Sustainability

Social Performance

Our People

The campaign supporting our new vision - to grow PPC into a leading emerging-market business - was successfully launched in February. In follow-up initiatives, each site used communication tools such as industrial theatre and journey maps to depict their understanding, commitment and contribution to the group's vision.

A key element in the campaign was to ensure all our people understood the importance of remaining the leading force in our current markets in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe while working towards our longer-term goal.

PPC's Kambuku way of life

Our people are integral to maintaining the Kambuku philosophy. The word Kambuku is derived from Tsonga and means great tusker, referring to an elephant bull, whose characteristics of tenacity and loyalty sum up PPC's value-based management philosophy.

This PPC 'way of life' creates a healthy, rewarding and satisfying working environment - one in which everyone has the opportunity to contribute to our success and their own development, and to be recognised for excellence.

The Kambuku initiative with its focus on employee value creation was introduced 10 years ago. It has entrenched a high-performance culture across PPC based on employee engagement, growth and strong values, underpinning the way PPC does business. To maintain the passion and commitment of our people, it is important to continuously provide clear direction and realignment of our organisation's systems to current and future business challenges.

Enrichment - cementing the way ahead

To ensure sustainable business performance in a challenging environment, the Kambuku value-creation model is continually reviewed and strengthened.

The Kambuku enrichment initiative aims to establish a strong foundation to continuously empower employees and facilitate their growth. It also provides opportunities to advance individual mentoring and coaching skills, foster a greater understanding of PPC's REAL (relevant, empowered, actualised and lasting) transformation philosophy, and enhance the ability of managers to inspire employees in a diverse environment.

Ultimately, this enrichment initiative aims to increase the ability and effectiveness of team members through broad-based skills that ensure continuous improvement.

Creating lasting value for our people

For the past decade, Team PPC has embraced the processes and principles of Kambuku to develop a world-class operation, founded on passion, commitment, innovation and teamwork.

As part of this process, our organisational performance model sets the benchmark for internal standards, systems and processes that facilitate employee engagement and participation. The effectiveness of each element in the model is measured annually.

Employee participation and engagement

A fundamental principle of the Kambuku process is that positive results are easily achieved when all employees are engaged, empowered and accountable. Active involvement and communication therefore occur frequently across PPC through established systems and processes, including:

• Key leader summits: regular team meetings at plant or site level throughout the company involve all appointed, elected and informal leaders. The aim is to inform employees about plant or site performance, strategic initiatives, challenges and opportunities. Robust and constructive communication takes place in an environment of mutual trust and cooperation, and the outcomes of each summit are communicated clearly and promptly down to shop-floor level. Through this process, we maintain a clear purpose and common vision and direction throughout the company.
• Invocoms: structured, team-based discussions take place daily for teams at shop-floor level, weekly at sectional supervisory level, and monthly at departmental level. There are some 370 active and effective Invocoms operating across all levels and all functions of PPC. Importantly, the group average for Invocom team forums has been maintained at a globally competitive 4,3 out of a standard of 5,0 and organisational benchmark standards at 3,3 out of 4,0.

Through these discussions, we communicate elements of PPC's vision and objectives, evaluate team performance, analyse obstacles affecting performance and develop appropriate action plans, and ensure targets are achieved. Behavioural safety, educational topics and development are also discussed in Invocoms.

Plant- and site-level Invocoms are designed to spread communication both upwards and downwards through the company to:

• Facilitate transparent problem resolution and employee participation
• Regularly encourage teams to stretch outputs and targets by reviewing and assessing team performance
• Capture innovations and suggestions to enhance cost savings, process improvement, efficiency and safety
• Communicate positive recognition
• Capture best practices on a centralised database
• Manage the PPC climate through the adherence of team members to the company code of conduct.

Saving costs through employee innovations and suggestions

During the period, over 4 000 value-adding suggestions were generated via Invocom structures, 25% higher than 2009. Of these, more than 70% were evaluated and implemented. This saved PPC an estimated R17,2 million in 2010, taking the three-year total to some R59 million in cost savings.

Individual Perception Monitor - listening to our people

For the past 10 years, PPC's annual Individual Perception Monitor survey has given all our people the opportunity to express their views and rate the company on critical processes, including understanding its vision, employee benefits, leadership behaviour, remuneration, training, coaching and communication. Participation in the survey is both voluntary and confidential. Results are analysed by site and at group level to identify and address areas of concern and reinforce positive trends. While we believe the slight decrease in the index average (1%) for 2010 is more a reflection of the challenges of the economic climate, we are concentrating on addressing those areas of concern identified by our people.

Succession planning

Our succession strategy aims to ensure that competent people are continuously available to assume key positions in the company. In line with this strategy, succession-planning discussions are held biannually at group and site levels, and development plans include mentorship and coaching. The strategy is closely aligned with PPC's economic empowerment targets and plans, and has specific emphasis on key technical skills - an ongoing industry-wide challenge.

Balanced workforce

PPC's total workforce for 2010 is 3 263 compared to 3 234 in 2009. Annual turnover rate for 2010 is 12,4% in South Africa, 1,8% in Botswana and 2,2% in Zimbabwe. The average length of service in PPC in South Africa is around 12 years with a number of employees holding 25, 30 and even 40-year awards.

At the same time, we work hard at the balance between retaining this experience and developing the pipeline of future leaders.

Where appropriate, PPC strives to recruit black talent in line with the demographic requirements of its operating regions. In South Africa, demographically representative recruitment is at 76% (2009: 76%; 2008: 85%).

The demographic and age breakdown of our workforce (SA only) are shown below.

1	White	24%	1	Under 30 years old	25%
2	African	53%	2	30 to 50 years old	54%
3	Coloured	20%	3	Over 50 years old	21%
4	Indian	3%

Workforce analysis: South Africa*

	White			African			Coloured			Indian			SA nationals		Foreign nationals
	M	F	Total	M	F	Total	M	F	Total	M	F	Total	M	F	M	F	Total
Executive	1		1												1		1
Senior management	11		11	2	1	3	1		1	2	2	4	16	3			19
Middle management	54	5	59	9	2	11	5		5	7	3	10	73	10	2		85
Professionally qualified, experienced specialist and lower management	92	31	123	32	26	58	29	8	37	18	10	28	167	74	4	1	246
Skilled (upper / supervisors / foreman)	63	14	77	21	5	26	16	4	20	2	1	3	100	24	2		126
Skilled technical	205	48	253	142	41	183	102	28	130	4	8	12	447	125	6		578
Semi-skilled	16	46	62	649	44	693	221	50	271	1	5	6	886	145	1		1032
Unskilled	6		6	191	38	229	21	7	28				218	45			263
Apprentices	2		2	13	1	14	2		2	1		1	18	1			19
Total permanent	450	144	594	1059	158	1217	397	97	494	35	29	64	1925	427	16	1	2369
Temporary	23	8	31	103	24	127	29		29		2	2	155	34			189
Total	473	152	625	1162	182	1344	426	97	523	35	31	66	2080	461	16	1	2558

* September 2010

Workforce analysis: Botswana*

			Foreign nationals		BW nationals
	M	F	M	F	M	F	Total
Middle management	1		1				1
Professionally qualified, experienced specialist and lower management	10	1	1		9	1	11
Skilled (upper / supervisors / foreman)	7				7		7
Skilled technical	20	6	1		19	6	26
Semi-skilled	52	9			52	9	61
Unskilled	3				3		3
Total	93	16	3		90	16	109

* September 2010

Workforce analysis: Zimbabwe*

	M	F	Total
Senior management	2	0	2
Middle management	35	6	41
Skilled upper/technical	111	31	142
Semi-skilled	210	5	215
Apprentices/trainees	46	3	49
Labourers/unskilled	138	3	141
Total	542	48	590

* September 2010

The percentage of employees recognised as members of a trade union is 32% in South Africa, 61% in Botswana and 69% in Zimbabwe. PPC acknowledges that freedom of association and relevant agreements between the company and various unions exist.