Personnel and management development

A key goal is to provide targeted services to prepare employees and managers for the challenges they will face in the working world of the future. The educational program, which is available to all employees, is strongly focused on strengthening their skills in using methods and platforms. In particular, this applies to collaboration and interaction in everyday working life and the use of new digital technologies. For more information, see Employees, New ways to learn and work.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many educational and training events had to be cancelled or postponed in the 2019/2020fiscal year. This negatively impacted the “Training per employee” key figure.

The learning platform EINSTEIN offers a comprehensive and attractively presented overview of the educational and training options. Employees can conveniently register with just a few clicks. EINSTEIN also enables employees and managers to review their past educational and training events.

Energie AG's conflict management system has further expanded its reach. An accompanying seminar programme for groups and team managers is intended to raise the awareness for the topic and the instrument available to them. Workshops allowed the Managing Directors and heads of departments to expand their engagement with the topic. The members of the works councils also attended seminars on this topic. Employees were offered information events that also aimed at sensitising them for the topic.

The “Leadership Experience Discussion Circle” for team and group leaders was continued in the 2019/2020 fiscal year. These thrice-a-year get-togethers involve participants discussing leadership-related topics in small groups, accompanied by a coach. The group is intended to help attendees solve problems that arise in their day-to-day leadership roles, as well as encouraging these supervisory staff to be open to bouncing ideas off each other.

The competency model developed in the year 2014, which outlines the (leadership) competencies the Company needs to achieve success, was re-evaluated in the 2019/2020 fiscal year. The feedback meetings on the level of the Management Board/Managing Directors/heads of department conducted on the basis of the defined competencies will be made more efficient in the future. Starting with the 2020/2021 fiscal year, the competency model will distinguish between fundamental strategic competencies that are relevant for all positions and variable, position-specific competencies.

One of the outputs of the Future Lab 2018/2019 (development of management and leadership topics) is the emergence of the project “Charter of Agile, Cross-Divisional Cooperation in Energie AG”. This project aims at developing a mutually shared understanding of leadership that is intended to facilitate and strengthen the cooperation between the individual areas within Energie AG. In its initial phase, managers were interviewed briefly with respect to the status-quo of agile work methods and the cooperation within the Group. The results were analysed and refined with the help of instruments from Design Thinking. The identified potentials serve as the foundation for completing the charter.

New ways to learn and work

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a sudden change in the way cooperation takes place within Energie AG (remote work).

While the networking via computer software, video conferencing tools and mobile phone was challenging, it also offered the opportunity of rapidly and intuitively learning to handle new techniques and acquire new skills. Under the heading “New ways to learn and work”, different means supported executives and employees in these new learning experiences on the intranet and Microsoft Yammer.

Due to employees increasingly performing their work from home, new seminar formats including webinars and online trainings on a diverse range of topics were developed in consultation with the trainers. The new training formats were very well received by the employees. Online trainings are a useful complement to the (indispensable) face-to-face trainings.

The survey “New ways to work from home” conducted within Energie AG in Austria during the “restart phase” returned positive feedback and resulted in the extension of the previous remote work model.

Employer branding

The age structure of the employees working in the Group entities and the difficulties in recruiting suitable skilled personnel call on the Energie AG Group to employ a strategically coordinated recruiting and succession management that serves the purpose of making potential employees aware of the Company at an early stage and presenting them with opportunities to apply for jobs. In the course of a workshop, the “Candidate Journey” method was applied to identify all groups of job applicants that are relevant for Energie AG. Following a general campaign, the Company began specifically approaching the individual relevant target groups in the summer of 2020.

To promote diversity and women in technical careers

As Energie AG also seeks to promote diversity, it has set itself the goal of attracting more female technical professionals to work at the Group. The trainee program with a focus on female talent that started in October 2018 was successfully concluded in March 2020. The majority of trainees have now assumed different positions within the Group.

Due to the great success achieved in the previous years, two more scholarships were awarded to female technicians in autumn 2019. The scholars not only receive financial support, but can also complete internships at Energie AG or write their master’s thesis drawing on their experiences with company, potentially fostering strong ties between the company and these scholars from an early stage.

To ensure the Company is capable of proactively mastering future challenges, it is important for its employees to have the relevant skills at their disposal and for diversity to be embraced not only in recruiting, but also internally (for example, when filling management positions).

Since 2014, Energie AG has been providing material and intellectual support to gifted and socially engaged pupils of immigrant origin through the START scholarship program, laying the foundations for these scholars to pursue academic study. This support covers the costs for (one-time) PC equipment, educational materials, seminar attendance, annual meetings, and regional events and workshops.