Employee engagement

At JTI, we strive to create an environment where the goals and needs of the business are supported by investment in people’s growth, training and development, exciting career opportunities and appropriate reward for its people.

Run on a regular basis, the survey is used to gather the opinions of all JTI people. Every employee is encouraged to share opinions and bring improvement to all areas of the business.

At the center of this thinking is an ambitious human resources strategy that has been continually evolving for more than ten years.

Some of the obvious benefits to JTI as an employer include the company’s exceptionally low employee turnover compared to similar companies. Harder to quantify are the deeper insights into what produces employee engagement.

Getting employee feedback

To aid understanding, JTI has introduced a global Employee Engagement Survey. Its purpose is to give management teams more detailed knowledge of what the company is doing well, and less well, in the minds of employees, enabling meaningful improvements.

"Knowing what employees think and value is crucial. The role of the management is to create and sustain an environment where employees can perform at their best, allowing them to drive the company to an even more successful future"

Jörg Schappei, Senior Vice President for Human Resources

Survey response rates

The Employee Engagement Survey was first carried out in JTI’s CIS+ region, which includes countries that span from the Balkans to Mongolia. It had an extremely high response rate, with 88% of employees responding to the survey.

In 2010, when JTI's survey was extended to the entire organization, the response rate rose to 90%. This number was beaten during the 2012 global survey when record-breaking number of 92% employees shared their feedback. To put that in perspective, a typical high-performing company's response rate is 80%. This is a true demonstration of employees’ trust in this feedback tool and their engagement with JTI.

What the survey revealed

JTI employees are highly engaged with the business. When asked about their willingness to put in significant effort beyond what is normally expected to help the company succeed, 94% of them confirmed they were willing to do so. This is 2% higher than the benchmark response for high-performing companies.

The survey also addressed the areas of reward, recognition and working conditions. Globally across the business, employees believe JTI recognizes their contribution with appropriate rewards. But one of the clearest signs of engagement at JTI is that the great majority of employees said they would recommend JTI to a friend as a good place to work.

Action plans

Every employee survey conducted by JTI generates action plans for the business.

The plans are built by collecting results globally and analyzed them locally to develop local action plans. If common themes and actions emerge in the local plans these are incorporated into global action plans for JTI as a whole.

The action plans integrate the opinions shared through the Employee Engagement Survey into the company's business plans.