“Each stakeholder is allocated a responsible executive or champion to manage the relationship with the organisation

 

Stakeholders are defined as those people who are interested and affected by our business as well as those who have a material influence on our ability to create value.

In the year under review, we embarked on a stakeholder review process with the primary objective of improving relationships by becoming proactive in our approach to building relationships. This process involved:

• Identifying all stakeholders
• Determining their level of influence on the business
• Prioritising stakeholders according to our impacts on them and the nature of the relationship
• Mapping each stakeholder against a designated champion or responsible executive
• Defining the method of engagement and identifying potential opportunities for relationship building
• Establishing a tool for monitoring and evaluating relations in order to take proactive measures to improve these where they are found lacking

The process identified six priority stakeholder groups for the 2015 financial year in Zone 1 for immediate intervention, informed by the nature of the current relationship and the effectiveness of existing engagement structures. This remains an area of critical focus and requires our continuous engagement to build better relationships. Each stakeholder is allocated a responsible executive or champion to manage the relationship with the organisation as outlined in the table alongside.

Responsibilities are sub-delegated by each executive to specialist personnel and operational executives depending on the nature of the issues. Quarterly stakeholder engagement meetings where operational executives and group champions meet to discuss and identify material issues were initiated in the latter part of the reporting period. Part of the agenda is to:

• Identify key stakeholder issues;
• Highlight potential risks; and
• Develop appropriate action and responses

The action items have been populated into the risk management system and allocated to a responsible person, thus ensuring that stakeholder actions and responses are managed on a continuous basis and are accessible to the entire executive team for oversight.

Zone 2 stakeholders have existing and mature engagement structures, as such our objectives are to further build on these relationships. Progress made in Zone 1 is likely to have an impact on the relationship with stakeholders in Zone 3.

While we recognise that all stakeholders are important, we have prioritised our strategic relationships with employees and unions, government, shareholders and investors, local communities, and the media, each of whom has a material bearing on the success of our business. Some stakeholders are engaged at various forums and structures which have been established on a periodic basis and are supported by a charter, while others are met through ad hoc arrangements as and when is deemed necessary. The following table outlines the engagements for the year under review and the stakeholder issues raised.

Refer connectivity matrix of this report for a detailed list of stakeholders and the key material matters relating to these stakeholders.