Shell staff 'unhappy with management'
More than half of Shell’s staff are unhappy with how the troubled oil company is run, it emerged today.
An internal survey of staff opinion found that only 47% of the group’s workforce felt Shell was well led, a report said.
That contrasted with a similar survey in 2002 which found 67% of respondents to be happy with the company’s leadership.
In October, Shell unveiled its most far-reaching overhaul in 100 years as part of a recovery strategy following its reserves crisis.
The group is proposing to ditch its twin board structure and relocate UK-based executives to The Hague as part of moves to prevent a repeat of the debacle, which claimed the scalps of its chairman and two other senior executives.
A spokesman said the company had acknowledged the biennial survey’s findings and that 2004 had been “a very tough year” for the workforce.
“Our staff are one of our most important stakeholders and once we have digested the results of the survey, we will decide what specific actions to take,” he said.
“We are committed to delivering our strategy and the cultural change that Shell needs to take the company forward and restore its leadership position in the industry.”
Not all reaction to the 81 questions in the survey was negative, the Financial Times quoted a person familiar with the report as saying.
In a number of cases, the responses were more or less similar to those in 2002, the paper said.
Despite Shell’s well documented recent problems, its executives are tipped to unveil the biggest annual profits in British corporate history tomorrow.
The strong results are expected to reflect a strong operating environment in terms of energy commodity prices, with results from the group’s exploration and production division rising by about 20%.
Analysts expect the firm to give more details on restructuring and reserve accounting developments following its revelation in January last year that its reserves were 20% lower than previously thought.
