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Employment

GSK employs over 100,000 people in 116 countries. Our goal ‘to be the best place for the best people to do their best work’ is central to our business strategy and underpins our success.

Our people are our greatest source of competitive advantage. Their skills and intellect are essential to us discovering and delivering the best new medicines and vaccines. Competitive reward is important but not the only factor that influences our ability to recruit and retain talented employees. Our approach to issues such as diversity and inclusion, training and development, and health, safety and wellbeing are also extremely important.

Here we outline just three elements of our approach to employment – more detail is available in our CR report.

Employee feedback
We measure implementation of GSK’s culture and the effectiveness of our employment policies through regular employee surveys.

In 2006, over 10,000 GSK managers took part in our Global Leadership Survey (a 78 per cent response rate). The survey tracked their views against our previous two surveys and against findings from other global companies through a cross-company database. This database includes 42 top-ranked companies from several industries including pharmaceuticals, automotive, banking, energy, and IT.

It indicated that managers in GSK are more satisfied with their company than managers in any of the other companies that took part. Participants were also more satisfied than they were in 2004 with responses on average 4 per cent higher.

Survey results are reviewed by our Corporate Executive Team which has identified two key areas of focus: reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and increasing leadership visibility – a drive for managers to spend more time with their teams. Each business unit and function has developed an action plan to address these and other areas for improvement.

Resilience
We use the term ‘resilience’ to describe the skills and behaviours employees need to be successful in a highly pressured environment. Resilient employees can manage work and home demands effectively and minimise the adverse health effects of stress.

Most GSK sites have time management and health awareness programmes, and flexible working options, to help employees achieve a good work-life balance.

We have also developed a Team Resilience programme to help employees manage their work and avoid excessive pressure which can lead to stress. Teams work together to identify the sources of pressure that can affect performance and health and to assess the extent of stress the team is under. Team members then consider the issues that are creating excessive pressures and how they can be managed more effectively. The objective is not to avoid any pressure – which can help to achieve high performance – but to avoid work becoming so challenging that people become strained or overwhelmed.

By the end of 2006 more than 12,000 people from over 1,000 teams have gone through the programme. The results show significant improvements: In the first two years of the programme:

• Reported pressure due to work/life conflicts fell by 25 per cent
• Participating staff satisfaction increased by 21 per cent
• 14 per cent increase in willingness among staff to experiment with new work practices
• Teams that have taken the programme for a second time are showing improvement in the seven sources of pressure of between 30 per cent and 70 per cent

Diversity & inclusion
Diversity benefits our business. A workforce with diverse backgrounds, cultures and outlooks helps us to understand the needs of different patients and customers. Only by delivering genuine equality of opportunity can we be sure that we have the best people in the right jobs doing their best work for GSK.

Gender diversity
In 2006 women accounted for 22 per cent of senior managers and 36 per cent of all employees in management grades, compared with 20 per cent and 34 per cent four years ago. This positive trend of increased female representation in management reflects the impact of GSK’s Diversity and Inclusion strategy across the businesses and shows the effect of our flexible working policies in attracting and retaining women.

Ethnic diversity
In the US, minorities (defined as Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, American Indians, and Alaskan natives) made up 19.8 per cent of our workforce (compared with 19.6 per cent in 2005 and 19.5 per cent in 2004).

In the UK, ethnic minorities, as defined by the UK Commission for Racial Equality, accounted for 18.3 per cent of employees (compared with 16.8 per cent in 2005 and 15.5 per cent in 2004).

Results from our Global Leadership Survey

(£ billion)	Industry Benchmark 2006 % favourable	GSK 2006	GSK 2005	GSK 2004
Overall satisfaction with GSK	65	85	73	67
People in my department show commitment to performance with integrity	N/A	91	91	88
I am proud to be part of GSK	84	90	83	78
People in my department are committed and enabled to make meaningful contributions	N/A	84	82	76
I can report unethical practices without fear of reprisal	68	82	76	70
The amount of work I am expected to do is about right	53	42	45	42
GSK is a company where great people can do their best work	N/A	62	52	46
I am satisfied with the recognition I receive for doing a good job	54	59	57	56
Sufficient effort is made to get the opinions and and thinking of people who work here	55	65	59	51
Leaders in my department act as teachers, coaches and champions of development	N/A	60	59	54
I receive ongoing feedback that helps me improve my performance	54	61	61	57