Annual report and accounts 2008

Valuing our people

Our commitment to making Pearson a special place to work is led by a Group-wide director for people, a title chosen by the first person to fill the role – a clear indicator of our intention to work with people, not with ‘human resources’.

We will soon be looking at changing the words we use from ‘human resources’ to ‘people’ wherever they appear across Pearson. Our people are instrumental in defining the company that Pearson aspires to be today: commercially successful, intellectually courageous and socially responsible. And the business really is their own business – through participating in our employee share plans, more than half of our people are shareholders in Pearson, working to build the value of their company by helping our customers to live and learn.

We have a Group level health and safety policy, with numerous awareness days and other good practice examples across our offices, and we offer a variety of programmes to enable people to find the balance we encourage between their personal and professional lives. We also know the best ideas often come from our own people, so each operating company continues to ask its people for ideas, suggestions and constructive criticism to improve the way we work.

We want to be the best possible company to work for and we endeavour to provide salaries, benefits, incentive plans and opportunities that rival those offered by our competitors.