The Culture and Value of Bat

                                              The Culture and Value of BAT

An organization's fundamental values have the power to run, motivate, and challenge employees on a consistent basis. BAT functions in world’s one of the toughest marketplaces, and is the leader of the competition because of the extraordinary mix of people it chooses to join them. Because, regardless of the scale, the people consistently share skills and knowledge to get the best productivity – whatever the job is and wherever it is based. It possesses a culture of pure collaboration, and it’s the reason BAT is as strong and successful as it is. The employees come from many cultures and backgrounds, and the business benefits from the breadth of ideas and experiences they bring.

BAT has such a diversity of people who support each other’s success, which creates a unique mix. A common view on their industry balances their differences– they support personal choice and the freedom to choose – and that philosophy helps to drive the business policy.

Freedom to discuss and debate means to make progress in business through exciting ways and give individuals their voice – is their belief. Authorizing teams brings creative ideas and different experiences, keeping an organization sharp and innovative.

Culture

BAT’s ultimate goal is growing responsibly. Tobacco harm reduction, protecting the environment and applying exemplary corporate conduct in their markets and supply chain are the criteria to which BAT is committed. Such efforts have kept them in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for 13 years. This strong legacy provides many of their people with an enthralling reason to work there.

Exceptional chances to shine are another. They offer clear, exciting, often international career paths and believe in developing leaders from within their stretching yet supportive work culture. No matter how far one wants to go, BAT will give him the tools to help him get there.

Employment Principles

Key to BAT’s culture is a set of fair minded Employment Principles which apply to all of its tasks. The Principles state that they will not discriminate in hiring, promotion or retirement decisions on the grounds of candidates’ or employees’ race, color, gender, age, social class, religion, smoking habits, sexual orientation, politics or disability. Rather, they match the requirements of the job to the ability and potential of the individual.

The companies are required to operate according to the Group Employment Principles, with flexibility to customize their management of employee and development issues in the ways that are most appropriate to their local business environments.

Diversity

Diversity helps BAT to understand its consumers, customers and stakeholders and to meet their needs. It also provides different ways of looking at challenges, encouraging creativity and innovation. Operating in more than 200 markets, they have a very diverse workforce in terms of nationality. In 2014, they had 137 nationalities working in management globally.

To maintain a diverse workforce, they attract talented individuals from different backgrounds and make sure that the organization’s culture supports them. BAT’s Guiding Principles have always included a statement on how diversity gives it a competitive advantage, but they need to ensure that their people fully embrace this value and promote it globally.

Few companies are as naturally diverse as BAT. It takes a truly varied and vibrant workforce to serve customers in over 200 markets. That’s why they hire people from so many backgrounds and all their employment decisions are made without regard to things like race, gender, age, social class, religion, smoking habits, sexual orientation, politics, disabilities or marital status. Each individual brings their own unique perspective, their own skills and experiences, and their own energies and passion. It’s these differences that make BAT as strong as it is, and which allows it to understand what really matters to its consumers around the world.

But they can be better. In particular, they’re focused on getting more women into roles that influence the direction they take as an organization. They are increasing workforce representation, in 2014, the proportion of women in all management roles across the organization was 32%.

Ultimately, they make decisions based on merit, because they only want to recruit the best. So while they are constantly trying to become an ever more diverse and inclusive organization, talent will always be their first consideration.