Nestlé in society Creating Shared Value and meeting our commitments 2015

Nestlé in society:
Creating Shared Value
Nutrition, health
and wellness
Rural development
Water
Environmental
sustainability
Human rights
and compliance
Our
people
Employment G4-DMA, Labor/management relations G4-DMA, Occupational health and safety G4-DMA, Training and education G4-DMA,
Diversity and equal opportunity G4-DMA, Equal remuneration for women and men G4-DMA
Grounded in a culture based on trust and mutual respect, we
seek to maintain open and collective dialogue with our
employees, their representatives (namely unions) and external
stakeholders. It helps us make better decisions and develop
stronger relations. We aim to provide an example of good
human rights and labour practices throughout our business
activities. Our employees have the right to join organisations
of their own choosing, such as trade unions, and to engage in
constructive negotiations. On top of direct and frequent
communication with employees, as our workforce develops
and changes over time, we canvass their opinions through a
biennial employee survey. In between times, we are acting on
the results.
Consistent with our ambition as a leading Nutrition, Health
and Wellness company, we are committed to providing our
employees all over the world with good working conditions
and a safe and healthy work environment. We diligently
implement our Safety and Health Roadmap towards
Excellence, with 70% of all our employees now covered by
certified occupational health and safety standard OHSAS
18001:2007.
We believe safety and health is about people and not about
numbers, and our ambition goes beyond the occupational
environment. Instead, it encourages concern for the safety
and health of our employees, both at work and outside work,
embracing the ‘whole life’ concept. In this context, we
recognise that Nestlé may have limited control on all variables
that affect employee safety and health. Our goal is, therefore,
to encourage, support and enable our employees to take
personal responsibility and choose to live, as well as work,
in a safe and healthy way.
In the shorter term, we are largely focusing on our own
employees and on-site contractors but progressively, we are
seeking to positively influence the safety and health of others
throughout our value chain, bringing broader benefits to our
business and the communities in which we operate.
Material issues
Nestlé uses a formal materiality process to identify the most
important issues for our stakeholders and our business. The
results are communicated in a materiality matrix.
Our material issues are also considered and mapped with
regard to their degree of importance in different parts of the
Nestlé value chain. In the value chain, ‘Agriculture’ includes
smallholder farmers with whom we do not have direct
relationships, and ‘Tier 1 suppliers’ refers to those suppliers
in direct commercial relationships with Nestlé.
The Nestlé value chain
Agriculture
Tier 1
suppliers
Nestlé
Retail/
business
channels
Consumers
Each material issue is made up of a number of sub-issues,
which are highlighted during the research process. They are
used as a lens to help define the scope of analysis. In this
section, we have provided a synthesis of the findings related
to our people.
Four material issues fall under the banner of ‘our people’
that are rated as being of concern to our stakeholders and of
strategic importance to our business: human resources,
safety and health, community development and
unemployment, and women’s empowerment. Together,
these material issues are a fundamental responsibility for us as
an employer and as a responsible company. They are vital to
the wellbeing of our workforce and for the efficient functioning
of our operations.
Our stakeholders place particular importance on gender
diversity in the workforce and at the Board and senior
management level. Safety and health is another concern for our
stakeholders in both our direct operations and our supply chain.
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