Employees

Premier Farnell is essentially a service business. Consistent excellence in service delivery relies on high levels of contribution and performance from all employees.

Employees throughout the Group receive feedback on their performance through the annual Group Performance Review Process. This clarifies responsibilities and objectives, addresses employees’ development needs and helps match individuals’ career development aspirations with the business needs of the Group.

The Group places strong emphasis on individual and team performance. In the year, in addition to normal incentive plans for sales personnel, almost half of non-sales staff had an element of their remuneration related to performance.

During the year, the Group continued to invest in training and in particular through the investment in an on-line performance management system to ensure alignment of objectives throughout the business and to build skills and capability. Further expansion of content was made available through the Premier Farnell OnLine Learning Centre with both internally developed materials and content sourced in partnership with a leading business school. Over the last 12 months there has been a particular focus on robust talent management processes and on leadership development with the use of competency-based interviewing techniques to improve the effectiveness of external recruitment.

All parts of the Group are focused on reducing the cost and disruption associated with high levels of staff turnover and excessive absenteeism, particularly in distribution centres and call centres where turnover has historically been highest. During the year most areas of the business exhibited improvements.

The Group actively encourages open communications. Management teams are expected to host formal business updates for employees at least quarterly, following the Company’s quarterly results announcements. The Group has a well established European Employee Forum which has been in operation since 1999. The development in the year of a Group-wide intranet gives all employees timely access to news, information and communication from the CEO and leadership team.

In 2007 the Group organised the first global on-line engagement survey to seek the opinions and ideas of all employees about their experiences of working in the business and this has provided insight to shape the priorities to harness the commitment and high performance of all employees into the future.