How We Affect Employee Attraction and Retention

Agrium’s true competitive advantage is our ability to attract and retain the right people. Our programs are designed to ensure a high performing workforce with a focus on the well-being and engagement of our employees.

What We’re Doing

We conduct external surveys to ensure that our total compensation offering is competitive. Our total compensation package consists of a base salary, benefits and incentive programs designed to recognize and reward individual, business unit, and company-wide performance. Our benefits programs include benefits such as health and dental care, parental leave, flexible work schedules, life insurance, and other forms of financial or non-financial compensation.

We maintain defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans in Canada and in the United States. The majority of employees are members of defined contribution pension plans. We also maintain health care plans and life insurance benefits for retired employees.

As Agrium becomes a more global company, we realize that we need to continually attract people with international experience. In fact, we feel that our global breadth attracts the broad-minded professionals we believe can help Agrium continue to provide solutions to global issues. We offer several programs to attract young employees, including internships and rotation programs for new graduates entering our finance function, Engineer-in-Training, and marketing and sales roles.

Every 18-24 months we survey our employees on a number of subjects to gauge overall employee engagement. Our most recent survey, conducted in 2011 in eight languages, had an impressive response rate of 81 percent.

The survey includes 72 questions grouped in eight categories, addressing such issues as communications, development opportunities, compensation and others.

Based on employee feedback in the last survey, Agrium will focus on two areas: career development and performance management. Leaders throughout the company are communicating survey results with their teams, and developing action plans to address concerns.

How We’re Doing

This indicator tracks resignations and retirements. Our 8.8 percent turnover rate compares favorably with a North American average of 9 percent for 2011 (Corporate Executive Board). The turnover rate is consisten`t with the increasing proportion of employees in our growing retail division. We use our employee survey to understand the drivers of employee retention, and our workplace programs to maintain high employee engagement.

In 2011, our Employee Engagement Score of 83.3 percent compared favorably to the corporate benchmark of 77 percent (Pamela Ennis & Associates Inc.). We track an engagement score that comprises 15 questions from different categories across the employee survey. As in 2009, we once again experienced an impressive survey participation rate of 81 percent worldwide.