To achieve our strategic goals and competitiveness, we care about our qualified human resources and invest in strengthening our human resources in order to develop new competencies in the financial sector, to adapt to technological developments and to respond to the changing expectations of customers. In line with our human resources policy, we offer a working environment that takes into consideration the health, safety and happiness of employees considering the requirements of the modern age.
Approach and Indicators
Equal Opportunity and Diversity
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.
Capacity Building and Talent Management
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 system is moving along the axis of our corporate strategic objectives, related business objectives and competence assessment. In 2021, we included all bank employees in our performance system.
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.
Remuneration and Benefits
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 2021, when we signed the 25th Term Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Bank, Finance and Insurance Employees Union (BASS) covering the dates between 01.05.2021-30.04.2023, the rate of our employees covered by the collective bargaining agreement is 85%.
Besides salary payments, we offer our employees opportunities for basic needs such as bonuses, performance premiums, dividends, health insurance, and various permissions. 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.
Employee Engagement and Satisfaction
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 12,819 employees participated in the survey, including the employees of our subsidiaries. The score of 2021 Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Survey was 64.
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.
Occupational Health and Safety
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.
Employee Trainings
Within the framework of the human resources policies we follow; we provide trainings to support the development of our employees in line with their career goals, to create motivation and job satisfaction and to increase work efficiency through trainings.
We planned 63% of our in-class training sessions in the virtual classroom setting, thanks to our strengthened digital infrastructure as a result of the pandemic. A total of 707,026 people took part in 1,511 in-class and live virtual classroom training sessions, as well as e-learning and video training on 313 topics. We reached 11.04 people/hour for in-class training and 22.28 people/hour for e-learning. We conducted 343 training sessions for 5,864 Head Office Department employees during the same period, while 663 people participated in basic/orientation training programs. A total of 595 employees attended training sessions offered by the Banks Association of Turkey (TBB) and the Interbank Card Center (BKM), while 1,877 employees attended certification exam preparation and refresher training.
We give our training programs under the categorization below;
- “Basic Training Programs” for newly recruited employees,
- “Development Programs” containing personal development and professional / technical issues prepared to support the career development of our employees currently working in different titles,
- “Manager Development Training Programs” aimed at increasing the managerial, professional and technical competencies of our employees who are working in executive positions.
- “Information Technologies Training Programs” that will support the relevant business processes of the employees working in the information technologies departments and contribute to their professional development.
- “Online Training Programs” that include a wide range of e-learning training developed in the fields of professional/technical/individual, development/managerial, competence/legal, imperative/social, responsibility/hobby. These programs support personal, team and corporate development and cover all employees.
In training programs, we attach importance to increasing the use of our Bank’s human resources and evaluating employees as internal trainers, who are experts in their fields. In this context, in 2021, the ratio of training sessions provided by internal trainers to in-house training sessions also amounted to 41% on a subject basis.