Care for employees

KB’s strategic vision for human resources is forging long-term partnerships with its employees. A precondition is professional relationships based on trust, respect, communication with each other, and equal opportunities. We create an inspiring and stimulating environment where people want to work and be successful, and are eager to learn new things.

Cooperation amongst employees is based on four core values: team spirit, innovation, commitment, and responsibility. Together, these values form the basis of our corporate culture on which we are building our future. These values are also an integral part of our mission, which expresses the purpose of our existence (our raison d’être) and the way we want to be perceived in the market.

We apply the non-discrimination principle in recruitment. The decisive aspect for us is that the expectations concerning the job position and the job description are in line with each individual candidate’s knowledge, competences, and expectations.

We have been systematically attentive to the health of our employees for many years. Due to the current global epidemic situation, we also offer a large part of our activities online.

The headquarters building in Prague-Stodůlky has a gym where group yoga and TRX classes are held. As part of the Mojevitalita.cz programme, which promotes a healthy lifestyle, e-learning courses are available on the topics of smart office, home office or coronavirus. Online specialised workshops and webinars on healthy eating and mindfulness are held throughout the year. We regularly support our employees’ sports activities or the purchase of healthy lifestyle products through contributions via our benefit system. We also offer a Counselling Programme that provides employees with psychological, legal and COVID counselling.

We continue to help employees who find themselves in a difficult situation. We provide support in various ways, depending on the situation that the employee is facing, such as flexible working hours, reduced working time under contract, financial support or unpaid leave.

We devote great attention to the education of KB’s and KB Group’s employees and therefore offer them a broad range of development activities and programmes.

We specifically target front line employees and develop their sales and digital skills. The adaptation of new employees and the development of high-potential employees are important for us, and we organise a number of programmes to support their talent. We also promote employees’ skills in the international environment in cooperation with our parent company, Société Générale.

The educational offer is varied, and studying is possible in both face-to-face training sessions or through webinars, as well as online anytime and from anywhere.

Supporting the development of employees’ knowledge and skills through on-the-job activities and know-how sharing across the organisation is very important to us. We introduce new formats for sharing, such as sharing groups, peer-to-peer learning, market places, etc. Employees also benefit from mentoring, and our own internal coaches are now available to them.

We bring together the supply of and demand for educational activities under the heading of the EDU portal. In the EDU portal catalogue, employees can find training courses on technological and digital competences, agility, and development of sales skills or soft skills. Naturally, there is also mandatory and regulatory training.

Komerční banka also takes into account sustainability risks in its remuneration policy. Indeed, KB’s remuneration strategy promotes sustainable growth and enhances the bank’s value in the eyes of employees, shareholders and clients through a sound and business-sensitive remuneration policy. We have incorporated the sustainability goals (measured by OKRs) to the incentive system for senior management and the respective responsible employees.

Our remuneration is based on four principles. The internal justice principle, which guarantees the same remuneration for the same work and the same performance under the same transparent circumstances. The external competitiveness principle is pursued using regular market surveys. The risk consideration principle guarantees that remuneration remains consistent with sound and effective risk management. And the individual contribution principle, which takes into account the individual contribution or potential and which is accompanied by a bonus for meeting targets and performance.

Equal remuneration is a fundamental pillar of Komerční banka’s diversity strategy. Our goal is a zero gender pay gap by 2025, which we want to achieve across all employee groups. For the managerial population, we are targeting zero from the current 4.9%, and from 4.1% for the employee population.

We want to be a responsible employer and promote identification with Komerční banka Group, and so give employees the opportunity to choose discounted products and services from a wide range of employee benefits and advantages.

On a long-term basis, we seek out young talents and work with higher education institutions, in the form sponsorship gifts or in the form of expert advice. Our most active lines of cooperation include the University of Economics in Prague, Masaryk University in Brno, the Czech Technical University in Prague, Palacký University in Olomouc, and Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín.

We also meet with university students on a regular basis on the occasion of job fairs, open days, workshops, and special events on specific economic issues.

Every year, dozens of interns from universities and secondary schools gain experience at Komerční banka’s head office and in its branch network.

We regularly reach the highest rungs of the TOP Employer of the Year competition, in which students and graduates vote for the most sought after employer, and we manage to hold the top spot in the Banking and Investment category.

We have also created the Digital Bank of the Future podcast series, in which our specialists introduce new banking products, services and technologies to the public.

We are actively interested in our employees’ satisfaction. Every year, we organise employee satisfaction surveys via an online questionnaire, giving our employees an opportunity to voice their opinions and become involved in KB’s current developments and direction.

A new feature is KuBa, an intelligent chatbot that helps to induce newcomers into the new environment. KuBa also gauges their satisfaction in the integration process.