Achieving this business strategy also critically depends on our people: their project management abilities, their financial and relationship skills, their technical innovations and their dedication and values.
In 2008, we recruited more than 5,500 new staff from more than 90 countries, more than half from technical disciplines. We recognise the business value a diverse workforce brings. Nearly 30% of the professionals we hired in 2008 were women, including nearly a fifth of those we hired for technical roles. By the end of 2008, 13.6% of the most senior leadership positions were filled by women, up from 12.9% in 2007.
We are serious about investing in the development of our staff. We provide a full range of technical, operational and compliance training. Through Shell Learning, we also offer targeted leadership programmes for staff at key points in their career. In addition, the Shell Project and Commercial Academies provide focused programmes for project managers, project engineers and commercial deal makers to develop their skills. Approximately 2,000 staff participated in Academy courses in 2008. Increasingly, our programmes use our “blended” learning approach, which combines classroom teaching with computer-based e-learning, and hands-on practice on the job. This approach both increases the training’s impact and reduces costs. We have set up the online Shell Open University, to make it easier for Shell people around the world to find our learning programmes. Our Shell General Business Principles, including contributing to sustainable development, form an important theme in these programmes.
