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Our people

´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service employs approximately 2,000 people of which around a quarter are based outside the UK, spread across 45 countries. The diversity of our staff and our presence in so many key locations around the world contributes to making ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service the leading voice in international broadcasting. We operate a number of schemes to ensure we recruit, retain and develop the right people for the right roles.

Training and development

Training and development remains a key priority for ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service. During 2008/09 just over £2m was spent on staff development inside and outside the UK. Altogether 5,968 days of training were delivered to ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service staff. During the year tailored training and development was designed and delivered to staff recruited for the launch of Persian television, as well as training to support extra staff recruited to increase Arabic television to a 24-hour service.

The close formal link between training, planning and the programme review process meant that the right people were targeted to attend the right courses, for the right reasons. The conversations ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service Training was able to have with most editors and team leaders meant that there was a close match between the training needs raised in appraisal conversations with staff and the training actually delivered. In a large number of reviews this process is already resulting in training action points from previous years being completed and closed as language services use training as one of the ways of improving their output.

In the coming year, emphasis is being placed on delivering much more journalism training and personal development sessions to the hundreds of ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service people based outside the UK. This is to be achieved by close collaboration with ´óÏó´«Ã½ News through the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s College of Journalism, sharing resources and, where possible, funding.

Internal communication

All ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service managers are expected to hold a face-to-face team meeting with their staff at least once a month. These meetings are part of a two-way internal communications cycle of information and feedback where issues of importance to the team are regularly discussed. In response to a staff survey, senior managers were required to brief teams outside their normal area of responsibility as a way of sharing information and creative ideas. Regular formal and informal discussions are held with the recognised trade unions: Bectu (Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union) and the NUJ (National Union of Journalists).

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ Global Reith Awards were held in March 2009. Presented by Sir David Attenborough, the awards are designed to recognise excellence and celebrate achievement across ´óÏó´«Ã½ Global News, encompassing ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service. Outstanding Contribution awards were made to Nigel Chapman, the outgoing Director, ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service and Dawood Azami, a producer from the Persian Pashto service in recognition of his contribution to delivering courageous investigative journalism and showcasing cutting-edge content on radio, television and online.

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Diversity

Proportion of ethnic minorities

The composition of the workforce of ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service reflects the multilingual nature of its broadcasting and therefore exceeds the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s targets, including the ´óÏó´«Ã½ target for senior managers.

Gender representation

´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service closely monitors gender representation within the workforce. At the end of March 2009, women represented 39.5% of the workforce (2008: 39.5%).

People with disabilities

´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service employs 3% of people who declare themselves as having a disability (2008: 3%). This continues to remain a priority for ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service and steps are being taken to increase this towards the ´óÏó´«Ã½ target of 5.5%.

Senior employees

Details of the number of senior employees earning over £50,000 per annum are set out below. Senior employees are defined as staff on the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s "senior manager" grade. Earnings represent base pay for the year to 31 March 2009 for staff employed at that date. Where staff are part time, the full-time equivalent salary is given. Staff on maternity or unpaid leave are excluded.

´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service Board members are excluded from the table. Details of their remuneration and the associated remuneration policy is contained in the notes to the financial statements.

Occupational risk management

The management of occupational risk has continued to be a high priority for ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service in the past year and a number of improvements have been made. These include publishing a new health and safety policy and developing a new approach to assessing risks associated with our production work. This process is supported by a new guide and training course for our production teams.

Health and safety risks have been managed as an integral part of the overall risk management strategy and processes at ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service. With an increasing number of staff working internationally, ensuring their safety and security continues to be a key area of work.

A rolling programme to review risk management in international offices has continued and additional health and safety training is being provided. Advising, training and equipping staff deployed to hostile environments, including war zones and areas affected by natural disasters, remains a vital area of work and ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service continues to be supported by the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s specialist High Risk Team. Over 200 staff have received training to equip them to work in higher risk environments in the past year.

Work has also taken place in a variety of areas to ensure compliance with new or changing legislation and to strengthen our management of risk. This includes noise management, reporting and investigation of accidents, and provision of training for staff.

All activities are contained within a divisional action plan.

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