Social Performance

As a member of the global Veolia Environnement group, we see our role in society as showing responsible leadership and operational excellence. Our framework for delivering benefits to society enables us to make contributions and create value in ways that align with our business. Our approach to our social performance models the approach we take in all other parts of our business and ensures we focus on material issues including:

• Safety
• Staff attraction and retention
• Diversity
• Training and development
• Community engagement
   

Safety

We remain committed to our workforce knowing their safety is our number one priority.

Our employees work in high-risk situations and as part of our service provision are sometimes required to carry out difficult or dangerous tasks. Safety has always been a high business priority; however a renewed focus is needed to see improved performance across key safety statistics.

Our lost time injury frequency rate decreased from 17.65 in 2009 to 8.80 in 2010. 

Staff attraction and retention

The total number of employees in the group decreased from 8,742 full-time equivalent employees in 2009 to 6.612 in 2010. This was a result of decreased numbers from Veolia Transport's wholly owned subsidiary, Connex Melbourne, which operated the commuter rail network in Melbourne until 29 November 2009.

Fixed-term contracts and temporary work contracts are used to adjust for fluctuations in needs, though 97 per cent of our workforce have unlimited contracts.

In 2010, the turnover rate was 24 per cent for the group.

Diversity

We have a diverse customer base and serve diverse communities. Similarly, we have a diverse workforce in terms of age, gender and culture. In 2010 we held a number of internal programs aimed at addressing gender balance. Many of the industries in which we operate have traditionally been dominated by men. Although this is changing, women made up 17 per cent of our employees in 2010 and 2009. Key initiatives included targeted recruitment and associated training and job opportunities, and the establishment of a diversity network. Within Veolia Transport there has been a specific campaign to attract women to the transport industry which is considered the traditional domain of men.

Training and development

Training and development opportunities are an important part of our strategy for attracting and retaining the best people. The amount spent on training as a percentage of employee remuneration has been between 2 and 3 per cent over past years, which amounts to a total of $8.8 million for 2010. We are pleased to report that training and development of our staff was an important organisational commitment despite the challenging conditions of 2010.

 Community engagement

Veolia Environnement in Australia and New Zealand is a strong believer in contributing to the communities we serve and within which we operate.
 

Key social performance data
 

2010 2009 2008 2007
Workforce
Total workforce	FTE	6,612	1,022	3,300	338	1,952
Breakdown of workforce by division	%	-	19	56	6	41
Women	FTE	1,057	177	468	37	375
Men	FTE	5,557	846	2,832	301	1,578
Women in the workforce	%	17	18	16	11	19
Breakdown of workforce on unlimited term contracts	%	97	96	95	99	99
Breakdown of workforce on fixed-term contracts	%	3	4	5	1	1
Number of employees aged over 60	#	579	69	144	9	357
Number of employees with length of service over 11 years	Years	897	288	343	57	209
Turnover rate	%	24	15	24	32	29
Occupational health and safety
Lost time injury cases	LTI	115	15	25	9	66
Lost time injury frequency rate	LTIFR	8.80	8.37	3.79	15.16	16.16
Lost time injury severity rate (days lost per thousand hours worked)	LTSR	0.14	0.05	0.13	0.16	0.21
Medical treatment injury cases 1	MTI	336	87	236	13	-
Medical treatment injury frequency rate	MTIFR	34.43	48.55	35.80	21.90	-
Number of days lost through work accidents	Days	1,924	96	857	95	876
Work time
Actual work hours	Hours	13,062,678	1,792,127	6,591,782	593,606	4,085,163
Total number of overtime hours worked	Hours	1,470,371	27,892	935,595	13,026	493,858
Training
Total expenditure on training	$m	8,794,000	1,797,072	1,987,144	566,778	4,443,006
Training expenditure as percentage of payroll	%	1.8	2.1	0.8	2.2	3.2
Number of hours of training per employee	FTE	38	41.5	26	16.2	59.2
1 Veolia Transport does not collect data on medical treatment injuries.

2010 2009 2008 2007
Workforce
Total workforce	FTE	8,742	1,027	3,173	381	4,161
Breakdown of workforce by division	%	-	16	46	6	32
Women	FTE	1,392	165	438	46	743
Men	FTE	7,348	860	2,735	335	3,418
Women in the workforce	%	17	18	16	13	20
Breakdown of workforce on unlimited term contracts	%	98	98	97	99	99
Breakdown of workforce on fixed-term contracts	%	2	2	3	1	1
Number of employees aged over 60	#	545	67	121	7	350
Number of employees with length of service over 11 years	Years	829	270	320	47	192
Turnover rate	%	19	12	28	33	13
Occupational health and safety
Lost time injury cases	LTI	275	20	22	10	223
Lost time injury frequency rate	LTIFR	17.61	10.59	3.53	13.32	33.03
Lost time injury severity rate (days lost per thousand hours worked)	LTSR	0.22	0.05	0.09	0.27	0.29
Medical treatment injury cases 1	MTI	337	92	236	9	-
Medical treatment injury frequency rate	MTIFR	38.01	48.72	37.90	11.99	-
Number of days lost through work accidents	Days	3,468	97	1,188	205	1,978
Work time
Actual work hours	Hours	15,617,631	1,888,431	6,227,417	750,680	6,751,103
Average annual number of overtime hours worked	Hours	258	91.2	278.7	44.9	353.9
Training
Total expenditure on training	$m	13.8	1.7	2.9	0.8	8.4
Training expenditure as percentage of payroll	%	2.0	2.0	1.2	2.7	7.2
Number of hours of training per employee	FTE	-	-	26.5	38.3	68.6
1 Veolia Transport does not collect data on medical treatment injuries.

2010 2009 2008 2007
Workforce
Total workforce	FTE	8,457	927	3,207	462	3,855
Breakdown of workforce by division	%	-	11	37.9	5.5	45.6
Women	FTE	1,204	153	385	54	617
Men	FTE	7,253	774	2,822	408	3,238
Women in the workforce	%	14	17	12	12	16
Breakdown of workforce on unlimited term contracts	%	-	97	97	99.8	99.9
Breakdown of workforce on fixed-term contracts	%	-	3	3	0.2	0.1
Number of employees aged over 60 2	#	630	49	118	2	461
Number of employees with length of service over 11 years	Years	1,782	261	294	46	1,179
Occupational health and safety
Lost time injury cases	LTI	262	17	62	17	166
Lost time injury frequency rate	LTIFR	15.85	9	9.4	19.1	23.1
Lost time injury severity rate (days lost per thousand hours worked)	LTSR	0.21	0.136	0.161	0.188	0.277
Medical treatment injury cases 3	MTI	354	79	258	17	–
Medical treatment injury frequency rate	MTIFR	37.95	41.7	39.3	19.1	–
Number of days lost through work accidents	Days	3,544	258	1,059	168	1,997
Work time
Actual work hours	Hours	16,525,475	1,895,534	6,570,983	891,335	7,197,623
Training
Total expenditure on training	$m	14.7	2.8	1.8	0.9	9.2
Training expenditure as percentage of payroll	%	2.5	4.1	0.9	2.5	3.2
2 2008 was the first year we reported this data.
3 Veolia Transport does not collect data on medical treatment injuries.

2010 2009 2008 2007
Workforce
Total workforce	FTE	7,448	714	2,606	504	3,579
Breakdown of workforce by division	%	-	9.6	35.2	6.8	48.3%
Women	FTE	1,103	100	311	52	618
Men	FTE	6,692	614	2,321	452	3,308
Women in the workforce	%	14	14	12	10	16
Breakdown of workforce on unlimited term contracts	%	-	98	84	-	100
Breakdown of workforce on fixed-term contracts	%	-	2%	16%	99%	0%
Occupational health and safety
Lost time injury cases	LTI	351	9	109	23	209
Lost time injury frequency rate	LTIFR	24.65	6.1	20.0	25.34	32.44
Lost time injury severity rate (days lost per thousand hours worked)	LTSR	0.26	-	-	-	-
Medical treatment injury cases 4	MTI	312	43	269	-	0
Medical treatment injury frequency rate	MTIFR	40.03	29.0	49.2	0	0
Number of days lost through work accidents	Days	3,718	174	1,723	50	1771
Work Time
Actual work hours	Hours	14,237,841	1,482,367	5,461,939	907,665	6,443,110
Training
Total expenditure on training	$m	10.9	1.3	1.8	0.2	7.6
Training expenditure as percentage of payroll	%	2.1	-	-	-	-
4 Veolia Transport does not collect data on medical treatment injuries.