It's important to us to listen 

We believe that when employees feel engaged and valued this can lead to increased productivity and higher retention rates. We regularly interact with our employees using formal and informal channels to ensure that they understand the ambitions of the business and their role in its success. We want the communication to be two way and encourage our employees to talk freely with managers through our open door policy.

It is important to us to know what our employees think about how we are doing. We conduct an annual employee survey, which gives employees the opportunity to tell us where we are doing well and identify opportunities for improvement.

Their feedback is used to inform what we need to concentrate on improving in the following year.

In 2010, our employees said that they wanted to have a clearer view and understanding of activities across the whole Group beyond their own business areas.

We listened to their feedback and in 2011 we ensured that we improved internal communications across the whole Group by using video messages from senior management more regularly and encouraging greater communications at an individual business level.

At the start of 2012, we held a conference attended by senior and business development managers from across the Group. The aim of the conference was to promote the capabilities of each business and how they could support each other in delivering greater value to our clients.

In 2011, the response rate for our employee survey increased from 35% to 45%. The feedback was generally positive with 74% of employees saying Capita was a good place to work. They felt that managers were supportive, open and honest and encouraged innovation within their teams.