AVEVA is committed to being a leader in industrial software for a sustainable future, working with our employees, our customers, our partners and the wider communities where we do business.
Powering industries by empowering people.
At AVEVA, we believe the skills, expertise and passion of our employees are critical to success, and we want everyone to feel inspired to achieve great things for our customers.
Employee engagement has always been a priority. This section covers how we have evolved our Corporate Communications and HR and Engagement processes, as well as our culture to reflect the changing needs of the organisation. AVEVA employs over 4,500 people across 44 countries and more than 150 locations.
Our employees
Listening and engaging
Following the Combination with SES, we have been successfully operating as a unified organisation for more than a year. We ensured all employees were welcomed and integrated into AVEVA without delay and, following an extensive integration programme, worked hard to bring together the two organisations with minimal disruption to customers and shareholders.
The integration programme resulted in an intense period of change for our employees and we have made good progress adapting the way we communicate to reflect the needs of our newly integrated organisation. Through effective two-way communication, we have aimed to support our employees through this change, focusing on communicating how these changes impacted them. We achieved this through a carefully considered integration communications strategy and plan, designed to deliver important updates via a variety of channels including face-to-face Meet and Greet sessions across the globe, email, intranet and all employee calls with our leadership team.
We are committed to engaging with our people and communicating essential information on the future growth of our business to all our stakeholders. We have launched multiple new communications channels designed to inform, engage and inspire employees, and regularly see engagement rates of more than 60% for many of our regular communications, including global Meet and Greets, team newsletters, weekly customer success announcements and a monthly podcast from our CEO.
Our intranet continues to provide a dynamic social hub and information centre for employee communications. We have seen excellent engagement with this platform, particularly with our people stories, which allow employees to share their news on Corporate Social Responsibility activities, local events and celebrations.
We recognised the importance of face-to-face engagement with our new CEO and Executive Leadership Team. We delivered a global executive Meet and Greet campaign in support of the integration programme, which reached almost 3,400 employees across 28 locations. The campaign concluded with a live event broadcast to every employee across the organisation, with many offices arranging local screening events. To engage audiences, we made the event interactive and encouraged employees to submit questions in advance as well as during the event itself. 34 events took place, with over 2,000 people watching either live or via playback in the first 24 hours.
We have continued to grow our Global Ambassador Network and have welcomed new members from SES. The network has proved invaluable in organising corporate events and providing local feedback on corporate messaging and campaigns.
Communications feedback remains a priority, and we regularly ask employees to share their views on messages received and initiatives launched across the business. We invite employees to comment on most of our organisational announcements, and solicit feedback on any new initiatives promoted on our intranet. This feedback is highly valued and feeds into plans for future communications activities. In addition, we regularly survey employees following corporate events so that we can apply lessons learned in the future.
Following our first live Meet and Greet event we asked employees what they enjoyed about the session, what could have gone better and if they would like to see more of this type of event in the future. Feedback showed a real enthusiasm and taking this into account, our Executive Leadership Team has now committed to regular live Meet and Greet events.
We’re pleased to have been announced as a finalist for the 2019 Gartner Awards for our entry in the Excellence in Change Communication category. This entry focused on the contribution the Corporate Communications team made on the integration project for the Combination, and the positive impact this had on employee engagement.
Our policies – supporting our people
As a global organisation, we recognise our responsibility to respect and to contribute positively to human rights, and we are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all business matters.
Our Group policies are reviewed on an annual basis and cover anti-bribery and corruption, anti-slavery and human trafficking, social matters, employee benefits and other policies required by statute. Our policies are available on our intranet and accessible for all employees.
We run annual mandatory global corporate ethics training. All employees are required to complete training modules on all corporate ethics policies, with the aim of ensuring organisational-wide understanding of AVEVA’s stance on ethics, as well as the role individuals must play as employees of the organisation.
In the last 12 months, we have updated and improved our employee policies in a range of areas including, but not limited to, whistleblowing (rebranded AVEVA ‘Speak Up’), dignity at work, travel and homeworking. All changes have been made with the aim of improving employee wellbeing, both within and beyond the workplace.
Non-financial information statement
Reporting Requirements
Policies and guidelines that govern our approach
What this means for us and our communities
Reporting Requirements
Environmental Matters
Policies and guidelines that govern our approach
Global Environment and Sustainability Statement
What this means for us and our communities
Developed as part of our commitment to reduce our emissions
Reporting Requirements
Employees
Policies and guidelines that govern our approach
AVEVA Life values
Dignity at Work Policy
AVEVA Speak Up Policy
What this means for us and our communities
We value our employees and encourage them to be the best they can be
Reporting Requirements
Social and Community Matters
Policies and guidelines that govern our approach
AVEVA Action for Good Pledge 1%
What this means for us and our communities
Our employees do a lot for charities, and with employer matched funding, contributions go further
Reporting Requirements
Human Rights
Policies and guidelines that govern our approach
Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy
What this means for us and our communities
We review annually as we strive to be ethical in all our practices
Reporting Requirements
Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption
Policies and guidelines that govern our approach
Anti-Bribery and Corruption
Corporate Gifts and Hospitality
Group Export Policy
Related Party Transactions
What this means for us and our communities
All employees must complete and pass an annual test on corporate ethics
Diversity & Inclusion

Supporting Diversity & Inclusion in our industry
As a technology company, we need to understand and address the challenges within the broader sector in attracting and retaining women, and are committed to doing all we can to encourage and support more women into the industry.
We continue to be an active member of WISE, a UK campaign for gender balance in science, technology, and engineering. Providing support to the WISE initiative is a key part of our strategy for increasing the number of women in technical roles within the company, and this year we continued to show our support by acting as a sponsor for the WISE annual awards.
Internally, our goal is to achieve greater Diversity & Inclusion. We want to close the gap in our gender pay inequality and recognise that one of the most effective ways to do so is to hire and progress more women into senior and technical positions.
We have a framework in place to ensure we attract and retain the best possible talent, with a key focus on how we support and encourage women in the STEM arena. This includes an AVEVA Women in Research and Development network that offers mentoring and support.
One of our new partners this year is ‘Girls in Tech’, a global non-profit organisation that shares our values and beliefs about supporting women in the technology industry. It works to put an end to gender inequality in high-tech industries and start-ups by educating and empowering women who are passionate about technology.
On 8 March, AVEVA was proud to host numerous events across our regions in celebration of International Women’s Day. As well as organising Executive panel events in our Cambridge, Hyderabad and Lake Forest offices for over 1,000 employees, offices were encouraged to take part and celebrate in any way they chose. Many events took place across the globe, from health talks in Bangalore through to celebrating colleague successes in Mexico.
AVEVA in the community
Giving our employees a platform to share their experiences and thoughts on Diversity & Inclusion is important to AVEVA. We invited employees to upload a video diary on the subject to a dedicated area of our intranet. In total, 52 videos were submitted and engagement levels with these videos was high. The success of this campaign has inspired us to use the platform for future employee insights.
Sharing knowledge and experience
This year our Learning and Development teams have worked across the whole organisation to support everyone in understanding our new AVEVA business proposition and value to our clients.
We regularly hold departmental, global and functional conferences and events designed to bring colleagues together to collaborate, share ideas and lessons learned, as well as plan for the year ahead. A few examples of this include marketing summits, HR conferences and IGNITE, our annual sales conference.
IGNITE brings together all our Sales, Marketing and Channel teams to network, share successes and, most importantly, discuss how we can continue to drive our business forward and deliver for our customers. In April 2018, it provided an opportune chance to discuss our combined Sales strategy for our first year of our joint operations.
Additionally, a lot of work has been carried out to harmonise processes and to train employees on these, as well as new systems. We developed a global induction on our intranet to provide all new joiners with a hub of core corporate information.
Ongoing technical and soft skills training continue to be provided, using both internal and external providers to support employees.
Advancing our talent
We recognise that the success of our business relies on the acquisition and retention of talented people. We are proud to have a team of dedicated talent acquisition specialists around the world who work tirelessly to seek and engage with top talent to ensure that we have a constant pipeline of highly skilled people joining our organisation.
As a large, global organisation, being able to attract and retain diverse talent is core to our success. We have launched regional strategies to recruit and develop talent, while taking account of Diversity & Inclusion, with associated initiatives and metrics to ensure progress in these areas.
Early Careers is one of the core strategies for the Talent Acquisition function, focusing on future-proofing our organisation for long-term productivity and covering the risks of an ageing workforce, fast-paced change in technology and an increasingly global market. Early Careers spans graduates, interns and apprentices, and during the financial year, this initiative increased our headcount by 75 across various functions globally.
Academic initiatives
We continue to build relationships with academic institutions around the world through a variety of campaigns and initiatives aimed at supporting students looking to start a career in the technology industry.
On 1 January 2019, we launched our first North America Academic Competition. 56 participants from 20 universities used SimCentral, our industrial simulation platform, to solve a problem in collaboration with Dr. Richard Turton, renowned author and industry expert in the field of chemical process simulation. The winner and runner-up both received a grant to further explore simulation of chemical processes requiring membrane separation models, such as oxygen separation from air, alternative natural gas utilisation, and carbon capture from coal-fired power plants.
We have ongoing relationships with vocational training centres, universities and further education establishments to donate software and training for use on engineering and ComputerAided Design (CAD) degree courses. As part of our research programme we are working with the University of Cambridge to help sponsor its Future Infrastructure and Built Environment (FIBE) Centre for Doctoral Training where we are co-sponsoring three PhD students, guiding their research and mentoring them through their studies.
We are also working with the University of Milan to assess the behavioural and academic impact of our Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) software on students’ ability to problem solve when dealing with complex chemical engineering processes.
Supporting our local communities through charitable giving and volunteering
In October 2018, we launched AVEVA Action for Good, a Group-wide Corporate Social Responsibility initiative designed to encourage employees to take part in social wellbeing activities which support local communities and society more broadly. As part of this, we have joined the “Pledge 1%” movement, committing the equivalent of 1% of our net profits, through a combination of paid time off and financial contributions, to support social wellbeing and charitable causes, both at a global level and in the local communities where we operate. From working with children’s charities to life-changing technology projects, we want everyone to take action for the good of our world.
Inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and guiding principles on business and human rights, this programme makes it possible for every employee at AVEVA to make a real difference across three areas of our Social Wellbeing framework: Community, Environment, and Workplace. To enable our employees to take part, we offer an additional day of paid leave per year to support causes that matter to them.
Our employee community has for many years shown a passion for supporting social wellbeing and community initiatives, through the organising of fund-raising events, charitable activities and directly supporting local communities. For example, in December, employees from our Chicago office provided support to Cradles to Crayons, an organisation that provides clothing to impoverished households.
In January, Hyderabad colleagues distributed blankets to the city’s homeless. More than 1,500 homeless people live on the streets of Hyderabad, a situation made more challenging due to the wintry temperatures at this time of year. Determined to provide support in the community they work, volunteers took to the streets overnight to give out AVEVA-funded blankets to those in need.
These are just two examples, but employees from all over the world have all taken advantage of paid time off to support worthwhile causes local to their community.
We also aim to support employees who take on personal challenges to support causes that matter to them. We also aim to support employees who take on personal challenges to support causes that matter to them. We also aim to support employees who take on personal challenges to support causes that matter to them.
Our commitment to CSR is recognised externally, and was reflected in our inclusion for the third consecutive year in the FTSE4Good Index. The index identifies listed companies that make a positive contribution to society and demonstrate strong Environmental, Social and Governance practices.
As part of our Pledge 1% commitment, AVEVA has financially contributed £90k to global causes as well as supported paid time off to a value of £9k. Since we launched our commitment, we have contributed 0.6% of our net profits. We will add the £70k shortfall to next year’s total.
Environmental responsibility
Greenhouse gas/carbon emissions
For the purposes of this report, the emissions have been calculated according to the ‘Environmental Reporting Guidelines: Including mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reporting guidance’ issued by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and by applying DEFRA’s conversion factors.
The data presented is presented on a reported basis (i.e. with 12 months of the enlarged AVEVA Group for FY19, but 12 months of heritage SES and 1 month of the heritage AVEVA business in FY18).
For our carbon intensity ratio we have measured our carbon usage as it relates to our business performance, citing tonnes of CO2e/£ million of revenue. In FY19 this intensity ratio reduced to 12.06 tonnes CO2e/£ million (FY18: 13.65).
Tonnes of CO2e
Emissions from
2019
2018
Emissions from
Scope 1 - Combustion of fuel and operation of facilities
2019
1,229
2018
938
Emissions from
Scope 2 - Electricity, heat, steam and cooling purchased for own use
2019
8,019
2018
5,876
Emissions from
Scope 3 - Transmission and distribution losses
2019
1,140
2018
1,323
Emissions from
Intensity Measurement (Scopes 1, 2 and 3)
2019
10,388
2018
8,137
Emissions from
- Tonnes CO2e/£m revenue
2019
12.06
2018
13.65