Engaging with our employees helps them to share our vision and our business goals.

Promoting two-way communications with our employees is fundamental to our people strategy.

In particular, we ensure that all of our employees have the opportunity to give and receive feedback on their individual performance through the performance management process. We also take every opportunity to listen to employees' views, as well as providing them with the information they need to do their jobs. We achieve this through a variety of internal communication channels including face-to-face team briefs, our intranet, our employee newspaper, focus groups and our Employee Opinion Survey.

In 2007, E.ON conducted its biennial Groupwide Employee Opinion Survey, which gave employees the opportunity to give their views on a range of issues, including working conditions, pay and benefits, communications and their perceptions of E.ON as an employer.

Around 11,000 UK employees completed the survey providing a response rate of 68%. Our main focus in 2008 will be on implementing the actions arising from the survey.

At an E.ON Group level we will be focusing on three main areas:

• Reducing red tape
• Improving access to information
• Ensuring processes across teams are well defined

In the UK we will additionally be focusing on:

• Improving work organisation
• Improving co-operation between teams

We also have a strong tradition of collective bargaining. We recognise four trades unions - Unison, Prospect, Unite (formed when Amicus and TGWU merged in 2007) and the GMB.

Our commitment to constructive and effective dialogue is re-affirmed by our employee relations strategy, which is an integral part of our people strategy. Around 95% of our employees are covered by collectively agreed terms and conditions of employment.

We support the right of each individual to join a trades union, and our commitment is reflected in our excellent employee relations track record. Our Board takes ultimate responsibility for our employee relations strategy, and the UK human resources director has this as a specific responsibility. Operational responsibility rests with each of the business unit managing directors.

Staff Attendance and Turnover (%)

Staff Attendance (%)
2004	2005	2006	2007
97.3	96.7	96.7	96.5
Staff Turnover (%)
2004	2005	2006	2007
15.0	16.8	16.5	16.3

Figures exclude transfer, redundancy and death

Employee attendance rates in certain areas of our business continue to be a cause for concern, but we are working hard to make improvements. For example, we started a trial at our Dearne Valley call centre using a third party specialist to help manage short term absence. Employee turnover remained relatively consistent during the year, although we continue to look for ways of improving our performance.