Good internal communication helps keep our employees informed and involved in company activities as well as providing opportunities for them to give feedback on how we are doing. We believe there is a direct relationship between employee engagement and the overall performance of a company.

Employees that are engaged with their company and their work:

• Speak positively about the organization
• Choose to stay with the company despite opportunities to work elsewhere
• Choose to make extra effort to do a good job.

In 2007, K-C employee networks held a Senior Leader Speakers series at U.S. corporate locations. Each event was attended by more than 300 employees. Presenters included our Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Marketing Officer and President of Consumer Sales and Customer Development for North America. Topics ranged from Business Support Delivery to our journey to become an indispensable business partner.

During 2007, more than 3,500 Kimberly-Clark employees around the world participated in a Global Trends survey. The survey listed 20 global trends on everything from technology and families to politics and poverty. Participants ranked these in order of perceived impact on K-C over the next ten years. The top concerns selected were:

• Rapidly changing business and competitive environments
• Continued growth in global energy demand
• The demand on businesses to be socially responsible and transparent, with more pressure to be forthcoming about environmental impacts.

Union representation

All of our employees are free to join a union. In 2007, approximately 19 percent of our U.S. employees were covered by union contracts. In Europe, approximately 80 percent of mill workers and 10 percent of professionals were covered by union contracts.