Safaricom - 2021 Sustainable Business Report

73 SAFARICOM SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT 2021 / STANDING TOGETHER: GOING BEYOND / OUR MATERIAL TOPICS //// OUR STAKEHOLDERS / KPI SUMMARY EMPLOYEES DRIVING PARTICIPATION IN OUR TRANSITION TO A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY We are committed to becoming the best place to work and to building a future fit talent and agile organisation. Our people are central to our ambition of establishing a Customer Obsessed, digital-first organisation and ultimately becoming a purpose-led technology company. In FY21, we cascaded our new business strategy throughout the organisation so that all our people share an understanding of how we are transforming from a telco to a technology company and their role in the delivery of the strategy. EMPLOYEE DIVERSITY In line with our commitment to SDG10: Reduced Inequalities, our aim is to promote a diverse, inclusive workplace, free from any form of discrimination. We are an equal opportunity employer, actively recruiting talent from diverse backgrounds to ensure a workforce that’s reflective of the communities that we serve. We strive to create a work environment where employees are empowered to thrive and grow regardless of gender, disability, race, age or any other dimension of equality. Our overall gender split remained balanced at 50:50 but declined significantly at executive leadership level and slightly at senior management to close the year at 11% for the executive leadership and 34% for the two categories combined. This drop was due to women at executive and senior management level moving to take high level roles in other organisations. We are working to redress the situation through our Safaricom Mowgli Mentorship programme and Paa Dada initiative. To further accelerate the achievement of our aspirations on diversity, we have mainstreamed gender diversity targets into performance targets of our senior leadership team. OUR WORKFORCE DEMOGRAPHICS FY18 FY19 FY20 FY21 Number of permanent male employees 2 190 2 251 2 278 2 246 Number of permanent female employees 2 186 2 252 2 237 2 210 Total number of permanent employees 4 376 4 503 4 515 4 456 The decrease in our staff numbers during the year is largely due to staff turnover. In a number of instances where staff resigned, their roles were subsequently deemed redundant or merged with others and they therefore did not need to be replaced. These changes were aligned to achieving efficiencies with regards to the shifts that were brought about by working from home. We are an equal opportunity employer, actively recruiting talent from diverse backgrounds to ensure a workforce that’s reflective of the communities that we serve, focusing on women in leadership and prioritising People with Disabilities (SDG10). We prioritised the health and safety of our employees during the COVID-19 crisis (SDG3) and promote effective health and safety practices (SDG8). OUR HIGHLIGHTS • Through one #1MoreSkill campaign 81% of our people took online courses achieving 46.42 hours of learning per employee overall. • Improved scores on key metrics on employee engagement on SEMA survey. • We supported our staff to transition to work from home (70% of all staff, 80% call centre staff), and sustained high levels of engagement and productivity. ISSUES FOR EMPLOYEES • The engagement survey highlighted that our employees believe collaboration between teams should be improved. SUPPORTING OUR EMPLOYEES DURING THE COVID CRISIS. • We zero rated calls between our staff members to enhance collaboration during remote working. • We provided 24/7 COVID-19 hotline for our staff to reach our case management team in case they developed COVID-19 related symptoms. We also set up an SMS based COVID-19 motoring tool for staff wellness check in which was sent out every Monday and Friday. • We provided voluntary COVID-19 testing for staff and dependents with over 6000 tests conducted. • To help our staff cope with impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on mental health, we set up a team of counselling psychologists and held over 300 team counselling sessions and more than 2 600 individual counselling sessions. • We sustained high staff engagement through regular communication on business updates conducted via CEO townhalls, weekly culture forums and quarterly storytelling sessions.