Employees

Thomas Cook is regarded as one of the best, perhaps the best travel company to work for. That's one reason why our own industry recently voted us Travel Company of the Year in the British Travel Awards. Even more importantly, it's why 80% of respondents in our last UK & Ireland staff survey said they still expected to be working for us in a year's time.

And all our customer brands in other regions, such as Ving and Neckermann Reisen, share the power to attract quality candidates.

Of course, working for a travel company is exciting. But our unique culture and values also help make Thomas Cook a great place to work. From the start, we've had a tradition of respect for our employees and our customers. It's been the key to our success. We believe people are the heart of our business and we want them to be proud to work for us.

In the UK & Ireland, our Investors in People accreditation confirms our commitment to improving performance and managing and developing our people effectively. Thomas Cook Holidays Division was re-accredited in 2008 – our first assessment since the merger with My Travel – and awarded the highly-prized ‘World Class’ classification to reflect commitment to our PROUD values.

Rewards
Our reward strategy also underpins our belief that our people are the very heart of our business.

All areas of the business offer competitive and rounded benefits packages, including employee discounts on our holidays. In some areas, employees also have the flexibility to tailor their benefits package to suit their own personal needs.

In 2008 – within a year of the merger – we launched our Company Share Save scheme to all employees. Some 3,500 across all our businesses are now saving to become shareholders in the Thomas Cook Group. And we are offering senior managers a comprehensive package, including Thomas Cook shares, to reward them competitively in the marketplace.

Employees are also acknowledged for loyalty to the Group. In the UK & Ireland, for example, those with more than 10 years' service can select a gift from a wide range of products.

Right across the business, we offer incentives to our retail people. In the UK & Ireland, we rewarded top performers with a variety of trips in 2008. Managers went to Cuba, customer service managers on a Mediterranean cruise and sales consultants spent a night on a luxury cruiser.

Our reward priority for 2009 is to increase take-up of the Company Share Save scheme from 14% in 2008 to 18%.

Our PROUD company values – broadly encompassing customer service, decision-making, innovation, results and communication – have served the business well since their introduction in 2003.

During 2008, following the Thomas Cook/My Travel merger, the human resources team has led a project to ensure the PROUD values are understood, accepted and embedded right across the newly-formed organisation.

Each quarter, employees who have gone to exceptional lengths to demonstrate one of our values are nominated for our prestigious UK PROUD awards.

Beyond the UK & Ireland, the whole Group has now adopted the values as the cornerstone of employee behaviour, with translations and adaptations to reflect local cultures.

Everyone can expect to benefit from a structured training approach for whatever part of the business they work in. Equally, we are committed to activities that will help them develop throughout their careers at Thomas Cook.

We're a diverse business: a retailer, airline, tour operator and financial services provider. So we can offer wide-ranging careers, with opportunities to move horizontally as well as upwards. For example, each year when overseas representatives return to the UK for the winter they have a chance to work and gain experience in our retail stores or head office. In addition, some employees benefit from moves between other countries.

Many companies suggest that there's no limit to how high you can rise. We've proved it: our Chief Executive started out in our print department at 18.

We also encourage innovation. In Thomas Cook Germany we introduced an Innovation Award in 2008. The three winning projects are already under way: a children's catalogue; a ‘Places to see before you die’ catalogue; and a Google Earth layer for Thomas Cook products.

Training
Increasingly, some of our businesses are using e-learning to provide the knowledge-based training needed to provide first class customer service. In North America, our online library offers no fewer than 40 e-learning modules.

We also run a leadership development programme for middle managers, while the UK & Ireland business is launching the Thomas Cook Academy.

Having been accredited by the Institute of Leadership & Management to deliver management qualifications in-house, we enrolled another 22 managers on our exclusive Diploma in Leadership & Management in autumn 2008.

Employees at our UK retail outlets can also prepare for their next level of promotion through our highly popular Fastrack programme, which boasts a 65% success rate for chosen career moves.

Our successful Modern Apprenticeship programme in the UK & Ireland has been extended to Sales Centres and the Holidays Division during 2008. The programme gives 16-year-old school leavers the opportunity to train as Thomas Cook travel sales consultants while also gaining a well-recognised NVQ qualification. Many have progressed to senior roles in the organisation. In 2008 we recruited 185 apprentices across the business. During 2009 we hope to introduce a similar programme for the Overseas team.

In Germany our initiatives include Talent Circle, a development programme for around 150 interns per year.

Every part of our business wants to attract and retain the best people. Like our customers, our colleagues come from all sorts of backgrounds. We believe every one of them should be recognised and treated fairly on their merits and abilities, and nothing else: any form of unequal treatment or prejudice discredits our business and undermines its values.

As a globally recognised business we aim to provide a discrimination-free environment for employees, colleagues and customers. We will not tolerate any unlawful discrimination or harassment on grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender re-assignment status, being married or a civil partner, religion, belief, disability or age.

We also aim to reflect the diversity of the community in which we operate because not only do we recognise our legal and social responsibilities but we also value the individual contribution of each and every employee.

We work with external government agencies and seek their guidance on promoting equal opportunities. In 2009 we will be continuing to review our diversity policies and working with the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the UK to develop employee awareness of the new policy.

During 2008 we have also introduced diversity training for all new employees and managers in the UK & Ireland.

Employee information
We present below diversity statistics for the Group as far as is practical. Our businesses around the world capture employee information using varying data systems and in different legislative environments.

Gender – employees overall *

Gender – senior managers

Age – employees overall *

* figures at 30/09/08
figures do not include SAG (approx. 1,500 employees), Condor (approx. 2,200 employees) and Egypt (approx. 441 employees)

Flexible working
We have been particularly successful in pioneering home-working, which appeals primarily to employees with families. In 2008, our North America business launched their ‘At-Home-Agent’ programme to call centre employees. We are on target to place 100 agents at home by September 2009, representing 25% and 36% of tour operator and retail call centre employees respectively. In the UK & Ireland we have encouraged home working for some years and have grown our base to 202.

Looking after the health, safety and welfare of our people remains a priority. We believe that maintaining a sound health and safety policy and safe systems of work benefits both employees and the company.

UK & Ireland

• No prosecutions
• No prohibition notices
• No improvement notices
• No fatalities
• 21 lost time accidents reported under RIDDOR*. This is 30% reduction since last year
• 348 other minor accidents reported. This is 36.5% reduction since last year

* The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR), place a legal duty on: employers; self-employed people; and people in control of premises to report work related deaths, major injuries, over 3 day injuries, work related diseases and dangerous occurences.

We have completed fire risk assessments at all UK & Ireland sites. Remedial work following the assessments is ongoing.

The retail health and safety management system is now streamlined and we have sent a health and safety guide to all our store managers. And a bespoke online management system now incorporates the regular health and safety checks store managers are required to make.

With the exception of recently acquired businesses, we have also trained health and safety facilitators at all our sites.

Continental Europe
At Thomas Cook in Germany, employees are offered a personal health check-up in cooperation with Prevention First, a practice specialising in preventative medicine. They also benefit from company schemes with Back Check and Healthy Drinking (promoting water), as well as an office gym.