A Great Place to Work

We want to be the employer of choice for smart, talented, hardworking people. Since our last sustainability report, the 2009/2010 Sustainability Review, we have continued to engage and inspire our associates, increase diversity and improve our systems for protecting the health and safety of our workers. Here is a look at our progress.

Our biannual Employee Insights Survey asks associates to voice their opinions and tell us about their experience as employees of The Coca-Cola Company. In 2010, 90 percent of associates worldwide completed our survey. For the first time, our employee engagement score—84 percent—aligns with Towers Watson’s High Performing Companies’ Norm Index.¹ Compared to our 2008 survey, more associates said they are proud to be part of The Coca-Cola Company and would recommend it as a good place to work. Associates named “operating effectiveness” and “people leadership and development” as two areas where additional focus is needed. Action plans have been developed and implemented at the global and local levels to address these issues.

¹The Towers Watson’s High Performing Companies’ Norm Index is composed of 25 organizations, representing more than 300,000 employee views from companies across a range of industries worldwide. These companies maintain ROIC or net profit margin that is above relevant industry averages and high survey scores on associate engagement and other key cultural factors over a three-year period.

In October 2011, The Coca-Cola Company was named one of the “World’s Top 25 Best Multinational Workplaces.”² The 25 companies were selected from more than 350 multinational companies from 45 countries that participated in Best Workplaces lists around the world in 2010/2011. In addition, our Company was recently named one of the “Best Companies to Work For^®” by the Great Place to Work^® Institute in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Spain and the United Kingdom and earned a “Best Companies to Work For” in Latin America regional award. In addition, Coca-Cola South Africa was certified “Best Employer in South Africa” by the CRF Institute for achieving the international standard of excellence in human resources strategy and policy.

²The award was presented by the Great Place to Work Institute as part of its inaugural World’s Best Multinational Workplaces List. To qualify for the list, companies must appear on at least five national Great Place to Work lists, have at least 5,000 employees worldwide and have at least 40 percent of their global workforce working outside of the company’s home country.

Developing our managers’ leadership potential helps keep them engaged and challenged. It also helps ensure strong, expert leadership for our Company well into the future. Our Leading Positively framework includes programs that build skills and provide peer-networking opportunities for managers throughout our Company. One example is our Coca-Cola Way of Leading teams. All first-level through mid-level managers worldwide will participate in the program within the next three years. For the past five years, we have also offered Catalyst, an accelerated leadership program that combines experiential learning, in-market project work and instructor-led training and coaching to develop our next generation of senior leaders.

In addition, 100 percent of our Company associates have the right to receive regular performance and career development reviews. In 2010, we estimate that 97 percent of our associates completed self-assessments in their performance plans, and approximately 60 percent also completed career and development plans.

Creating a more inclusive workplace

We are a multinational business whose brands and operations are deeply interwoven with a multicultural world. Having a workforce as diverse as the people we serve is crucial for our future growth. Moreover, providing equal opportunity is one of our most closely held values. Here are several examples of the progress we have made toward increasing diversity since our 2009/2010 Sustainability Review:

• Globally, our representation of women in leadership roles is 27 percent, up from 23 percent in 2008. More than 33 percent of the talent in our immediate pipeline is female, up from 28 percent in 2008. Although we are making programmatic progress in recruiting, developing and advancing women, our efforts to significantly increase the number of women in leadership positions across our global operations still face challenges. Our pool of qualified women in some parts of the world has historically been very low. We are aggressively striving to increase the number of women in our talent pool through recruitment and internal development strategies.
• Our efforts to increase diversity at our U.S. operations have been recognized by multiple media and advocacy groups over the last year. In 2011, we ranked No. 12 on DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity list. We were named to Black Enterprise’s list of Top Companies for Diversity for the seventh consecutive year, and we received a 100 percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign for the sixth consecutive year. We also received the highest score awarded on the 2010 Hispanic Association for Corporate Responsibility Corporate Inclusion Index (HACR CII) with a positive rating score of 85 out of 100 points. The HACR CII measures Hispanic inclusion strategies of the Fortune 100 and HACR corporate partners. While we do not consider such recognition as an end in itself, we are pleased at the signal that our inclusion strategies are on the right track.

Every worker has a fundamental right to a safe, healthy workplace. Our Workplace Rights Policy demands we take responsibility for maintaining a productive workplace by working to minimize the risk of accidents, injury and exposure to health risks for all of our associates and contractors.

The following table shows our Company’s lost-time incident rate and lost days for 2010 and the previous five years:

We regret to report the deaths of seven Company associates and nine contractors in 2010. Eleven of the deaths were due to traffic-related incidents. Four contractors died in a single boiler incident in India. One employee died as the result of local violence while outside the gate of one of our facilities in the Philippines.

Any time we experience a significant safety and health incident, especially if one of our associates or contractors dies in the course of duty, we review our practices and take steps where necessary to mitigate risks of similar tragedies in the future. For example, to improve the safety of our fleet drivers, we are developing a toolkit of best practices in fleet safety. We have also joined the board of the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety in an effort to expand our own capabilities to help drive progress in this critical area.

Also, given the nature of the diverse geographies in which we operate, the security of our people and property are a key focus for us. Our Strategic Security organization works closely with leaders within each of our geographies to ensure robust security plans are in place and implemented effectively.

In 2009, we took several other steps to better protect the health and safety of our workers worldwide. These steps included the following:

• We improved our data reporting accuracy. Reporting now includes approximately 98 percent of our Company associates, up from 84 percent in 2010. While we are pleased with this improvement, ensuring consistent application of measures across our Company’s global operations remains a challenge.
• We created a Director of Occupational Safety and Health position, with the intent of elevating the focus on this critical area and strengthening integration throughout our Company.
• We updated and reissued all of our Occupational Safety and Health Requirements in order to increase their relevance and improve implementation in the field. These requirements apply to all Company-owned and franchise operations and establish minimum global standards for safe operation and design, including fleet safety, chemical handling, machinery safety and other areas.

Each associate of The Coca-Cola Company helps lead our success in the beverage industry by committing to benefit and refresh everyone who is touched by our business. Details regarding global hiring and turnover rates are as follows: