesses in different geographies and multi-cultural environments.
- Developing workforce plans that define business requirements for jobs and skills needed to hire and train employees.
- Embracing a diverse workforce and introducing flexible working arrangements to accommodate the workforce with multigenerational, gender diverse, dual career needs in many parts of our business.
Our policy of increasing opportunities for Indigenous Australians is reflected in directly negotiated community benefit agreements. During 2008, we increased Australian indigenous employment by 181 people to 1,393 or eight per cent of Rio Tinto's Australian workforce, making us the largest private sector employer of Indigenous Australians. In northern Canada, 32 per cent of the Diavik diamond mines workforce were northern Aboriginals at year end.
We made slow progress on our target to increase the representation of women in senior management to 20 per cent by 2009, achieving nine per cent representation in 2008. As at January 2009, 20 per cent of our executive committee were women. We achieved our target to increase the proportion of women in the graduate intake to 30 per cent from a 2004 baseline, with 31 per cent representation in 2008. Rio Tinto expects managers to abide by the highest standards of behaviour. All employees are expected to treat each other and external contacts with dignity, fairness and respect. Harassment in the workplace is guarded against and neither abuse nor misuse of position or facilities for any purpose is tolerated. Obligations to colleagues and the Group are respected, and collaboration is encouraged within and across businesses, cultures and countries.
Our Speak-OUT programme provides employees with an independent and confidential means of reporting concerns to senior managers.
In world class mines and processing facilities such as those we operate, the workforce is becoming increasingly skilled, requiring a high level of training and capability. 2,100 people attended regional and global leadership and functional development programmes in 2008 and 266 graduates attended the Rio Tinto Graduate Development Programme. Overall, approximately 150,000 attendances were recorded for role specific and relevant training courses across all technical and functional areas and among all levels of the organisation.
We are increasing our use of simulator based and technology driven experiential learning and have also developed our own approach to coaching.
Rio Tinto's total rewards strategy is designed to attract, retain and motivate the skilled workforce essential to the success of our business. Base pay is reviewed regularly and adjusted as necessary taking into account the individual's role, local market trends and, for many employees, business and personal performance. This process allows us to ensure that employees are paid competitively against the external market and consistently with their internal peers. In addition we also offer allowances, bonuses, share plans and healthcare benefits appropriate to the local markets.
Employee engagement levels were measured on a consistent basis across the Group for the first time in December 2008. Where levels of employee engagement are higher, performance on key operational metrics is also higher. Throughout the course of 2009 targeted actions will be implemented across the Group to increase levels of employee engagement, thereby maximising the positive impact of our people on the performance.
