Strategic human resource development

The construction sector is a human-resource-intensive industry in which the commitment shown by our workers has a significant influence on business success – not least because, in light of shortages of skilled personnel and seasonal bottlenecks, they represent a critical factor. But increasing digitalisation and the lack of qualified applicants are also seen as an opportunity to implement strategic HR planning and to promote the targeted training and development of our employees. When designing and revising processes around HR development topics, an agile approach is pursued wherever possible and necessary, characterised by iterative loops and the gathering of feedback from relevant stakeholders. Our processes contribute significantly to the Group’s goal of employee retention and to supporting our most important asset: people.

Rules, responsibilities and due diligence

People & Culture Development (P&C DEV) is a corporate-wide organisational entity tasked with supporting STRABAG’s strategy and objectives in human resource matters. To ensure the successful implementation of the human resource development strategy, the central division elaborates and implements guidelines and standards for the search, selection, qualification, promotion and development of leaders and employees.

The responsibilities and duties are governed by a group directive for the P&C employees. Their tasks are primarily divided into two areas:

employer branding and recruiting
people and organisational development

P&C partners are the first point of contact for all HR development and certain decentralised HR administration tasks within the divisions. The partners advise employees on career opportunities within the Group or recommend training programmes for further development in consultation with their supervisors.

Development of high-potential employees

The purpose of talent management is to recognise, develop and bind high-performers and high-potential employees in the interest of filling (key) positions with young talent possessing the best possible qualifications from within our own ranks. Based on our career model, internal parameters are applied to identify high-potential employees, provide them with individual support, and deploy them in the right positions. Besides the management ladder, which focuses on general management tasks, two other career paths are available: the expert careers are characterised by a high degree of technical expertise in a specialty field; project managers can fall back on their years of experience in the field of project management and are responsible for complex construction projects.

Individual activities such as a development centre, special training programmes or job rotation schemes are offered to help develop the recognised potential. Coaching and mentoring are also increasingly included in talented employees’ individual development plans.

Career model

Ahead of a possible termination, the P&C partners offer outplacement counselling with external support to assist the employees in their reorientation on the labour market. Staff who decide to leave the company of their own accord are also offered exit interviews. The insights gained from these talks are used to derive measures to improve human resource development processes.

Objectives and indicators

STRABAG has set itself the clear goal of being a top employer in its sector. To counter the lack of skilled labour, we aim to promote and optimise the needs-oriented professional and personal development and qualification of our employees. In this way, we can guarantee our clients the on-time, professional realisation of their projects.

Training needs are primarily ascertained in employee appraisal interviews, which are to be conducted annually and provide an opportunity for mutual feedback. The appraisal interviews support leadership and employees in

strengthening their personal identification with the tasks and with the company
intensifying cooperation through a culture of open dialogue
discussing and recognising the performance of the past period
defining future tasks and goals as well as development steps together

Appraisal interviews among salaried employees

In 2023, structured employee appraisal interviews were held with 78.7% of all employees throughout the Group (2022: 71.7%), including 78.6% of men and 78.7% of women. The target value of 80% was therefore almost reached in 2023. However, the significant year-on-year increase shows that the measures taken are having an effect.

Training days per salaried employee

Hybrid learning formats, with attention paid to finding the right balance between face-to-face and online training, have become established since the restrictions on in-person training during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the reporting period, there were 1.18 training days per salaried (white-collar) employee (2022: 1.31). Separated by gender, the number of training days amounted to 1.17 for women and 1.18 for men.

The STRABAG Group Academy offers internal further education options for all wage-earning (blue-collar) and salaried (white-collar) workers in the Group. The planning and systematic use of training and educational measures is the responsibility of the respective organisational unit. Together with their supervisors, employees can choose from among the various qualification offerings.

Number of training sessions

The Group Academy offers further training in the categories of technology, law, business management, IT, personality and leadership. The trainers are internal and external experts who pass on their expertise to the participants. In 2023, we offered 3,682 training and further education sessions (2022: 3,378) attended by 45,030 employees (2022: 38,785). 59,396 (2022: 56,684) people successfully completed a mandatory e-learning course, for example on the subjects of business compliance, occupational safety, IT security and data protection. Since autumn 2019, we have also offered our employees access to over 18,000 German or English language courses from external content provider LinkedIn Learning. The goal is to provide a varied, web-based and easily accessible learning offer to support the motivation for further training. The combination of existing training programmes and mobile extras promotes a dynamic learning culture. The Group Academy also offers regular modular qualifications to reinforce and deepen the training of people in key positions.

Number of participants in training courses

To counter the shortage of skilled labour, STRABAG invests in the training and education of its apprentices and trainees. For dedicated young people who have completed an apprenticeship, the door to a career at STRABAG is wide open.

Our main apprenticeship careers in Austria are bricklayer, ground engineering specialist, formwork carpenter and paver. But we also offer training as construction plant mechanic, electrical engineering technician, facilities and building technician, mechatronics technician, metal technician, sheet metal worker as well as plasterer and drywall finisher to complement our team. In Austria, STRABAG continually offers apprenticeship placements at around 50 locations nationwide. Since October 2021, we have been training around 250 apprentices every year at the STRABAG Camp[us] Ybbs in Lower Austria. The Camp[us] offers our junior staff future-oriented training with a focus on new working methods and modern construction technology.

In Germany, STRABAG and its construction equipment subsidiary STRABAG BMTI are pursuing the selective training of young talents at the Group Training Workshop in Bebra, where the focus is on the commercial and technical fields. In Bebra, our apprentices for the professions of road worker, ground engineering worker and construction equipment operator receive top-quality vocational training and individual attention. The aim is to secure an efficient knowledge transfer under aspects of quality and time away from the daily working routine.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, a total of 669 blue-collar apprentices were taken on in 2023 (2022: 605). A significant increase of the apprentice and trainee numbers is planned in Germany and in Austria in the years to come. More information about the apprentice professions and work placement positions is available on the STRABAG career website.

In the competition for the best employees, STRABAG offers a practical familiarisation programme for graduates with little professional experience holding selected bachelor’s and/or master’s degrees from academic universities as well as from universities of applied sciences. The aim of our trainee programmes is to best prepare the graduates for the requirements of their future position in the Group. In 2023, the STRABAG Group had 68 technical and 37 commercial trainees (FTE), of which 70 were men and 35 women.

Number of apprentices and trainees (FTE)

Trainees have their own personal schedule as a way of allowing flexible entry times. The commercial trainee programme lasts between eleven and 13 months, the technical programme varies between twelve and 15 months, including a period of three months abroad. Both the commercial as well as the technical programme include mandatory sessions, for example on the construction site. At the beginning of the programme, trainees meet with a mentor to design the trainee schedule according to the specific professional and personal requirements of the target position. This experienced mentor is available to the trainee throughout the entire training period. Regular feedback interviews help focus on the trainee’s individual development. With instruction from experienced specialists and management employees, the trainees pass through different organisational divisions and are introduced to various areas of business and responsibility.

Projects and initiatives

Employer branding

We are constantly working to position the Group as an attractive employer on the labour market in order to make a sustained contribution to covering the future demand for skilled experts and leadership employees. We increased our use of social media channels last year in order to reach different target groups with our employer branding campaigns. The focus in these campaigns is on our employees: In so-called career stories, we let the employees speak for themselves as they provide insights into their profession. As part of the Work On Progress campaign, our employees present their contribution to achieving STRABAG’s goal of becoming climate neutral by 2040.

In order to reach the next generation of prospective employees, we participate in job fairs, present our company at educational institutions, organise company tours, offer internships and work placement, and sponsor bachelor’s and master’s theses. In 2023, we successfully partnered with more than 170 educational institutions. We are continuing to work on increasing our accessibility via STRABAG’s social media profiles at Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Xing and YouTube, among other places, and are developing our own online formats to reach a broader audience with audience-specific content.

We also actively participate in employer certification programmes aimed at graduates, trainees and apprentices to help us ascertain possibilities for improvement. In 2023, we were again awarded the Fair Training and Fair Trainee Programme certification from the HR consultancy Trendence, while the employer branding service provider Universum voted us one of the “Most Attractive Employers for Students in 2023”. The certification is awarded on the basis of employee or student surveys regarding specific factors of workplace quality. The company must then fulfil certain criteria to receive the recognition. We were also recognised for our recruiting process in the year under report. Every year, Best Recruiters analyses more than 1,200 employers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and evaluates the contact points along the candidate journey. In 2023, STRABAG was awarded the Golden Seal by Best Recruiters as the industry winner in the construction/timber category for its recruiting performance in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Recruiting

The recruiting and subsequent onboarding of human resources is designed to systematically, professionally and quickly cover the human resource demand at the individual organisational units with qualified new employees. In addition to filling key positions in the Group, we further expanded our central Active Sourcing team. The goal is to directly address potential candidates in the largest career networks and to draw their attention to interesting positions within the STRABAG Group. In the future, we also plant to measure the onboarding experience in order to further improve the process and increase employee retention.

Leadership@STRABAG

The corporate-wide training programme Leadership@STRABAG – Leading in Dynamic Times, which was rolled out in 2021, is aimed at leadership employees at STRABAG, consists of four modules and has a duration of approximately twelve months. The programme is available in German and English as well as eight other languages.

Participants learn in a mix of classroom and online events and also work in peer groups. Important aspects include the exchange with other leadership employees and the opportunity to provide feedback. Both the subject matter of the programme as well as its organisation are informed by the agile working method.

The content of the programme is derived from the current corporate strategy and provides participants with in-depth and practice-oriented knowledge on the topics of change management, cross-silo cooperation process optimisation and agile leadership. The programme aims to promote and further develop the following core competencies:

Leadership@STRABAG training programme

As at 31 December 2023, a total of 467 managers were enrolled in the Leadership@STRABAG training programme. Feedback from participants is recorded on an ongoing basis and the programme is continuously improved accordingly.

Outlook

In 2024, we will focus on developing the skills of leadership employees at levels 3 and 4, offering modular hybrid management training and providing support through digital learning formats on recruiting and onboarding as well as on the topics of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Based on our EDI strategy, leaders familiarise themselves with the strategy in detail and learn interesting facts about and the strategies for dealing with unconscious bias.