Nestlé employees from across the world meet to undergo intensive training at the Rive-Reine International Training Centre, Switzerland.

Nestlé ’s overarching principle is that each employee should have the opportunity to develop to the maximum of his or her potential.

At Nestlé we believe that it is important to give people the opportunities for life-long learning. All our employees are called upon to upgrade their skills in a fast-changing world. We believe that by offering opportunities to develop, we not only enrich ourselves as a company, we also make ourselves individually more autonomous, confident, an in turn, more employable and open to new positions within the company. Enhancing this virtuous circle is the ultimate goal of our training efforts at many different levels through the thousands of training programs we run each year.

The average number of years of service at retirement is 27 years (in the top 20 countries that employ 80% of our people), and we believe that one of the basic reasons that our employee turnover is so low (less than 5% per year) is that we help people grow in their personal capabilities on an ongoing basis.

A survey carried out in 2002 covering over 180 000 Nestlé employees around the world showed that 65% received some form of training during that year. This amounted to more than 354 000 days of formal training. 27% of the training was at factory production level; 61% of the training was given by internal trainers, the rest by external providers. Personal development schemes include literacy training, Nestlé apprenticeship programs, technology and scientific knowledge transfer, cultural programs and "Life After Work" intiatives.

Empowering high-performing teams
Within diversified, decentralized operations in emerging as well as developed economies, our key challenge is to continuously build local capacity, expertise and leadership to raise standards. Nestlé promotes a culture of engagement and performance and strives towards best practice. For example, we have introduced Mission Directed Teams (MDTs) in a number of our operations.

Each MDT is a mini-business focused on delivering high-quality products and services to other internal MDTs. Early results from pilots in our manufacturing plants show value being delivered through efficiency gains, higher levels of engagement and service improvements. For example, MDTs made a significant contribution in Blacktown, Australia, where past results have shown customer complaints falling by 33% on prior year (a key focus was product quality issues), and absenteeism reduced by 6.5% to below 3% of hours worked.