Engagement

Our people drive our business results through their dedication to operational excellence, diverse perspectives and innovative thinking. Recognizing the importance of our people to our business, The Coca-Cola Company strives to be a great place to work, where people are inspired to be the best they can be and can create extraordinary results every day, in every country in which we operate.

Our compensation and benefits packages are among the best in the world, benchmarked against other global, high-performing employers. We also offer a variety of developmental opportunities for our associates, including Coca-Cola University, a learning program for high performers. Using the Peak Performance System, our performance management and development system, in tandem with more than 100 global people development forums, associates and their managers regularly discuss development, movement and succession plans around the world. Visit our Careers section »

In addition, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of fairness in the treatment of our workforce around the world in line with UN Global Compact human rights principles. In fact, we recently published our Workplace Rights Policy and Human Rights Statement, which apply to all of our 90,500 associates worldwide. These policies formalize our long-standing corporate values with regard to day-to-day management behaviors and policies.

To encourage a work environment of open communication and to effectively solicit and leverage innovative ideas, we engage in frequent dialogue with our associates around the world. Such dialogue provides us with valuable information, increases awareness, promotes business strategies, shares successes and opportunities, and solicits employee opinions. For example, more than 1,500 global associates and bottling partners contributed ideas for our 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games activation. And, employee input was a key ingredient to our Company's Manifesto for Growth.

Another example of our regular dialogue with our associates is our Employee Insights Survey. In 2008, we embarked on our third global employee engagement survey. Results improved, with engagement climbing from a score of 79% in 2006 to 81% in 2008. As a result of survey findings, we increased our focus on operating effectiveness, which includes efforts toward simplification and standardization; reduced bureaucracy; and process effectiveness and efficiency. We plan to repeat this survey in 2008 and beyond, to continue to learn from employees.

In early 2007, we embarked upon an analysis of the relationship between employee opinions/behaviors and organizational performance - specifically, reputation among consumers, market share, and financial performance. As expected, we found that employee opinions are significantly linked with all of these factors.

For more insights on our people and their contributions to our business success, please see our 2007 Annual Review and 2007 Annual Report on Form 10K.