Investing in our employees

In our industry, competitiveness and service quality depend on the expertise and talent of each individual member of staff. Since 2002, the effectiveness of our staff, as measured by "human capital value added", has increased steadily. By comparison, the amount of shareholders' equity deployed per person is largely unchanged from 2002. While the increase in "human capital value added" is to a certain extent attributable to the favorable market conditions seen in the past four years, we do believe that this also shows that our people are becoming steadily more skilled and, therefore, more productive.

We believe this is the result of investing in the quality of our people. The diagram below gives an overview of what we believe are the most important factors driving the value created by our personnel. They are outlined in more detail in the following pages of this chapter.