Human Resources

“Today we expect our bank employees – whether customer-facing staff, back-office employees or executive managers – to know much more than just products: they are supposed to understand the market, take entrepreneurial initiative, be familiar with such concepts as full costing, risk-related costs and cost of capital, and be conversant with bank processes. Above all, they should know and understand their customers. The task of human resources management is to provide our employees with training for their various functions and to motivate them so that they take pleasure in their work.”

Erich Hampel, Chairman of the Managing Board of Bank Austria Creditanstalt,
also responsible for Human Resources

For the staff of Bank Austria Creditanstalt, 2005 was a year in which we moved forward. It was a year of upturn and of permanent structural improvement. At the same time the formation of a truly European bank has opened new dimensions. The forthcoming integration of Bank Austria Creditanstalt into the new Group will of course involve organisational changes but new job perspectives will also be opened and horizons broadened. Bank Austria Creditanstalt will play a prominent role in the new Group. It is well equipped for expansion thanks to its structures, know-how and not least the experience gained in integration over the past years.

These overall conditions characterised the work of the Human Resources division in 2005. In Austria the implementation of the business model was in the foreground. In CEE the focus was on organic growth and the integration of newly acquired banks. The future responsibility in Vienna for CEE presents new challenges. Within the framework of UniCredit’s human resources management, BA-CA’s Human Resources (HR) division has been working intensively in preparation for these tasks since 2005.

• In Austria HR played a decisive role in the implementation of the business model as virtually every project and every measure has a staff policy aspect. The Human Resources division with its vision of “Culture of Excellence and Empowerment” partnered the separation of bank functions, specialisation in sales, settlement services, product development and in particular the subsequent cooperation within the banking group in line with the principle of division of labour. In addition to structural organisation and staffing – from the introduction of the new relationship management model to the creation of Administration Services, the company specialising in settlement and processing activities – training was one of the major focal points of current personnel work. Major prerequisites had to be created in 2005 to introduce more flexibility and to reward individual performance.