Professional development and safety
7.1 Training and personal development. Training plan and results
Training, as a tool to boost the employability and personal development of our workers, is a permanent priority for us.
Diagnoses of training needs and personalised training plans are carried out on the basis of a classification of job positions by the Job Evaluation Committee.
Over the 2005-2006 period, our training plans covering Prevention of Workplace Risks, Knowledge for Optimal Performance of Jobs, Corporate Training and Continuous Improvement Training prove to be a valuable tool for improving our employees' skills.
En 2005 dedicamos 343.950 horas a formación, mientras que en 2006 empleamos 367.753. Además de los manuales y el proceso de acogida para nuevas incorporaciones (que dura una semana), la inversión se orientó a mejorar los conocimientos y habilidades, tanto profesionales como personales, destacando:
In hypermarkets, 2005 saw the entire workforce embarking upon a two-year customer service training course with a total of 35,000 training hours.
In 2005, we spent 343,950 hours on training, a figure that increased to 367,753 hours in 2006. In addition to the manuals and week-long induction process for all those joining us, investments are aimed at improving knowledge and skills, both professional and personal. Worthy of especial note are the following:
- Corporate: more than 5,561 workers from all areas participated in the 2006 corporate programme, in addition to the 1,952 in socio-employment training.
- Hypermarkets: 2005 saw the entire workforce embarking upon a two-year customer service training course with a total of 35,000 training hours. This focused on the checkout area, domestic appliances, fish and cold meats and fish. In 2006, the more than 119,000 covered shelf stacking teams, both food and non-food, fruit, bakery and butchery.
- Supermarkets: workers spent more than 77,000 hours on customer service training projects. We also gave around 13,000 hours of socio-employment-related classes.
- Platforms and logistics: in 2005, 150 people with management responsibility in the Logistics Department worked at points of sale to understand customer requirements, familiarise themselves with work processes and draw up proposals for improving their service.
- Eroski/viajes: as part of the more than 18,000 hours spent on training, 2006 witnessed the start of the Social Project with 2,170 hours training hours being given to 272 people.
| 2005 | 2006 | |
|---|---|---|
| Total hours | 343.950 | 367.753 |
| Results | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Total hours | 27.215 |
| No. of employees trained | 1.952 |
| Category | Results | 2006 |
|---|---|---|
| All | Total hours | 58.011 |
| Total cost | 828.234 euros | |
| Directors and senior management | Total hours | 7.838 |
| Total cost | 224.599 euros | |
| Technicians and middle management | Total hours | 14.883,2 |
| Total cost | 145.800 euros | |
| Admin and salaried staff | Total hours | 9.921 |
| Total cost | 97.620 euros |
Includes cost of social/occupational training
The Leadership Programme
Our Leadership Programme arose from the need secure the direct involvement of directors and management as catalysts for personnel management policies. The Programme has focused on the consolidation of attitudes and working practices, employing tools that facilitate relations and allow for the exercising of influence without them resorting to using their professional status.
After two years of the Programme, 2005 drew to a close with results that speak for themselves: 2,219 members of management trained, 51,970 training hours given, 2,200 self-diagnoses on the state of the company, 6,000 suggestions for improvement and 60 senior and 200 middle managed assessed by their colleagues.
The Programme is currently being expanded to include travel agencies, supermarket companies, Erosmer hypermarkets, logistics platforms and the Eroski S. Coop. headquarters.
The PARET programme
It is our belief that the effective participation of workers is the best way to ensure workplace efficiency, thereby increasing their satisfaction. Over the coming four years, we are planning to develop and generalise this participative management model in the shopping centre and supermarket business areas of Grupo Eroski. To this end, we have developed the PARET (Participación Efectiva en el Trabajo or Effective Participation at Work) Programme with the aim of bring decision-making power closer the points where the relationship with the customer actually takes place, involving POS teams in all those variables that maximise the shopping experience and which make us an acknowledged point of reference in the sector.
To make this participation structural, rather than ad-hoc, we plan to:
- Improve information systems, providing teams with the automatic information they need to take decisions.
- Modify the distribution of functions with the different roles and responsibilities to be assumed by the different job positions.
- Improve customer relations.
To date, the Programme has been implemented in six hypermarkets and 23 supermarkets. During the course of 2006, almost 1,000 people have spent nearly 7,000 hours on developing the Programme.
Our culture of internal promotion has also led us to invest in revision training processes, which as allowed us to fill more than half of our vacancies internally.
Performance evaluations have allows us to gauge the success of our training and skills improvement efforts. These are carried out annually on more than 90% of the workforce via a personalised interview that, in addition to measuring their personal and professional performance, allows us to set agreed goals and gather suggestions.
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