Talent Management

The individual and collective contributions of Ball employees at all levels are essential to our success.

To attract and retain the right people, Ball aims to provide an attractive work environment. We have a corporate philosophy that respects and values our people and is rich in culture from our 130-year history.

We work to identify and hire qualified applicants who can meet the evolving challenges we face as a company, and to provide them with benefits and employment practices that encourage and enable them to behave like an owner – one of our Five Keys to Success. We encourage employees to act as owners by providing competitive remuneration and benefits, an inclusive and challenging work environment, skill and career development and an atmosphere characterised by teamwork and respect.

Ball is integrating a six-step, global “people strategy” across all of the companies to ensure that employees continue to be Ball’s greatest asset. Human resource leaders in each of our companies worked together on this strategy, building on the best aspects already in place within Ball.

1. Ensuring Core Competences

Our competence modelling tool identifies the knowledge, experience, skill and behaviour required for successful performance in each job. We have incorporated these competences into recruiting, performance, development and succession planning.

2. Finding the Right People

To ensure that our candidate pool is qualified and diverse, we use a variety of recruitment practices. In addition to posting job openings internally, giving employees the first chance for advancement, we attend professional career fairs. Since 2004 Ball Packaging Europe has been running an International Trainee Programme. From the very beginning these highly qualified graduates get an understanding of our multinational corporate culture. We now have more than 30 “trainee alumnis” in our company. Some of them are working in management positions today.

3. Ensuring Employee Continuity

Our succession planning process helps to ensure that we are providing our employees with the appropriate skills they need to advance, and that our recruiting efforts are designed to fill the gaps. Ball began a formal talent review process with each operating division in 2008 to discuss critical positions and emerging talent.

4. Developing the Right Skills

We offer comprehensive learning opportunities to employees to develop their skills and advance their careers. This helps foster employee engagement and improves retention. Our internal training programme includes courses on leadership and management. In our internal training measures we bring employees from all over Europe together. This improves the understanding of cultural differences and also reinforces our corporate culture.

5. Managing Performance

Setting clear expectations and assessing employees against those expectations by providing useful feedback are essential. At Ball Packaging Europe, we redesigned our performance management review process in 2010. Our standard performance review now also includes a section on how employees contribute to Ball’s sustainability – including diversity – and workplace safety initiatives. In each of our operations we measure performance against specific targets. The annual results are incorporated in the local incentive plans.

6. Increasing Employee Engagement

Competitive wages and benefits, quarterly employee meetings, open houses and volunteer and social events are examples of how we increase employee engagement. Ball Packaging Europe’s voluntary turnover rate is world class – generally, less than 3 percent of our workforce leaves in any given year. In 2009, our turnover rate was below 2 percent.

In Europe we have had a cooperative relationship with unions and the different employee representation organizations for some considerable time. Our low turnover rate and good relationship with unions and work councils help to improve productivity and morale.