Hydro Annual Report 2011b

Effective organization
Hydro had 22,655 permanent employees at the end of 2011, an
increase from 18,894 in 2010. In addition, we had 1,368 temporary
employees, and contractor employees represented about
8,900 full-time equivalents during 2011. The increase in 2011
followed the acquisition of vale’s former aluminium business.
We now have our highest number of employees in Brazil, followed
by Germany, Norway and the U.S.
Hydro’s people strategy was reviewed in 2011 through an extensive
process involving people at all levels in the organization,
including the board of directors. It is built on five pillars: performance
culture, competence management, leadership pipeline,
diversity and mobility.
The integration of our new colleagues in Brazil was our most
important task within organizational development in 2011.
Restructuring and continuous improvement are essential elements
of our business operations. Our aim is to involve employees
in such processes at an early stage in order to achieve the best
results for the individual and for the company.
Welcoming and retaining new colleagues
On March 1, we welcomed almost 4,000 employees from vale’s
former aluminium business. Everyone received an introduction
package with information about Hydro and the company’s
ambitions and values. All will go through a program in 2012 to
learn more about Hydro’s values, social responsibility, value
chain and HSE. See page 61.
We offer new employees training related to the organization and
their individual work tasks. This includes required competence
within health, security, safety and environment. A special training
course welcomes the employees, giving them insight into
Hydro’s history, values, competitive landscape and businesses.
An interactive e-learning program – “you and Hydro” – deals
with Hydro’s policies and the rights and obligations of its
employees, and is mandatory for all employees. The program
Honored for high standard employee
development
Hydro’s primary aluminium plant in Høyanger, Norway was honored
with a “Competence Award 2011” from HR Norge, Norway’s
member organization for HR and management personnel. The
prize was awarded for the integrated and systematic competence
development system in the plant, including mapping and measuring
the effects from the system. The award is an important recognition
of Hydro’s Aluminium Metal Production System (AMPS) program,
which aims to optimize and standardize work processes. See page
69. The overall plan is to give the operators more responsibility for
helping describe and standardize the work processes. The plant
has reduced production costs by USD 260 per metric ton since
2008, with AMPS as an important factor. Høyanger served as a pilot
location for the program, which is also now being rolled out to whitecollar
workers and to other Primary Metal locations.
vIABIlItY perForMAnCe
Organization and work environment
63
discusses some of the dilemmas employees may meet in their
daily work, and presents a spectrum of work situations relevant
to employees everywhere. It also raises issues like safety, security,
work environment, human rights, combating corruption and
reporting. See also www.hydro.com/youandhydro
The most important development takes place locally, primarily
with on-the-job training, but also through locally organized
training.
Our aim is that every employee should have an annual appraisal
dialog and participate in an organizational survey at least once
every two years. Several processes are initiated to form the basis
of organizational development in Hydro. Hydro Monitor is an
employee survey that gauges the climate in the organization at
regular intervals. The Hydro Leadership Development Process
(HLDP) is our common tool for employee appraisal dialog,
individual development and follow-up. HLDP is mandatory
for leaders. Leaders in the new organization in Brazil were
introduced to HLDP in 2011. full roll-out will take place in
2012, including training of facilitators. We are also planning
to offer all other employees in the new organization an
appraisal dialog during 2012. Existing competence development
systems from vale will be used to develop our systems
further, focusing on retaining core competence.
Our employee survey, Hydro Monitor, is run every second
year. In 2010, the response rate was 92 percent. In 2011, we
have redesigned the survey to ensure that it represents best
practice. The technical solution also has been improved. The
changes have been anchored in the organization and with
important employee representatives. Our ambition is to use
the survey as an organizational tool to drive employee engagement
and to improve effectiveness and performance. Employees
throughout the company are involved in organized
discussions and workshops to identify improvement actions,
with the implementation of these actions followed up. The
next survey for all employees will be in 2012. We will target a
response rate of 90 percent, and require all units to have follow-up
plans by the end of September, based on their survey
results.
Developing managers able to deliver on Hydro’s strategy and
ambitions is key to our leadership-planning process and leadership-training
programs. Our leadership expectations are based
on Hydro’s values and are embedded in our 360-degree feedback
tool. The leadership expectations define the behavior
expected of leaders at all levels, and guide leadership assessment,
reward and development activities. The 360-degree tool is used
to support individual leaders in their development. feedback
from use of the tool is also included as an input to HLDP.
In order to have a healthy pipeline of senior leaders with the
required breadth of experience, we emphasize rotating employees
early in their careers so that they gain skills from different