Doing more to reward all aspects of performance

Like the rest of our human resources policies, our approach to compensation aims both to keep us competitive, by paying median wages in a specific market, and to ensure fairness internally. With a continued focus on developing talent, our expanded goal now is to do more to reward personal performance, by awarding merit raises, bonuses and other incentives.

Although all Total companies share these basic principles, they are adapted to local factors, such as legislation, the economic environment and the job market. We are also committed to giving employees a financial stake in our performance. When company-wide financial performance targets are met, we grant performance shares to a large number of our employees, as allowed under French legislation since 2004.

Number of employees receiving
performance shares and stock options

In 2008, 9,400 employees of all occupational categories received stock options and restricted shares. Here too, in order to ensure that the system is fair, first-time grantees account for about 45% of the beneficiaries. When combined with previous stock option plans, nearly 20,000 employees in over 120 countries have benefited.

Accelerating expansion outside France of benefits and employee savings

We want to provide all our employees with equivalent benefits, taking into account the local environment. In particular, we have developed incentives for employee savings, including providing matching contributions.

We also regularly carry out employee-only share issues, most recently in March 2008. More than 32,000 people working in 555 companies in 106 countries purchased €216 million worth of shares. The process was opened up to ten new countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and even China, where it was the first employee-only share issue ever.

Today, three-quarters of our employees worldwide have quality insurance coverage with death benefits.