Supporting Employee Dialogue

We encourage employees to provide feedback through a variety of channels, including town hall meetings, intranet forums, a weekly online newsletter and staff appraisals.

Every two years, ConocoPhillips conducts a global opinion survey of all employees to gather their perspectives on the company. In Canada, our response rate to the 2008 survey was 88 percent. Satisfaction levels were highest when employees were asked about safety (87 percent), our core values (86 percent) and their immediate supervisor (84 percent). An identified area of improvement concerned employee understanding of possible career paths (48 percent favourable response).

Results of the survey indicated the company needed to enhance communication about possible career paths at ConocoPhillips. In response, we began holding an annual career development week, launched a formal mentorship program and started BLAST, a leadership development program for professionals under 30. We also work to ensure every ConocoPhillips Canada employee has a documented plan for developing their career.

Training and Development

Providing opportunities for career development and training for all of our employees is important for retaining and challenging our workforce. A strong workforce with the right skills is critical for our business success. We encourage supervisors and employees to work together to create development plans for each employee that map suitable career paths based on the employee’s aspirations, skill sets and preferences.

To support training and development, we recently introduced several initiatives designed to attract and retain a highly skilled and motivated workforce.

• Partnerships with Post-secondary Institutions: We hire students into internships and co-op programs. The students work in various areas including engineering, geosciences, accounting, finance, administration, sustainable development and land administration.
• BLAST (Building Leaders and Success for Tomorrow): We introduced this two-day event in 2009 to provide cross-functional networking activities and sessions on career development for ConocoPhillips Canada employees under the age of 30. This event received the full support and commitment of ConocoPhillips Canada’s senior leadership team, which actively participated in the program.
• Annual Career Development Week: We hold an annual Career Development Week that helps educate our employees on their options within ConocoPhillips Canada. In 2009, more than 1,000 employees attended 18 sessions on topics including how our management works to support and develop talented individuals in the organization, how to develop a personal career development plan and how to manage generational differences in the workforce.
• Formal Mentorship Program: Our mentorship program continues to be a successful component of learning and development at ConocoPhillips Canada. Mentors in the program include members of our senior leadership team. For the 2008 pilot of the program, we had 24 mentor/protégé pairings; for 2009 we had 38 pairings.

Health and Wellness

The health and work-life balance of our employees is an important focus for ConocoPhillips Canada. Our goal is to support our employees in being healthy, high-performing individuals. This commitment to health and wellness is demonstrated through:

• The support of health and wellness resources like a speakers’ bureau, monthly lunch and learns, volunteer staff wellness ambassadors and an extensive web portal called E-Pathway to Wellness.
• A focus on all aspects of wellness through voluntary programs including fitness classes, independent external counselling and bi-weekly in-house nutrition assessments.
• The integration of wellness activities into the workplace through efforts including team wellness challenges and coffee-break massages.