People engagement and empowerment have been crucial all along our transformation journey. We empower our teams with responsibility, authority and accountability, and count on the engagement of every Bekaert employee in driving a higher-level performance.
(GRI 102-43 + GRI 102-44)
Teams around the world stepped up their efforts to engage employees following 2017’s employee survey. Among the many initiatives, Bekaert in Venezuela introduced a recognition program and award event for the team to reward value-adding projects developed and implemented at Vicson.
The results not only spoke to the head but also to the heart. Despite the dire political situation and economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the pride and engagement of our Vicson team was clearly visible in the 2018 pulse survey results. The exceptionally high engagement score (98%) shows that employees feel respected and listened to. Moreover, they highlight the sense of personal accomplishment they gain from working at Bekaert. In fact, all questions in the survey received top scores, marking out our team in Venezuela as the most engaged of all Bekaert locations worldwide!
How far do your ambitions reach?
At Bekaert, we believe in working together to achieve better performance. With colleagues of 8 nationalities, we produced a video in 2018, showing what better together really means to us.
Our teams show the way! All actors in the better together video are Bekaert team members of eight nationalities:
Surfers: Consuelo, Catherine, Luna, Catalina, María José, Javiera, Rocía – Mountain climbers: Jaromil, Robert Constantin, Jozef, Marián, Alisa – Xiangqi players: Jacky, Daniel, Kony, Jimmy – Soccer players: Manuel, German, Dioniso, Pablo, Christian, Richard, Miguel, Gerardo, Federico, Daniel, Carlos, Robert, Carlos, Roberto, Christian, Miguel, Alejandro, Pablo, Miguel – Athletes: Jana, Monika, Zuzana, Petra, Csilla, Silvia – Shoppers: Maggie, Cecile, Tammy, Jenny, Danial, Kony, Hansen – Canoe rowers: Carla-Anamaria, Jana, Miroslav, Tomáš, Andrea – Campfire friends: Rodrigo, Ivonne, Sergio, Yorka, Francisca, Gianfranco, Jorge, Silvana – Mountain bikers: Sergey, Alexandra, Dragomir, Jana, Peter – Students: Tabitha, Kytai, Fleur, Jerre, Sander, Fabian, Mathura, Eline, Bram – Joggers: Hansen, Jenny, Stijn, Catherine.
We recognize the right of any employee to join or to refrain from joining a trade union. 82% of our employees worldwide are covered by collective bargaining agreements.
Agreements with trade unions are locally concluded and include the following elements:
(GRI 102-41 + GRI 403-4 + GRI 407-1)
We nurture talent through career development and life-long learning. We attach great importance to providing challenging career and personal development opportunities to our employees. Training programs not only include technical and job specific training, but also leadership modules that help our people develop and cooperate in a global business environment.
Our plant in Ranjangaon (India) has implemented a new program in their campus, called ‘Team leader of the Day’. An operator takes up the role of team leader for one day and handles the entire shift activities; from conducting performance dialogues to managing other operators during the shift. One of the colleagues in Ranjangaon state that 'Team leader of the Day' is the back bone of performance improvement at the shop floor”.
The Training Management Group (OTIC) of Chile’s Association of Metallurgic and Metalworking Industries (ASIMET) has awarded two of Bekaert’s Chilean entities: Prodalam with the ‘Commitment to Employees’ award and Inchalam with the ‘Commitment to Training’ award.
Prodalam was given the award for the training initiatives that took place during 2018. They include the creation of training curriculums for each job family and the alliance with one of the most recognized providers of online training in the country. This ensured that all 648 employees distributed along the 4 300 kilometers of Chile have the same opportunity of receiving high quality education to improve their performance and grow within the local organization and within Bekaert.
Inchalam received the award for its commitment to continuous development through training skills and competencies, completing a total of 22 929 hours of effective training during 2018. This made Inchalam a great reference in relation to people management practices in the region.
In addition to the Commitment to Employees and Training awards, Inchalam won the Best Innovation Management trophy, rewarding the company for its continuous search for excellence through innovation management and the participation of its members in initiatives concerning cultural transformation in innovation.
To keep the transformation impact of past BMS implementations sustainable, Bekaert established the Bekaert Manufacturing Academy in 2017. This program enables us to keep building our capabilities and to improve and share our standards and best practices, so that we keep evolving our way of working. In 2018, the Academy’s focus was on increasing plant productivity, standardization and adoption of 5S and in preparing an international group of Bekaert trainers to bring the best practices to the shop floor.
On average, each employee received 42 hours of training in 2018. (1)
(1) Excluding BBRG