Executive development / Employee advancement

The success of our company depends directly on the successful work of our employees. We therefore pay particularly close attention to the qualifications, experience and commitment of our staff and foster these attributes through our excellent personnel development and leadership practices. Our strategic human resources planning enables us to harmonise the size and skills of our workforce with the current and future requirements of our global market presence as well as with the requirements of increasing digitalisation.

We employed 3,251 staff (previous year: 2,893) Group-wide as at the end of the year under review. Our company’s continuing growth prompted further expansion of the workforce in the financial year just ended. Consequently, there were no major job losses in the year under review, as was also the case in previous years.

As a global entity, we are able to offer our employees an attractive workplace that fosters motivation, dedication and teamwork. Our attractiveness as an employer is further reinforced by systematic career development programmes, a commitment to clearly expressing our appreciation of employees and an approach that allows them to participate in the sustained success of the business.

The basis of our common corporate culture is the greatest possible delegation of tasks, responsibilities and authority. In this way we ensure that our employees are able to act in a quick and flexible manner. This is supported through management by objectives, and we expect our managers to instil a strong sense of accountability in their staff. Our managers therefore play a particularly important role. They lead their staff according to our management principles. We support them in developing their leadership skills, inter alia with the aid of the management feedback process held on a regular basis. This gives members of staff an opportunity to provide feedback to their supervisor on how his or her management style is experienced.

Where qualifications are equivalent, vacant management posts are filled wherever possible from within the Group, and we therefore consider leadership potential even at the recruitment stage. As part of a standardised process that takes place every other year at the Hannover location, all positions from management level (General Manager / Director) upwards are reviewed at corporate headquarters and at selected international entities. With a view to achieving a better gender balance we strive for an increasing proportion of women on all levels of management.

When it comes to expanding and establishing our personnel development measures, we set particularly great store by a range of activities tailored to specific needs and target groups. Our programme of further training, which is open to all employees, encompasses above all offerings in the fields of information technology, reinsurance, social and methodological skills as well as language courses. The range of measures is continuously reviewed and extended.

One of the central concerns in our human resources management is exploring the implications of shifting demographics and helping to preserve the working capacity of our managers and staff. With this in mind, we have put in place strategic health management that includes, for example, in-house wellness days as well as targeted training activities for managers and staff alike. We extended our training programme for managers by including several events on the subject “Wellness – Individual Responsibility and Management Task”. This gives the participating managers an opportunity to grasp the correlation between management and wellness and to reconsider their own behaviour with this in mind.

Along with making every effort to preserve working capacity, we also devote close attention to other demographic issues such as the more demanding requirements placed on our managers by the changing age structures in our society and hence also within our organisation. To this end, we extended the training programme provided to our managers in the financial year just ended so as to enable them to explore topics such as generation management.

A further important component of our health management is the Employee Assistance Programme. This has been available to our managers, staff and their family members since August 2016. The programme offers free and anonymous immediate counselling on personal, professional and health concerns as well as a service for families. Early numbers confirm that this programme has been well-received and is seen as helping to ensure that individual challenges in working or home life do not become burdens.

Staff at our Hannover head office also enjoy access to a broad range of fitness opportunities, including company sports groups dedicated to various types of sport and cooperation arrangements with fitness studios. When it comes to individual workstations, we take care to provide the most ergonomic possible room layout, desks and chairs.