Human Capital

We respect the equal opportunity and diversity in the working environment regardless of language, ethnicity, age, gender, political thought or faith. Accordingly, we are guided by the principles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

We support women’s active participation in all areas of social and economic life with equal rights. In this context, we signed the United Nations Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs), which aims gender equality and empowerment of women, and became the first public institution in Türkiye to sign this agreement. At the same time, as one of the advocates of gender equality in business life, we are the signatory to the Declaration of Equality at Work, led by the Ministry of Family and Social Policies and prepared in cooperation with the World Economic Forum. We have been included in Bloomberg Gender Equality Index (GEI) since 2020.

In order to achieve our strategic goals and provide competitive advantage in the sector, we increase our employees’ competencies and gain new talents. We implement employee development and talent management practices, perform performance assessments, offer career planning and trainings suitable for employees’ potentials.Our performance assessment system makes a competency assessment for our employees’ career planning once a year and analyzes their training and development requirements based on the assessments.

Our performance system is moving along the axis of our corporate strategic objectives, related business objectives and competence assessment. In 2023, we included all bank employees in our performance system and completed a successful period in which our employees made a difference with their performance. We presented performance achievement awards to our employees by evaluating individual performance objectively and transparently.2,251 of our employees were promoted to a higher title as a result of the assessment of the provisions governing promotions of the Regulation About Career and Wage Management System and the Regulation About Specialized Staff. As part of our career planning efforts in line with our vision as a bank that raises managers internally, we promoted a total of 13% of our employees, 51.04% of whom are women and 48.96% of whom are men, to higher positions.

We continue to improve our employees’ competencies to reach our goals and become the industry’s pioneer. Our performance evaluation system makes a behavioral-based competency assessment for our employees’ career planning once a year and analyzes their training and development needs based on the evaluations. While implementing this system, we support continuous change and development with the innovations we make every year so that our managers can make a healthy evaluation and advance the process with an objective approach.

We determine our remuneration policy within the bank in accordance with the risk and responsibility assumed at all levels, pay fair remuneration and provide fringe benefits by taking into account the fundamental rights of our employees. We review our remuneration policy once a year, we aim to be in line with our ethical values, internal balances and strategic goals while determining salaries for our executives and employees at all levels; and we care not to make it limited only with our employee’s short-term performance.

We determine the wages and increases in wages with Collective Bargaining Agreement signed with the Bank Finance and Insurance Employees Union (BASS) for our employees within the scope, and with the decision of Board of Directors for our employees outside the scope. In 2023, when we signed the 26th Term Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Bank, Finance and Insurance Employees Union (BASS) covering the dates between 01.05.2023-30.04.2025, the rate of our employees covered by the collective bargaining agreement is 84%.

Besides salary payments, we offer our employees opportunities for basic needs such as bonuses, performance premiums, dividends, health insurance, and various permissions.In addition to the “Base Salary,” which is the main salary, we make compensation payments to our employees for the tasks, foreign language competencies, licensing, and expertise, taking into account the duties and responsibilities they undertake.

We also contribute to our employees within the Employer Contributed Private Pension Plan framework and the opportunity to be included in the private pension system.

In order to differentiate in financial sector and provide competitive advantage, we offer employees a business environment in where they feel happy and safe. To this end, we support the development of employees and promote practices that appeals to their needs and expectations. We conduct internal customer satisfaction and employee engagement and satisfaction surveys.

We conducted an Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Survey in 2021 to learn about the trust and engagement of the employees for the VakıfBank brand and perception, their work-private life balance, their opinions on performance management, salary, training, and development opportunities, and their general evaluations about their managers. A total of 13,023 employees participated in the survey, including the employees of our subsidiaries. The score of 2021 Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Survey was 64.

We are aware that high employee engagement also contributes to a low employee turnover rate. Our employee turnover rate was 3.03 and our voluntary employee turnover rate was 2.92 in this period.

Another activity we carry out to get the opinions of our employees is the Suggestion Platform. We are carrying out works to actualize the ideas and suggestions that our employees convey through the platform with the thought of adding value to our Bank.

We organized activities in education, environment, arts, and sports in 2021 as part of our internal communication strategy to support our employees in contributing to social life. With the “Goodwill Box,” a volunteer movement initiated to meet the needs of village school students in different cities such as stationery, clothing, sports equipment, and musical instruments, in 2021, we collected and delivered nearly 30,000 products to schools and students in need, disaster victims and shelters in line with their needs.

In addition to the institution dietitian we recruited within the scope of the Healthy Life Club activities and 20-person in-office exercise lessons we organize once a week; we continue to reach all our employees with our healthy lifestyle and snack suggestions we provide through our club. We support our employees within the scope of Corporate Games, where there are sports competitions between companies. After the Istanbul Polyphonic Choir, we also established the Izmir Polyphonic Choir. In addition, we create suitable environments for our employees to spend their free time with our theater and Turkish paper marbling clubs.

We are always driven by our sensitivity toward employees’ happiness. Backed by our approach focused on employee experience, we continue introducing practices aimed at contributing to their engagement and satisfaction, boosting their motivation, and making them feel the privilege of being a VakıfBank employee. In 2022, we deployed Employee Experience screens where we analyze data provided by them as part of our analytical HR activities. It is thanks to these analyses that we know, see, and understand our people better and plan actions accordingly. We closely follow new generation human resources practices.

In this context, in line with the changing trends and expectations of working life, we announced the “Birthday Leave” practice to all our employees at the end of 2023 in order to allow our employees to celebrate their birthdays with their loved ones and we shall start implementing it in 2024.

We value measuring and evaluating employee satisfaction in terms of the service employees receive from Head Office units, executing the processes between units with which we have business relations more accurately and quickly, increasing the Bank’s internal customer satisfaction, differentiating the Bank from its rivals, and supporting the Bank’s continued development. We have attained 63% participation in the Internal Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted in 2023 for the effective management of employee satisfaction. The internal customer satisfaction score stood at 76 in this period.

With our Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Policy, we reflect the superior value we give to people and we consider offering our employees a safe and healthy work environment as one of our fundamental responsibilities. In this framework, we adopt as the basic requirement to act in compliance with international standards together with legal requirements regarding OHS. We have managed to become the first bank in Turkey to establish the Integrated Management System (ISO 9001-ISO 14001-ISO 45001) and to receive a certificate following an Integrated Certification Audit by obtaining the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Management System certificate. In 2021, we also achieved sustainability in the Integrated Management System.

We regularly provide in-class and e-learning training to raise awareness of the OHS throughout the Bank. We ensure that every newly recruited employee joins the one-day OHS in-class training within the scope of orientation training. In 2021, we provided in-class OHS training to a total of 1,093 participants. In addition, the Occupational Health and Safety Data Bank, which we have prepared for our employees, is among our publications on the corporate portal. Also, all our departments and branches have employee representatives designated for OHS.

We mapped our OHS risks with a proactive risk management approach. We categorized them over approximately 100 control issues in our quarterly branch-department visits. Thus, we identify risks in advance and take the necessary measures. In this scope, we prepared a Risk Assessment Report and Emergency Plan in 339 branches and departments in 2021 and renewed those that were due. Thus, we have completed the Risk Assessment Report and Emergency Plan in all our departments and branches except for five branches and five departments.

We have updated the applications to be made at the organization phase and the response levels during emergencies. We conducted exercises in 330 departments and branches to increase the level of knowledge about the reality of earthquakes that exist due to our country’s location. At the Occupational Health and Safety and Employee Representative training sessions, we provided Earthquake Awareness Raising and Emergency Evacuation Training for 810 people.

We support and promote employees’ occupational, technical, and personal development and thus contribute to sustainable business efficiency in line with the human resources policies that our Bank pursues. We support our employees with in-class trainings, live virtual classroom trainings, and digital trainings on topics determined by training requirements analysis, particularly our Bank’s strategies and the competencies expected from our employees.

In 2023, we allocated an average of 39.44 hours of training per employee, comprising 18.65 hours of classroom and 20.79 hours of digital training. We have supplemented our in-house training programs by facilitating the participation of over 1,400 employees in external training sessions, conferences, and seminars, aiming to keep our Head Office personnel updated on industry developments and foster their ongoing professional growth.

We provide our employees with training programs under four main headings:

• “Orientation and Basic Training Programs” for new recruited employees,
• “Development Programs” aimed at contributing to employees’ personal and occupational/technical development based on their roles
• “Manager Development Training Programs” aimed at increasing the managerial, professional and technical competencies of our employees who are working in executive positions.
• "Digital Training Programs" which encompass a wide range of training programs in the areas of professional, individual, and managerial competency development, legal and social responsibilities, as well as hobbies.We design “Role Transition Digital Training Programs” to facilitate the learning and development of our employees as their roles or titles change. Thus, we aim to improve the competencies of our employees and support them in adapting to their new roles or titles, ensuring continuous learning.

As part of our bank’s sustainability strategy, in 2023, we conducted 60,794 hours of training on various topics tailored to specific target groups, aiming to enhance employee awareness and promote their specialization. With the “Basic Level Sustainability for Banking,” “Climate Change” and “Water Awareness” e-trainings, we enabled our employees who have specialized in this field to participate in the “Sustainability Expertise Certificate Program.”

Risk management training is a part of orientation training of our Bank. Also, personnel working in risk management area supported via specialized courses. Risk management directors are attending education & training about risk management such as financial risk management (FRM), SQL, Big data, R, Credit Scoring, Econometrics, Derivatives, Stress testing, Score modelling, Risk management validation, Applied Analytics Using SAS Enterprise Miner, SAS Enterprise Guide 1: Querying and Reporting, SAS Enterprise Guide 2: Advanced Tasks & Querying.

In 2023, as part of the Data and Analytics School project, we contributed to the development of data-based skills of more than 700 employees in the development programs we designed with university and digital platform collaborations.