Risks arising from human resources

Our employees are critical to our future success. For this reason, we want to become the most popular employer in our sector. In general, there is the risk that we will not find the right employees for the right positions at the right time. Moreover, we have to compete for qualified international executives.

We monitor this risk using internal and external measurement parameters. US consulting firm Universum, for instance, regularly surveys 120,000 students in 26 countries to find out who the most popular employers are. DHL is the only logistics company to rank in the top fifty. Internally, we measure employee satisfaction on an annual basis in a survey of all Group employees. The survey findings indicate that the dedication of our employees has steadily improved over recent years. Given the fact that 2009 was a recession year, these findings were particularly encouraging.

We want to hire qualified employees, use them to their full potential and foster loyalty amongst them. Thus, vocational training in Germany will remain a key investment in the future for us, even in economically difficult times and especially in light of demographic change. With regard to employee motivation, managers who are familiar with the challenges of our sector and deal with their staff based on the principle of Respect and Results play an important role. We support our managers with a number of programmes, pay them fairly for their work, including providing performance-based incentives, and offer them career opportunities in their home countries and abroad. By doing this, we limit the risk of losing expertise and customer relationships to employee turnover.

Although we find the financial impact of these risks to be moderate, we see the probability of occurrence as low thanks to the measures we have implemented. This risk has declined from the previous years based on the economic situation alone.