Employees
Managing its human team
The staff of the Entity is the essential pillar on which everything it does is based. Being able to rely on motivated, well-prepared and committed people is decisive for offering customers a good service, achieving success in its business strategy and meeting the main challenges in questions of corporate responsibility.
The responsible management of Human Resources aims to attract top professionals, retain them and encourage their development at work and in human terms by creating a good working atmosphere. To achieve this, "la Caixa" actively practises integration and equality policies and tries to employ dialogue in working for the well-being of the people that make up its team.
The key elements in its management are:
Equitable selection process
As "la Caixa" wants to employ the very best professionals, its selection policy is based on respect for diversity and non-discrimination on grounds of origin, sex or condition.
Professional Development
It pushes forward integration into work and employee development through:
Maximizing welfare
Employee satisfaction is key to achieving a good working atmosphere and motivated and committed teams.
To further employee welfare, personnel management insists on:
Programme of Equality and Conciliation
Policies against harassment and protocol for formally registered partnerships
Volunteer Programme
”la Caixa” supports the solidarity concerns of its employees and, so that they can contribute to the development of solidarity initiatives, places various programmes at their disposal.
Corporate Volunteer Programme
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This offers employees, people who took early retirement and retired employees of the Entity, along with their families and friends, the possibility of working with the various Volunteer Associations of ”la Caixa”.
Further information
Employee in Solidarity Programme
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For employees who want to donate money towards developing the projects of an NGO.
Further information
To promote these initiatives, there is a Solidarity Space on the corporate intranet. This contains information on these programmes as well as on other more specific actions, concerning humanitarian catastrophes, which employees can support. Staff can register on the programmes from this Space, making the procedure easier and quicker.
Ongoing Training
The permanent updating of professional knowledge favours the development of the capacities of employees and their professional careers, as well as ensuring better customer service.
"la Caixa" has various training mechanisms:
- Study assistance, included within the social benefits of the Entity. The agreement includes economic assistance for learning languages and for degree, Master’s and PhD studies in public and private universities.
- Internal training, listed in a catalogue of institutional, standard and optional programmes, taught in the class-room, virtually or through a mixture of the two.
- External training, for needs not covered by internal training and related to the work-place, such as courses, day-schools, talks, seminars or specialised language learning required for the employee’s work
All internal training programmes match local needs and the specific requirements of each work-place, but are coordinated overall.
There are also institutional training itineraries, such as:
- Plan for Professional Placement and Development for new employees.
- Courses for staff handling specialist customers.
- Training courses in Security, Prevention of Risks at Work and Money Laundering.
- Training courses on the environment.
To facilitate access to training and its management, there is an e-learning platform, Virtaula, an internal communications channel that offers employees new teaching formats. This platform also supports employees in their basic tasks throughout the working day, making internal communication more effective. In addition, Virtaula brings together the collective intelligence of "la Caixa" employees: it has become a space for sharing one’s own documents and for connecting to a network of professional contacts and a point of reference for shared corporate knowledge.
In general, it develops and spreads knowledge through the Group and encourages employees to share their ideas on best practice formally and informally.
Mechanisms of dialogue:
Internal communication is essential to the understanding of employees’ views and concerns and to spreading relevant information to the staff. It is also a source of innovation and improvement of the working atmosphere
The Entity has several channels of communication that favour two-way exchange of information, vertically and horizontally.
In particular:
- Call Center
It can be accessed from the corporate intranet or by phone. The financial and commercial information available there can be consulted, enabling doubts to be settled as quickly as possible. - Corporate Intranet
The main source of corporate information, which is permanently being updated, with weekly circulars that explain new points and highlight particularly relevant questions. - Canal Caixa Internal Magazine Six numbers a year are published, reporting on all the initiatives, projects and campaigns of the Entity and the activities of Social Projects that are relevant to the staff as a whole.
- Canal Caixa on line
SSection of the corporate web site, including the digital version of the internal magazine, along with news and other relevant items of information. - Branch Managers’ Channel
Information section on the Intranet for branch managers. It includes Flash Caixa, a monthly newsletter on the most important events. - Employee/ manager portal
This is an application where, with simple procedures, administrative questions concerning work, such as employees’ timetables, participation in internal notices and announcements or applications for assistance, etc., can be sorted out. - Forums and suggestion boxes
Se Employees are encouraged to take an active part in improving procedures through a mail-box to which they can send their suggestions. In addition, on both the corporate intranet and the on-line learning portal Virtaula, forums are set up to foster the exchange of ideas on several subjects, such as the environment or energy saving. - Meetings and Committees
Team work, which is fundamental to the Entity, requires regular meetings between employees in different areas. There are also specific work committees of union and management representatives, whose aim is to advance together on various questions, such as conciliation between work and family life, training or career plans.
Career Plans and Policies to Recognise Merit
Skills management for each professional profile underlies the professional development of employees. This policy involves the identification, training and development of the skills needed by each employee in each place of work, such that all the members of the human team can realise their potential and their ambitions.
The Salary Policy of "la Caixa"
- There is an internal agreement to pay above the rates in the Savings Bank Collective Agreement, so that the minimum salary of staff of ”la Caixa” and its subsidiaries is better than the Collective Agreement amount.
- Employees have a system of variable payments that links individual and team challenges. This not only fosters the culture of team work, but also recognises the contribution of each employee better
- The salary policy of the Entity covers regularly and exhaustively every employee, following non-discrimination criteria.
Equality and Conciliation Policies:
On 12 June 2006, ”la Caixa” received the OPTIMA accreditation, certificate granted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and promoted by the Institute for Women, which recognises responsible companies that are committed to equality of opportunities between women and men.
Access to the Optima Programme
”la Caixa” has an Equality and Conciliation Programme to promote the conciliation of personal, family and work life.
This programme aims at providing an atmosphere at work that, by optimizing time, makes it possible for people to fulfil themselves and achieve a better quality of life, on the basis of a packet of measures and options adapted to particular personal, cultural and family realities.
This is an ongoing process that reaches all levels of the organisation:
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In 2007, an Equality and Conciliation Protocol was signed. This defines its various areas of operation and the programmes and policies to be pursued in each of them
Its main objectives are to redefine working hours and offer a new perspective for management of time, time off, unpaid time off and training programmes.
Some of the questions included in the Protocol are:
- Matching individual rights to the Conciliation established in the Equality Act, by adapting the working day and the possibility of reducing it below the legal minimum.
- The institutionalisation of autonomous and personal management of single days off, with the necessary prudence and according to the criterion of each work-place, and of possible flexibility in times of entering and leaving work.
- The expansion of maternity, paternity and breast-feeding leave and other paid leave; and the improvement and expansion of the reasons for unpaid time off.
- The establishment of the right to “have one’s post kept open” whilst caring for dependent persons
- Immediate cover of maternity leave, unpaid time off or prolonged illness.
- Making explicit those situations that will have to receive special attention:
maternity and paternity, victims of harassment or discrimination and, in particular, victims of gender violence who, among other support measures, could be allowed paid leave of three months, if this is necessary in order to distance the victim from her attacker. - Setting up a Parity Commission for Equality and Conciliation, and drawing up quantity indicators for equal opportunities
Health and Safety at Work
The fundamental asset of the Entity is its work-force, which is why it is essential to guarantee their safety and maintain their health, regardless of where they work.
A Health and Safety Committee has the mission of providing secure and healthy working surroundings and of carrying out tasks of vigilance and improvement of Health and Safety, concretised in the establishment of a General System of Prevention of Risks at Work.
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This system is periodically reviewed through various kinds of inspection
- External compulsory inspection: every four years, in line with the legislation in force, or should it be required by the labour authorities.
- Voluntary control and monitoring inspection, occurring yearly.
- OHSAS 18001 Inspection, an international specification that certifies the excellence of its preventive system.
- Each employee receives training and information on prevention of hazards at work and on possible emergency situations. In addition, in preparation for these possible incidents, the persons who would be in charge are designated
- The Health Vigilance Protocol specifies regular medical examinations. It also provides preventive information on several illnesses, such as Hypertension, which can be consulted on the corporate intranet.
- The Entity employs security measures to minimize the risks of attack and robbery. These measures, strengthened in what are considered high-risk areas, are regularly reviewed.
Some of the measures taken are:
- Equipment installed to capture and record digital images.
- Non-access door in security area.
- Provision of automatic cash dispensers and recyclers.
- Individual control of access to branch offices by an Arc metal detector.
In 2009, the protocol of action to confront the risk of bank robbery or assault was updated to protect the people involved in any such situation in three ways: preventively and during and after the event.
Policies against Harassment and Protocol for Formally Registered Partnerships
"la Caixa" has an Equality and Conciliation Committee, in charge of attempting to prevent harassment.
This Committee has approved:
- The Protocol for the Prevention, Treatment and Elimination of sexual and in-job harassment.
The Entity relies on several external managers, devoted to the prevention, treatment and handling of harassment. They take responsibility for receiving all the queries and complaints on this question with a view to finding solutions.
- The Protocol of Equality for formally registered partnerships or stable couples.
The general motive underlying this protocol is to make the rights of people in partnerships the same as those of married people, mainly around the granting of paid and unpaid leave, the reduction of the working day, unpaid periods of time off, medical insurance, loans and special payments.
Social Benefits
"la Caixa" has a broad range of job advantages and benefits that lead to greater welfare for its employees.
Among the benefits, applied to all staff, are:
- Contributions to pension plans.
- Health Insurance (ADESLAS).
- Economic assistance for study and paid complements for children and for other eventualities.
- Life and accident insurance.
- Advantageous loan conditions.
Freedom of Collective Bargaining
Employees choose their representatives in regular elections.
The Entity strongly supports constructive dialogue and working together with the various trade unions to exchange opinions and improve the working conditions of its employees.
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The employees’ union representatives are present in the various organs of government of the Entity:
- General Meeting (20 representatives)
- Management Board (3)
- Board of the ”la Caixa” Foundation (3)
- Committees: Executive, Social Projects, Control Commission and Investments (1 person in each)
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There are also a number of parity committees such as:
- Mixed Commission on Career and Salaries
- Control Commission of the Pensions Plan
- Single Committee on Health and Safety at Work
- Training Committee
Corporate volunteer work
This offers employees, people who took early retirement and retired employees of the Entity, along with family members and friends, the chance to work with the various Volunteer Associations of ”la Caixa”.
Over 3,000 people form a part of one of the 45 Associations
These associations, present in every province of Spain, are supported economically by Welfare Projects, which also gives them advice and guidance.
Each association of volunteers, within its area, whether local or provincial, chooses for itself:
- The non-profit organisations with which it works.
- The volunteer activities to be developed.
Activities of the associations
- Attending children in the Hospital CiberCaixa.
- Play and sports activities with children at risk of marginalisation.
- Classes of integration and Spanish for immigrants and school support classes for children of immigrants.
- Accompanying disabled people on visits to sports and cultural facilities.
- Collaborating in play and sports activities for children with physical and mental limitations.
- Computer classes for the elderly and for people with intellectual impairment.
- Environmental actions: tree planting, cleaning beaches and river banks.
- Volunteer work for social entities on administrative tasks, accountancy and legal questions.
- CooperantsCaixa: Volunteer work for international cooperation.
Employee in Solidarity Programme
Employees with less time available can take part in the Employee in Solidarity Programme, with a monthly donation, deducted directly from the pay-slip, to the financing of various NGO projects
Currently, employees can choose between:
- The Incorpora Project of the Red Cross, devoted to integrating into work women who have been victims of gender violence.
- The Child Vaccination Project of the GAVI Alliance, devoted to immunizing children in poor countries as an instrument to fight poverty.
- The Project to train entrepreneur women from peasant organisations in Ecuador, promoted by the Foundation MCCH, Maquita Cushunchic.
”la Caixa” Welfare Projects, through its International Cooperation Department, monitors the projects and safeguards the integrity of the donations made.