We aim to be an employer of choice by providing a positive employment experience for all employees. 

We recognise that the success of the company depends on the efforts and commitment of our employees. Our approach to maintaining a positive employment experience includes the following areas of focus:

Health, safety and wellbeing – promoting and managing health and safety at work is one of our key priorities. We run many initiatives to take care of the physical and emotional health of our employees.  These are described in more detail under the Health and Safety impact area.

Leadership – effective leadership is key to our success and there is significant investment in a wide range of Management and Leadership programmes, including the ScottishPower People Leader programme for team managers and the Emerging Leaders programme for the senior management talent pool.

Performance – employee performance is managed through transparent, consistent and fair Performance Management Frameworks, which recognise and reward the performance of both employees and the wider company.  During the past year, there has been significant investment in the training of employees on Performance Management to ensure both the employee and the company benefit from the process.

Development – employees are provided with “fit for purpose” training and development, ensuring the right skills, knowledge and experience for optimum effectiveness in their role.  Our goal is to enable employees to reach their full potential within the company.

Furthermore, our approach is to continuously improve and enhance the delivery of our development activity.  For example, through ScottishPower Learning, employees are able to develop their skills via a range of innovative and inspiring community activities.  Many of our employees, including frontline staff, team leaders and senior managers have participated on Community Based Development programmes, which have been directly linked to their training and development needs.

Employee consultation – employees are regularly consulted through established forums with both trade unions and employee representatives. These forums are used to manage employee relations, discuss business performance, consult business change, and to pro-actively develop employment policies. A new all-employee Consultative and Negotiating Council has been introduced which consists of employee and Trade Union representatives at a single table for the first time.

Frequent employee attitude surveys are also undertaken across the organisation, with a strong commitment to responding to feedback through the implementation of action plans.

Recognition and reward – we provide a fair, transparent and market competitive approach to pay and employee benefits, including salaries, bonus rewards, pensions and working hours. We also believe in providing ways for employees to share in the success of the business through the provision of employee share ownership plans.  With the acquisition by IBERDROLA, we are currently working on the introduction of new employee share plan offerings.

Employee communication – we recognise the importance of communicating and engaging with employees and we have a strong culture of two-way communication. Leaders engage with employees through various channels, including local roadshows and presentations, business conferences, team briefings, teleconferencing, the Intranet, internal news releases and a monthly staff newspaper.

• Policy Statement on Equal Pay
• Policy on Equal Opportunities
• Policy on the Management of Stress
• Policy on Smoking
• Policy on Racial & Religious Discrimination
• Policy on Harassment
• Policy on Alcohol and Drugs
• Policy on People with Disabilities
• Speaking Out and Whistleblower Protection Policy
• Policy on Sex & Sexual Orientation Discrimination