of employees say they can cope with the demands of their job
Average sickness days per employee (days)
entries in the accident book – of these two were reported as Riddor cases and there were no fatalities
Average sickness days per employee including those on permanent Health Insurance (days)
Have your say
We want to hear what you have to say. At any point in this report you can comment on what is being said on any of our corporate responsibility issues.
Wellbeing & diversity
We want to create a working environment that promotes our employees’ health and wellbeing, including a good balance between work and the rest of their lives. We're also committed to encouraging diversity and equal opportunities for individuals to progress and develop in the company.
We work to make sure that our health and safety policies and procedures address the different challenges facing our staff – such as road safety risks for our sales force, lifting and handling for warehouse staff and posture for people working in our offices. Any of our staff might be affected by the pressures of work.
Our Occupational Health and Safety policies, overseen by our Occupational Health & Safety team, are designed to prevent accidents and ill health and, where possible, to help get employees back to work. They are also set up to help us identify health and safety risks, and either eliminate or reduce them. We comply with all national laws and have not been fined, or been the subject of any prosecutions or warnings for OSH violations from random inspections.
In order for us to continue to manage health and safety better in future, we have committed to implementing the OHSAS 18001 Health and Safety Management System during 2006/07, working towards certification in 2008.
Our levels of sickness absence remain above the benchmark of other companies in the private sector. This is acknowledged by the Executive Team as a concern, and addressing it is a priority.
In 2005/06 the number of working days lost due to muscular skeletal problems was down 42% on the previous year and workplace accidents also fell by 30%. 14% more working days were lost due to stress however, despite over three quarters of employees saying they can cope with the demands of their job.
December 2005 we launched a new Ill Health Absence Management Policy. The policy was designed to make sure we have a fair and consistent approach to the informal and formal management of ill health for all Camelot employees. The policy ensures that all parties involved are aware of their responsibilities, supporting employees' individual circumstances while taking account of absence on Camelot's ability to operate effectively. To make sure everyone in the company was aware of the new policy, we appointed champions who presented it to their areas, focusing on specific, local problems.
Last year we set ourselves a target of making recommendations on policies and practices about achieving a good work–life balance. We have been working on this, by offering a number of flexible working options to staff such as part–time working, staggered hours, domestic leave, working from home, sabbaticals, leave for career breaks, and parental or emergency situations. These options were communicated to staff in October 2005.
As a result, the number of people thinking their department 'actively encourages work–life balance for all while achieving business goals' was up from 42% to 51%. More work still needs to be done on communicating the options available to different departments.
In 2006/07 we will develop a strategic approach to staff wellbeing to ensure we support employees during a period of uncertainty as we draw towards the end of our current licence. This will involve looking at how we track and analyse sickness absence, the provisions we have for staff to prevent problems and the support we offer to those who have been off work and are able to return.
Encouraging diversity
We believe that a diverse organisation and the range of opinions that it brings, will make us more effective as a company – e.g. by reflecting and understanding the diverse player base we serve. In our staff survey, 40% of staff agreed to the statement that 'Camelot treats all employees equally and inclusively'.
We want to integrate work on diversity into mainstream business management practices. With that in mind, following a review, we disbanded the Diversity Forum and now manage diversity through the cross–functional team reporting to the Commercial and Operations Director.
In November 2005 our Corporate Responsibility Board and Advisory Panel for Social Responsibility discussed a diversity paper that looked at different areas of the business. They agreed a number of recommendations and to implement a Diversity Action Plan. We have made some progress (see the examples listed below) but will continue to work on this in 2006/7.
So far, the following recommendations have been achieved:
- We've developed and will maintain a list of the languages spoken by Camelot staff, in case we need to offer services in different languages to players, retailers and winners
- Increasing cultural awareness in our sales force by making a Cultural Events calendar available
We are committed to making the National Lottery website more accessible for people with disabilities by meeting the WC3 WAI guidelines. These promote accessibility of the web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.
In 2006/07 we will also review HR processes e.g. recruitment, training and benefits to take into account diversity good practice.