ConocoPhillips employees in Perth participate in a new hire orientation.

We encourage employees to provide feedback through a variety of channels, including town hall meetings, intranet forums and employee reviews. We also conduct broad opinion surveys of our employees every two years to gather their views and perspective of the company. All responses are confidential. The survey questionnaire is available in multiple languages – specifically, our most recent survey in 2008 was made available in 16 languages.

A total of 88 percent of employees participated in the 2008 survey. Results were compared with a previous survey conducted in 2006 to gain an understanding of employee views on the progress of ConocoPhillips in key areas.

Overall results for 2008 were generally positive, as shown in the responses to questions related to employee satisfaction.

                 

Strongly favorable responses occurred in the areas of our core values, particularly in safety, local teamwork, environmental responsibility and ethics.  The survey’s highest favorability rating (94 percent) revealed that employees are comfortable addressing unsafe work practices.

Areas with the most improvement since the 2006 survey:

• Employees’ rating of the accessibility of their supervisors was up 8 percent, and the rating regarding discussions with their supervisors about performance and goal setting also was up 10 percent. This will continue to be a focus area in the future.
• Employees indicated, by an increase of 8 percent, that they believe senior leadership balances short- and long-term objectives.
• More than 77 percent of employees responded that they have the freedom to report ethics violations.

Areas for improvement:

• The company’s ability to retain the best employees received only 32 percent favorable response rate.
• 65 percent of employees responded favorably that the company has a clear sense of direction and strategy, which was 9 percent less than the previous survey.
• Only 26 percent of employees responded favorably that issues that were raised in the last survey were addressed.

To maximize the survey’s benefit and further encourage employee feedback, managers communicated the company and individual business results to employees. Managers were encouraged to work with their employees to identify top priorities for improvement and develop plans to address areas of concern in their immediate work group. Once these plans for improvement are completed, management will update employees on the actions taken. Progress on the implementation of the action plans will be monitored, and managers will be encouraged to provide quarterly feedback to employees. The success of these action plans will be assessed by employee responses in the next survey.