People development is driving our success
For the third year in a row, the magazine Fortune has rated BBVA one of the best companies in the world for developing leadership. In fact, it is ranked as the best European company and the twelfth in the world ranking of more than 500 companies, ahead of such prestigious firms as Unilever, Siemens, 3M or McKinsey.
The survey was conducted with Aon Hewitt and the RBL Group. It identifies the close relationship between BBVA’s business and leadership strategies, thanks to a model of people management that guarantees talent is available whenever needed and committed to fair opportunities in promoting the professionals who make up the Group’s team.
Yes, there is another way to do things
At BBVA we aim to guarantee that our teams are competitive by using a global scope standardized model that lays emphasis on professional development. This model is based on three principles:
1. Placing the best professionals into the best positions.
2. Combining training at the workplace with more specialized or structured training.
3. Ensuring transparency and fair opportunities.
Meritocracy as a basis for people management
Managing people in a Group made up of over 110,000 employees requires a model of talent location supported by objective criteria and systematic procedures for evaluation and development. The model includes a competencies assessment, which is carried out every two years to identify and develop our team’s skills, knowledge and management styles. It compares the current level of each employee with the ideal level of the profile of the function he or she performs. In 2011, all the professionals in the Group have been requested to carry out this process, with a participation rate of over 98%. As a result, 353,505 individual development actions have been implemented, selected out of a multi-language catalogue of more than 1,822 possibilities.
Campus BBVA, the Group’s training model
Training plays a key role within our development program. The budget allocated to training has been maintained despite the difficult time experienced by the industry. It amounted to over €40m in 2011, which in terms of time is equivalent to an annual 41 hours of training per employee. These figures have been possible thanks to the intensive use of technology. In fact, 60% of training in the Group is already online.
They key importance of transparency, objectivity and fair opportunities for the promotion of our professionals
An important aspect to highlight is that in 2011 we have made our training experience available to society as a whole by opening up a new business line consisting of commercializing an attractive range of face-to-face programs for professionals outside the Group. They are given together with world-class partners in subjects on which we are considered a market reference. This initiative complements the range of training programs already commercialized by BBVA, and which so far consisted of a catalogue of 120 online courses.
Positions available in BBVA, regardless of their level, nature or area in which they originate, are filled, as far as possible, using apúntate, the Group’s job posting tool, enabling national and international mobility within the Group.
A total of 3,251 jobs have been published in 2011. In addition, 5,950 employees have taken part in the internal selection processes mentioned above.
BBVA, a solid brand as employer
Professional development begins with projecting a solid brand as an employer that guarantees the talent required is available at all times thanks to a scheme of attraction based on:
1. Employer branding tools through social networks, which enabled a more direct contact with our potential candidates over the last two years:
- With more than 320,000 fans, 8,000 of them specifically from Recruitment,
- Who have paid more than 500,000 visits to over 1,000 job offers published in 2011.
2. The Virtual Employment Campus is a single employment site for all of our units. It receives more than 1,700,000 visits each year from candidates from over 150 countries and provides us with more than 250,000 CVs per year, with a collection of more than 1,700,000 CVs.
As a result, the Group’s workforce grew by a net 3,669 people in 2011 (518 in Spain), with 574 professional scholarships (around 80% of them in Spain).
We know that professional development is one of the benefits most valued by the new generation of professionals. This is particularly true of practices such as coaching and mentoring, which since 2009 have been applied on an individualized basis within the Group.
However, apart from attracting and retaining professionals, it is also essential they feel satisfied. This is why BBVA has a program focused on our employees called “Passion for People,” which operates in a variety of ways in aspects that include quality of life, a system of flexible remuneration and personal benefits, among others.
In any event, commitment and satisfaction is not only the result of a specific program, but it also depends on the conviction that employees have of being part of an attractive business project, which also generates expectations of growth. This is clearly one of BBVA’s strengths.
BBVA’s compensation policy is a key element for value creation
BBVA has an advanced remuneration system based on reciprocal generation of value for employees and the Group, in line with shareholder interests. It is guided by the following principles:
- Creation of long-term value.
- Compensation for the achievement of results based on prudent and responsible assumption of risks.
- Attraction and retention of the best professionals.
- Compensation for the level of responsibility and professional career.
- Internal equity and external competitiveness.
- Use of market benchmarks through analyses carried out by prestigious firms.
- Transparency in the remuneration policy.
The system of remuneration includes the standards and principles of the best current generally accepted national and international practices of remuneration and good corporate governance. It is a dynamic system that is in a constant process of development and improvement.