People.

At 30 June 2011, Fletcher Building employed some 20,000 people in over 50 business units across more than 40 different countries. The significant increase in the year was due to the Crane acquisition.

To attract and keep the best workforce, we strive to provide inclusive, engaging workplaces in which talented people can make the most of their potential and deliver great results.

Key to our culture is the Fletcher Building Way, which guides the actions of all our employees, shapes our relationships with our stakeholders and provides us with the framework for profitable, sustainable growth. All employees are expected to practice our values, which promote teamwork, respect, commitment and results. Our aim is to make Fletcher Building a high-performing business, respected corporate citizen and employer of choice.

Natural disasters

The safety of our people was our top priority following the earthquakes in Canterbury and the floods in Australia. While none of our employees were critically injured, many suffered the loss of family members and friends. Through our Employee Assistance Programme, all employees in New Zealand and Australia were able to access counselling services.

Back to topCanterbury

We are very proud of the resilience and professionalism shown by our teams in Canterbury in extremely challenging circumstances. The earthquakes had a significant impact on our people. In order to assist our employees and their families we developed a range of support initiatives such as additional leave and emergency cash grants to allow employees to deal with urgent issues, individual and family counselling, and local support groups.

We have provided our employees with accommodation options, funded property advisory services and launched a 'Book a Break' website for our Canterbury-based employees to use vacant holiday accommodation offered by other employees across the country.

The Fletcher Building Employee Educational Fund has sponsored short courses in Resilient Leadership for our Christchurch managers and family trips to Hanmer Springs.

Back to topEmployee share ownership

This year we launched FBuShare, a global employee share plan, to give our employees a new opportunity to share in our company's success. FBuShare allows eligible employees across the Group to purchase Fletcher Building shares on market and receive Award Shares at no additional cost on a 1:2 basis (subject to conditions). Launched on a phased basis, FBuShare operated in 11 countries at 30 June 2011 and will be extended to further countries in the new financial year. Thirty percent of the employees who were invited to participate in the initial FBuShare offer have joined the plan, well exceeding comparable offerings in the Australasian marketplace.

Back to topLeadership and development programmes

Fletcher Building has a strong leadership culture. Across the Group, we have a talent pool of considerable depth and capacity; over 46 percent of our 450 senior executives have more than 10 years' service and 30 percent have over 15 years' service.

In Australia and New Zealand, training activities for employees, and employees' dependants, are supported by the Fletcher Building Employee Educational Fund. In the last 12 months, this independent trust has granted over $4.3 million towards individual and company development programmes.

Back to topTalent recruitment

We continue to source high performing people from all backgrounds, drawing on our associations with external providers, academic institutions, and professional bodies. Our in-house recruitment centres processed over 24,000 applications and filled 580 vacancies over the year, saving over $3.5 million.

Our businesses closely associated with the rebuild in Christchurch are forecasting a significant increase in staffing numbers. Our objective is to search locally and internationally to build a skilled workforce capable of delivering quality projects.

Back to topEmployee relations

Fletcher Building maintains respectful working relationships with the many labour unions represented across our global workforce. Some 31 percent of our employees are union members and there are over 150 negotiated collective agreements across the group.

We also continue to offer free and confidential third party-operated employee phone services through which employees may report ethical and compliance concerns without fear of retribution. Calls made to Safe2Say and Fair Call are logged and investigations follow a structured process and are subject to regular Audit Committee review.

Back to topEmployee engagement

Our most recent global engagement survey yielded a pleasing overall engagement score of 79 percent, with 'commitment to stay' (81 percent), 'pride in the group' and 'commitment to deliver extra discretionary effort' (80 percent each) among the highest scoring items.

Back to topEqual opportunity and diversity

The Fletcher Building workforce is diverse and we are committed to discrimination-free employment practices. In May, the Board approved a diversity policy based on the recommendations of the ASX Corporate Governance Council. This can be found in the Corporate Governance section in this report.

The company is represented on the Boards of the New Zealand Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO) Trust and NZ Employers' Disability Network Trust. We are a sponsor of the EEO Trust's annual Work and Life Awards, and participate in the Global Women Leadership Programme and the EEO Trust's cross-company mentoring programme for the advancement of women directors.