Our long-term direction is to recruit, develop and retain talented, diverse employees who share our core values and reflect our communities.

Ball is integrating a six-step, global "people strategy" across all businesses to ensure that employees continue to be Ball’s greatest asset. Human resource leaders in each of our businesses worked together on this strategy, building on the best aspects already in place within Ball.

Ensuring Core Competencies

Our competency modeling tool identifies the knowledge, experience, skill and behaviors required for successful performance in each job. We incorporated these competencies into recruiting, performance, development and succession planning.

Finding the Right People

To ensure that our candidate pool is qualified and diverse, we use a variety of recruitment practices. In addition to posting job openings internally, giving employees the first chance for advancement, we attend professional and diversity career fairs; college and military recruiting venues; and, in the U.S., we have a summer internship program.

Our diversity initiative is designed to engage current employees as we continue to attract new talent. We conduct diversity awareness trainings and programs. We also established five specific employee resource groups for veterans, women, African Americans, Hispanic and Asian Americans. The intent is to identify and give recommendations for creating a more inclusive workplace. We developed partnerships for recruiting from diverse student populations such as the Thurgood Marshall case study.

To further our progress, Ball organized a diversity steering committee, made up of senior leaders, that oversees and emphasizes our diversity initiatives; increases the number of women and minorities in management positions; increases diversity in the applicant pool; increases hiring of women and minorities; reduce turnover of women and minorities; and improve diversity awareness throughout the company. Diversity awareness is included in Ball’s Fundamentals of Leadership training program for new and emerging leaders.

Case Study: Thurgood Marshall College Fund Leadership Institute

was a sponsor of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Leadership Institute, Recruitment Conference and Career Fair in 2008 and 2009. Our involvement supports their mission: "To develop and prepare a new generation of leaders by providing leadership development, scholarships, resources, opportunities and advocacy to Public Historically Black Colleges & Universities, students and alumni."

The conference draws students from 47 historically black public colleges. Workshops are available during the conference for students to gain additional skills; Developing Teamwork and Project Management Skills and Resume Writing and Interview Skills are two in which Ball participated. In 2008, two interns recruited from the institute worked at Ball the following summer; at the 2009 conference, Ball recruited nine interns for 2010.

Ensuring Employee Continuity

Our succession planning process helps to ensure that we are developing our employees with the appropriate skills they need to advance, and our recruiting efforts are designed to fill the gaps. We began a formal talent review process in 2008 with each operating division to discuss critical positions and emerging talent. We completed at least one review for each division since then and scheduled two for each division in 2010, concluding with a global rollup.

Developing the Right Skills

We offer comprehensive learning opportunities to employees to develop their skills and advance their careers. This helps foster employee engagement and improves retention. Our internal training program includes courses on leadership and management. In 2008 and 2009, 381 employees attended these classes from across our global operations. Ball also offers more than 300 free courses online. We encourage employees to further their education and have provided more than $2.2 million to 599 North America employees in the past two years to assist in their pursuit of college degrees.

Case Study: Leadership Training

Ball offers a five day Fundamentals of Leadership class which has been designed to develop the skills and effectiveness of supervisors and managers across the company. It is held three times a year at our corporate offices for employees in the U.S. A similar class was developed for employees in Europe and Asia.

Through the class, employees gain greater understanding of our business and culture, clarity on their management roles and responsibilities, building relationships and getting results, leading people and what resources can support them in their jobs.

Specific modules are based on topics including understanding communication styles, change management, listening skills, sustainability, environmental and safety performance, understanding diversity, coaching for performance, employment laws and labor relations. In the 11 years we have conducted this class, 1,270 employees have participated.

Managing Performance

Setting clear expectations and assessing employees against those expectations by providing useful feedback are essential. We redesigned our performance management review process in 2008 to increase participation. Currently, 92 percent of employees participate in an annual review process and we expect to be at 100 percent in 2010. Our standard performance review now also includes a section on how employees contribute to Ball’s sustainability - including diversity - and workplace safety initiatives.

Increasing Employee Engagement

Competitive wages and benefits, quarterly employee meetings, open houses and volunteer and social events are examples of how we increase employee engagement. Our voluntary turnover rate is world class - generally, less than 6 percent of our workforce leaves in any given year. In 2008 and 2009, our turnover rate was 5.5 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively, with more than half of the turnover due to retirements. More than 42 percent of our global operations are organized in labor unions. Despite such a large percentage of union workers, we have not experienced any work stoppages in our operations since 1998. Our low turnover rate and good relationship with unions helps to improve productivity and morale.