2007/2008 Objectives & Targets

Encourage staff to contribute to, and share in, the success of the company through their own ideas and ongoing professional development, whilst supporting them to maintain a healthy balance between home and work commitments.

Training remains a key area for Grainger. We have developed and launched a new training and development site on the company intranet and are also ensuring that all property managers are qualified to the Association of Residential Letting Agents ('ARLA') standard. In 2008, we will be concentrating on learning and career development with the aim of increasing average training days.

Our HR director will undertake an HR policy review to ensure the business and culture continue to align in accordance with best practice. We will also be conducting a review of the Grainger employer brand with the aim of connecting our values, people strategy and HR policies.

KPI

Employees	2005	2006	2007
Number of employees undertaking professional education	31	34	38
Average number of training days per employee	3	3	4
Investment in training per employee	£671	£674	£628
% staff turnover	19%	25%	10%
% of employees with five or more years' service	30%	39%	34%
Proportion of all staff that are female	56%	56%	56%
% of women in senior management positions	24%	4%	5%
% of women in technical or professional positions	16%	13%	28%
% of part-time employees	–	10%	6%
% of eligible employees participating in the sharesave scheme	–	50%	53%
% of eligible employees participating in share incentive plan	–	83%	85%

Targets for 2007/08

• Enable employees to better share in the success of the company by developing a career development framework to encompass all roles; and launch a new management development programme as part of our succession planning.
• Refine our performance management system to reinforce our culture that each employee makes a valuable contribution to the business.
• Develop our employee benefits package to offer greater flexibility, thereby enabling employees to better reflect their individual needs.

Ensure that we treat our tenants and customers fairly, and that we are responsive to their needs.

We are pleased to report that tenant satisfaction increased this year, with 65% of existing market rented tenants rating Grainger's Management Service as 'very good' or 'excellent' (up from 60% last year). We continue to help our more vulnerable tenants access funding via the Warm Front initiative. 36% of homes surveyed under this initiative have now had insulation work carried out. One focus on training this year has been to ensure all our property managers are ARLA qualified. This has enabled us to continue to deliver the highest standards of service.

KPI

Customers	2006	2007
Number of properties surveyed to date under the Warm Front/Miller Paterson initiative	445*	2,946
% of above properties which have had insulation work done	28%	36%
Proportion of rent due that has been collected	99%	98%
Rent loss due to voids as a percentage of open market rental value	6%	2%
*Warm Front only.

Targets for 2007/08

• As a founder member of REAL SERVICE*, work to establish our current performance level within the benchmarking criteria.
• Following the launch of British Property Federation Crystal marked Standard Tenancy Agreement, implement across Grainger for all new and renewed tenancies.
• To measure, via a sample of tenants, the level of satisfaction with repair work in order to establish a baseline and set improvement targets from next year.

* REAL SERVICE is a benchmarking group dedicated to helping the real estate industry improve customer service and generate improved property performance (www.real-service.co.uk)

Reduce our direct adverse environmental impacts, and help and encourage our tenants and customers to do the same in respect of the properties they occupy.

Our 2007 environmental baseline review has provided us with an accurate picture of our most significant impacts; energy use, transport, waste and procurement. We will focus on these as well as collecting data so we can report accurately and set performance-related improvement targets next year. We have had considerable success in sustainable design, environmentally friendly practices and construction at Hornsey Road this year with all homes being built to EcoHomes Very Good standard. Our contractors are measuring and monitoring waste levels and we can report that 40% has either been recycled or sent to a Materials Recovery Facility. By considering sustainability earlier, including speaking in advance to contractors, we are confident of achieving higher environmental standards.

With regard to our existing portfolio, we have conducted a research exercise to identify more environmentally-friendly alternatives to the materials that we use in our refurbishments. We will now be developing minimum standards for a range of materials and incorporating this information into our refurbishment software programme.

Targets for 2007/08

• Devise and implement a company-wide employee environmental awareness programme.
• To increase the proportion of recycled content in materials used in new builds to 10% by value and use good practice measures to increase this still further.
• All new Grainger homes to be designed and delivered to CSH level three or EcoHomes 'Very Good' in the case of some existing schemes.

Long-term targets

• Provide online access advice, information and guidance to tenants, on environmental issues and explore a suitable partner organisation with whom to communicate with tenants about the environment.
• Develop an action plan to implement agreed recommendations from the Environmental Baseline Review over the coming two years.
• Develop and implement a carbon management strategy by 2010.

Seek to understand the needs of the communities within which we operate, and positively contribute to their well-being

As our business is based around providing and managing homes, reducing homelessness is particularly relevant to Grainger. We were therefore delighted to welcome three people into the business through the Business Action on Homelessness work placement scheme. In addition, we have also hosted a Ready to Go Training and Action Day, which prepares clients affected by homelessness for work placements, and hosted a CV workshop.

As our development activities have grown, we have been mindful of the potential impact that we could have on local communities and have worked with specialist organisations to deliver effective community consultation. By engaging actively with the community and key stakeholders pre-application we not only produce a better scheme which meets the needs of the community that surround it, but also increase our chances of success in planning. At our Hornsey Road development, we have enjoyed working with the local school and getting to know those in the community through a fun day held in conjunction with Tollington Community Association.

KPI

Community	2005	2006	2007
Money raised for charity of the year (Shelter)	£30,764	£24,112	£10,296
Number of staff involved in community activities	180	220	250
Total amount raised for charities	£42,234	£58,747	£71,283

Targets for 2007/08

• Develop and implement a Community Investment strategy that supports charities and community activities relevant to our business and staff.
• Work in partnership with Shelter to support their policy seminars on raising awareness of the professional private rented sector.
• Each business division to identify and undertake relevant community activity.

Safeguard the health, safety and welfare of our employees, and where possible that of our tenants, contractors, visitors, clients and the general public.

Over the past year, we have formalised our health and safety strategy and have proactively communicated with our network of contractors.

We also produced and distributed a handbook, 'Health and Safety Requirements for Property Maintenance Contractors' and this has proved to be a useful tool for embedding health and safety throughout the business.

We are pleased to report that our key performance indicators – RIDDOR reportable accidents and incidents, and pollution incidents – are zero again this year.

Targets for 2007/08

• Gather and present health and safety data for all Grainger activities and projects, track performance and identify trends.
• Ensure accident/incident rates for Grainger and contracted activity is below the national average year-on-year.
• Undertake health and safety audits for a representative sample of Grainger activities and contractors to assess compliance and inform improvement activity.
• Identify suitable health and safety training and deliver to relevant Grainger staff.

Engage proactively with prioritised suppliers.

Grainger has embarked on a programme of supplier engagement this year. This has involved circulating a Code of Good Practice which has a focus on community awareness and respect for the environment.

We are also working with KPMG to review our supply chain which will incorporate sustainability issues. We spend a significant amount of money on property expenses and capital expenditure, and development projects.

During the year we completed a tender process and are pleased to have appointed an environmentally preferable stationery supplier across our offices.

KPI

Supplier	2005	2006	2007
Average payment term from invoice date	30 days	30 days	18 days

Targets for 2007/08

• Request supplier environmental information as part of future tender processes and actively consider this information when awarding significant supplier contracts.

Maintain high standards of business conduct, and secure long-term sustainable returns for our investors.

Grainger continues to engage with investors wherever we see an opportunity to do so. This year we undertook a corporate benchmarking exercise, learning more about both our investors' and our peers' public CR commitments. This has given us a better understanding of the sustainability goals of these groups.

We held an internal workshop with staff to discuss the results and brainstorm CR target ideas for the future. The outcomes of this workshop were fed directly into the development of our targets for 2007/08.

Targets for 2007/08

• Formally respond to requests for information sent by our major investors (owners of at least 2% of shares) on sustainability and CR in general.
• Proactively engage with the CR committee of at least one major investor to help develop and improve our own internal CR strategy.