A positive working environment is not only essential for the advancement of employment relations, but also provides security and makes employees feel significant and necessary for the achievement of corporate objectives.
Bidirectional communication and cooperation
We strive to foster employee engagement in many ways: by promoting a positive work environment, through requiring that ethical business practices be adhered to, and by proactively communicating with our employees.
As our employees are our most prominent and valuable ambassadors with the majority of our external stakeholders, we try to communicate any important news about the company to employees as quickly as possible and through the most appropriate channels.
Means of communication that we use to this effect are the internal corporate network (intranet), e-mail, departmental announcements, bulletin boards and informative meetings between staff and management.
Employee information feedback is also critical to our success. As is the case with our external stakeholders, we work to understand our employees’ concerns, needs and thoughts concerning the company’s strengths and weaknesses, and incorporate these findings into our strategies, processes and programs so that we can achieve our business goals.
The Employee Suggestion Program (see indicators G4-37 and LA 16, at http://sustainabilityreport2015.helpe.gr/en/operational-efficiency-performance/GRI-G4-point/) is a particularly useful and innovative internal communication tool that enables our employees to make anonymous or named queries, submit questions and, in general, promotes a dialogue between all levels of employees with management and/or the Group’s appropriate organizational units. When the queries/questions are submitted, the program’s administrators ensure and guarantee that they are processed with confidentiality, speed and efficiency. All suggestions are then answered in cooperation with the relevant departments while detailed records are kept, for statistical analysis and in order to monitor the suggestion progress.
During 2015, 7 proposals and 4 complaints were submitted. One of the requests concerned labour practices (Health and Safety) while another was related to society impacts (environment).
All proposals were thoroughly examined; three of them (+ 1 pending from 2014) were resolved, while four are currently being investigated. Final decision and implementation time are linked to criteria such as usefulness and the added value of the proposal, materiality in relation to operational priorities, compatibility with the Group’s strategy, the possibility of these proposals being part of the approved budget and, of course, implementation feasibility. In any case, interested parties have factual information.
Human Rights
The Group monitors and has adopted the relevant labour legislation (national, EU, ILO), including the prohibition of child labour, provisions for human rights and working conditions and is in full agreement with the collective and relevant international conventions.
The Group’s employees have the right to be involved in trade unions and professional associations, without any limitations. Currently, there are ten employees’ unions with an average 90% participation rate (for more details see indicator G4-11at http://sustainabilityreport2015.helpe.gr/en/operational-efficiency-performance/GRI-G4-point/).
HELLENIC PETROLEUM’s representative union signs a collective bargaining agreement which defines the terms for employees’ (with permanent contracts) remuneration. Corresponding collective agreements are also in place with regard to EKO’s & DIAXON’s employees.