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RBI with European Staff Council
The following eight EU countries are represented in the European Staff Council (ESC) of RBI: Bulgaria, Hungary,
Croatia, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. There are 13 representatives altogether.
During the course of 2018, the ESC held two ordinary meetings. A large number of topics were discussed with
the RBI management, including digitization initiatives, employee surveys, and bonus and incentive systems in the
RBI Group. The Management Committee of the ESC, consisting of four elected ESC representatives, met several
times during the year in addition to the two plenary sessions, including with representatives of RBI’s management,
and further strengthened the cooperation within the ESC.
RBI remains committed to the principle of direct and open communication with employees. The good cooperation
with existing local and/or national employee representatives is complemented, but not replaced, by the ESC.
The ESC is an important additional platform for ongoing dialog and the structured exchange of information
between company management and employees through their elected representatives.
Employee surveys
At RBI, employee surveys are used as an important tool for the continued development of the company. Employee
feedback on strategic topics is considered to constitute important input on improvement processes within the
Group. In 2018, the Groupwide roll-out that takes place every two years was held for the third time with the
participation of ten RBI companies.
All in all, around 24,000 employees were invited to participate in the survey in 2018, with 19,827 employees
taking this opportunity to shape the company’s future. The return rate of 85 percent represents a slight improvement
of one percent point compared with the last survey cycle. At 73 percent and 75 percent respectively, the results
in the categories “Employee Engagement” (commitment to the company and the willingness to volunteer for
additional work) and “Employee Enablement” (the presence of an environment that promotes success) were up
on the last survey and seven percentage points higher than the “Banking in CEE” market benchmark.
This encouraging result is due in particular to the systematic planning and implementation of
measures following each survey. Employee feedback indicates the direction of future travel and,
in particular, identifies subject areas that employees feel could be improved further, as well as
highlighting the things that are already working well. Managers at all levels were called upon to
continue expanding and optimizing these strengths together with their employees. The HR department assists
the respective units of the company with analyzing the result reports and arranging workshops for planning
measures, as well as providing them with support for implementing the agreed measures in some cases. One
example from Russia illustrates the hard work that is being put into employee-oriented solutions. The home
office workplace and flexible working hours were adopted at a company-wide level in direct response to the
employee survey. Examples from the bank in the Czech Republic – including changes to the remuneration
structures, office conversion work and the enhancement of the employer value proposition – also serve to
demonstrate the sustainable changes that are being implemented based on the results of the employee survey.
The final example is from the head office in Vienna, where the Management Board defined two strengths and
two areas for development in which specific measures were planned by working groups consisting of volunteers
from the entire company. Each group was supported directly by a member of the Management Board. As
well as identifying specific solutions, the project provided scope for experimenting with new ideas and testing
them out in small pilot projects. This reflects the company’s new approach to increasingly adopting agile
working methods.
One particularly notable achievement was the fact that our bank in Russia became the first Group company to
receive the “Korn Ferry Employee Engagement Award” in 2018. This prize is awarded to the companies with
the best results for employee engagement in the respective country. This again reflects how seriously employee
feedback is taken and the positive impact that can be had by conscientiously implementing the resulting measures.
Raiffeisen Bank International | Sustainability Report 2018