Empower Colleagues

Update: 2019-03-18

Contemporary corporate relations consulting poses various challenges for professional consultants. Our consulting successes greatly depend on our capability to develop a learning organization, constantly advance our decision-making and participatory processes and to create a culture that respects uniqueness of our colleagues.

SDGs to which we contribute:

Key Performance Indicators:

80%of partners and 75% of Management Board members in H&P Croatia are women

11.2average years of employment with our company (-1.5)

104.8training hours per employee last year (-10.6)

New Age of Partnership

We entered a new chapter of partnership development in H&P Croatia in 2018. All colleagues have been offered a partner (co-owner) status either by buying share option or as a bonus. In addition, the H&P HQ transferred some shares to the local company to be distributed to the present partners. This has changed our partnership structure and has moved us towards the goal of realizing more local participation in the company ownership. The EY 2018 partnership structure of H&P Croatia was: Hauska & Partner Group GmbH 78%, Daria Mateljak 10%, Andreja Pavlović 5%, Katarina Rimac 5%, and Gorana Pavičić Nišević 2%. The goal is to extend the local partnership further and to include more team members as partners in the oncoming years. Ownership expansion option offers our colleagues the option to more actively participate in our company’s future.

Besides the ownership expansion, H&P Croatia has undergone a significant expansion of the Management Board, with two members joining: Andreja Pavlović and Katarina Rimac. This change enables us to expand responsibilities in future company development and increases the female management participation in H&P Croatia to 75 percent.

Creating a Good Team in Challenging Times

During 2018 some of our colleagues decided they would like to take other professional challenges in different walks of life. Labor market flexibilities and professional maturing of individuals prompt colleagues to consider various career paths. The statistics of the European Communication Monitor 2018 show that almost every third communication practitioner wants to leave their current employer. This inspired us to consider a rejuvenation of our team, so we had a dynamic year in which four new colleagues joined our team. We understand that keeping our employees’ loyalty over the years is an asset and a value, but we also take the opportunity that new times and corporate relations challenges have to be responded to by new views, fresh ideas and diverse specializations. Our goals for the next period will be to increase our team with new professional specialists.

Having in mind our traditionally very high employee retention in the past, 2018 has brought significant changes, still keeping a high average of 11.2 years of employment with the company. Still, the average of more than 11 years with the company is rather high. If our goal is to expand our team in future, then we can expect that this figure will keep decreasing.

	2016	2017	2018
Average years in company	12.7	12.8	11.2

We are still a predominantly female company, with 74 percent of women colleagues.

Focus on internal changes, market orientation and client servicing somewhat decreased our education time per employee. We definitely plan to increase education of our team in the following year, at least by 15 percent.

	2016	2017	2018
Training hours per employee (FTE)	119.9	115.4	104.8

Due to changes in the team and changes in types of education our training hours slightly dropped compared to the past reporting period. The Croatian CSR index is a valuable indicator for the evaluation of our HR management. In 2018 we scored 72.41 points compared to the small companies’ average of 47.64 in the section of responsible practices in workplace.

The highest scores we marked related to responsible employment policies, labor valuation – salaries and benefits, quality and safety of workplace conditions and collaborative organizational climate, all 100 points. Investment in education and employability scored 75 points. You can find the complete results of the index in chapter Foster CSR Competence.

Focus on Individualization and Team Development

In our EmploYES program we undertook several actions:

Having in mind that our Diversity Management is based on individualization, we organized our strategic planning event Sustainability Retreat, based on sharing the individual strengths of our team members, for which we used the Gallup methodology of Strengths Finder 2.0. Matched with other methodologies, we took advantage of our team’s diversity to develop our corporate strategy. All colleagues have a chance to influence the corporate strategy by their ideas and taking over responsibilities for various business areas and projects.
We continued with Quarterly Strategic Meetings in which we inform all colleagues on the vital business and strategic details of the company. This occasion is used to discuss the business and strategic directions of the company.
As every year, we undertook Workplace Assessment Survey and 360° evaluation of all team members. Workplace Assessment Survey indicates slight improvements in the areas which were planned to be improved, whereas 360° evaluation results show stability at the same level compared to last year.
In order to improve our learning organization management, we launched an online H&P library, which is available to all colleagues and can be reached from everywhere.

Goals

Accents in 2019 in this segment will be on our values excellence, contribution and diversity and will encompass:

Implement Diversity Policy and Action Plan and report on our diversity and inclusion efforts
Advance the learning organization by boosting know-how sharing and more intensive education
Smarter management of Personal Development Plans and improvements in HR area
Increase team with new experts while building a sound and dynamic corporate culture

What do our stakeholders say?

“As a designer I had the opportunity to work with the H&P team on various projects. Every time it involved high quality project tasks which made design process a pleasure. Relationships with the clients and associates which H&P tends are lead by example of responsible business practices and also of real, exceptional values. That is the reason why every time we work on a joint project I feel like a part of the team, doing business with purpose, motivated with a professional approach. H&P team are professionals who share beliefs for responsible business and have a vision of a better business environment.“

Ivan Rubčić, Hand Studio, Owner

“Rarely I run into a team that is brave enough to use individual honesty and group vulnerability to grow as an organization as Hauska & Partner. That’s the best way to stay grounded and grow at the same time.“

Boris Šurija, Behave, HR Consultant