Sustainability Report 2011 - Balfour Beatty Rail

Healthy communities
Engaging our people
If we are to be a truly sustainable organisation, thinking and acting
sustainably needs to be embedded into the way our employees
behave and go about their work. During 2011, we substantially
increased our employee engagement programme.
Why this matters to us
In our 2009 sustainability report, our stakeholder panel quite
rightly identified the importance of employee engagement as a
critical step to embedding sustainability into everything we do.
In this section we include some of the ways our operating
companies are going about embedding sustainability into our
culture to help deliver our 2020 vision.
Our approach
Our operating companies have employed a wide variety of
approaches to engage our employees on sustainability. These
include posters, newsletters, films, competitions, workshops
for business development (see our Growing our business in the
green economy section), procurement (see our Supply chain
section) and sustainability teams (see our Sustainability vision and
roadmap section), employee surveys and appraisals.
E-learning course
Our sustainability e-learning course, was launched in 2011.
We emphasise that delivering a more sustainable Balfour Beatty
is a collective responsibility. The course comprises four modules
(translated into seven languages):
1. Examining why Balfour Beatty wants to be a leader in
sustainability and introduces the 2020 vision
2. Presents six case studies from our projects around the world
to illustrate what sustainability looks like in practice
3. Work-related scenarios that explore our employees’ decision
making on a selection of sustainability dilemmas
4. Sign posts where to go to get more information.
Over 17,000 people have completed the course and 60,000
commitments to adopt more sustainable behaviours were pledged.
Over 90% of learners said they agreed or strongly agreed that
Balfour Beatty has a strong sustainability agenda and that there
were things they could do as part of the role to contribute to more
sustainable outcomes. More than 8,000 employees have
completed an off-line sustainability course.
40
60,000 commitments
made by our employees
to adopt more
sustainable behaviours
“New York University in Abu Dhabi is a
good example of how we are working
with the client and main contractor to
align Estidama sustainability deliverables
with the design.”
Fares al Saher, Business Projects Manager, BK Gulf, Dubai
Communications sub-group
During 2011, we established a communications sub-group, made
up of communications specialists from across the Group to share
good practice in employee engagement, co-ordinate dialogue with
the media and other events.
“For me, sustainability is the work
I do alongside the project teams
and subcontracting companies on
Southwark Building Schools for the
Future (BSF) programme to ensure a
legacy is left for the local community.”
Elise John-Lewis, Project Skills Co-ordinator, Balfour Beatty
Construction Scottish & Southern, UK
Our plans for 2012
We will continue to roll out our sustainability message and engage
our employees on how they can contribute, including completion
of the e-learning or the off-line version of our sustainability course.
We will also hold a sustainability month to engage our people on
our projects and in our offices to promote their sustainability
successes and engage with our wider communities.
Over 90% positive
feedback from our
sustainability
e-learning course
Balfour Beatty Sustainability Report 2011