A great place to work

We work to be a company that reflects and supports the communities we serve: where people are treated fairly, can grow and have fulfilling careers.

Measuring employee satisfaction

Measuring employee satisfaction and encouraging dialogue are increasingly important. We have found that customer satisfaction is strongly linked to employee satisfaction and commitment. Each of our operating companies has formal and informal methods of gauging employee satisfaction.

Ahold Leadership Pulse Survey

The Ahold Leadership Pulse Survey is how we formally measure employee satisfaction of managers, from director level and up, across the company.

In 2007, the study found that managers are highly engaged, even beyond external benchmarks, and value Ahold's focused and results-driven culture. The study also showed that there is room for improvement in how we recognize personal contributions to our successes, performance in some of our key capabilities, and how we reduce complexity in our business.

We shared the detailed results of the survey with our operating company CEOs and started to put in place plans to address the feedback given during the survey. We will continue to monitor our progress on these initiatives.

One of our most important challenges for the future will be to attract, retain and energize retail talent.

Occupational health and safety

Our companies manage occupational health and safety issues locally. We promote the health and wellbeing of our employees in a variety of ways and work to ensure that they have a healthy and safe working environment. All our operating companies have programs in place to train employees on safety and health risk issues. We monitor compliance with local regulations and address the prevention of accidents and injuries in a proactive way.

We also have specific programs in place at our operating companies to promote employee health, which you can read about in the Healthy Living section of this report.