Our people

At 31 March 2003, BT employed 104,700 people throughout the world, with 96,300 in the UK.

During the 2003 financial year, as part of the continuing programme of reshaping the group, 4,300 people left BT under our voluntary paid leaver package, Newstart.

Well managed, motivated people are fundamental to our success. Our reputation as a progressive and innovative employer not only helps us recruit and retain an excellent workforce, it also enhances our ability to serve our customers and generate revenues.

Training and development

During the year we spent around £70 million (excluding staff and other direct costs) on the training and development of our employees. We provide a range of training opportunities for employees, including customer service and technical training, management development and professional training, as appropriate. We aim to deliver this as cost-effectively as possible by using the capabilities of broadband and progressively increasing the emphasis on e-learning and self-teach opportunities.

Because a passion for our customers is fundamental to the way we do business, a number of training and development initiatives have focused on aspects of customer satisfaction. One example of this is the My Customer programme, targeted at 50,000 people in BT Retail, to reinforce their engagement skills with customers.

In January 2003, BT was accredited as an Investor in People, for the fourth time.

Communications

We maintain and develop the awareness of our employees in relation to financial and economic factors that affect the performance of the company in a number of ways. Employees are kept informed through a monthly internal newspaper and regular e-mail bulletins, as well as having access to the intranet.

Health and safety

We have undertaken a comprehensive review of our health and safety strategy and are committed to eradicating avoidable work-related illness and injury. We have specifically targeted those business activities that carry the greatest risks and we are enhancing the information, instruction and training provided for our people to help improve performance. Good progress is being made against the stringent targets we set ourselves in 2001, with a 21% reduction in workplace injuries and a 23% fall in cases of occupational ill health over two years.

A stake in the company

We encourage our employees to acquire shares in BT Group to enable them to share in our success, and offer a range of tax-beneficial employee share plans to help them make such acquisitions.

For the 2003 financial year, £36 million was allocated to provide free shares to UK employees under the BT Employee Share Investment Plan (ESIP). Under the terms of the scheme, the amount of profit set aside to buy free shares is linked to corporate performance measures determined by the Board. These shares are held in trust for a minimum of three years, and for five years in order to obtain the beneficial tax treatment (employees outside the UK receive a cash payment equivalent to the value of the shares).

The partnership shares section of the ESIP gives employees an opportunity to purchase shares in the company through monthly deductions from their pre-tax salaries.

In addition, employees have the opportunity to buy shares at a discount under the BT Group Employee Sharesave schemes. Share options are normally exercisable on completion of a three- or five-year save-as-you-earn contract.

Pensions

Most of our employees are members of the BT Pension Scheme or the BT Retirement Plan, both of which are controlled by independent trustees. The BT Pension Scheme was closed to new members on 31 March 2001. The majority of employees who joined the company after that date are eligible to join the BT Retirement Plan.

Listening to our people

We run an annual employee attitude survey, and encourage managers and their teams to put in place action plans to address the issues that it highlights. The most recent phase of the survey was conducted at the end of 2002 and showed extremely high levels of support for and commitment to the company’s strategy.

Work/life balance

We want our people to give of their best for customers and BT, and we provide the scope, within operational requirements, for them to optimise their work/life balance. At 31 March 2003, we had more than 6,000 people working part time, almost 600 job sharers and around 6,600 people working from home.

Other options include alternative attendance patterns, maternity, paternity, adoptive and parental leave, career breaks and an increasingly flexible approach to assist individuals to prepare for their retirement age.

Industrial relations

An estimated 75% of our UK employees belong to one of two main trade unions recognised by the company. We have a good record of industrial relations and constructive, occasionally robust relationships, based on partnership and mutual respect, with both unions in the UK and works councils elsewhere across Europe.

Equal opportunities

We are an equal opportunities employer and are committed to developing a working culture that enables all employees to make their own distinctive contribution. We are an active member of many equal opportunity and diversity organisations, and during the year were awarded the platinum standard by Opportunity Now for our work on gender equality and the gold standard by Race for Opportunity (RfO) for our work on race equality.

We were also recognised by the Employers’ Forum on Disability for our leadership in the employment of people with disabilities.

Our Chief Executive, Ben Verwaayen, is chairman of the National Employment Panel’s Steering Group on Lone Parents, which aims to create more opportunities for lone parents to work.