4.1 Employees

Hypo Group Alpe Adria places great emphasis on job satisfaction and training, because highly motivated employees are the key to success. Hypo Group Alpe Adria‘s business depends on their competence and expertise and their ability to apply a cross-border, networked approach. Rapid growth in 2007 brought with it the need to hire more staff. At balance sheet date the Group headcount had increased to 6,963 people, an increase of 825, or 13.4 %, on the previous year. With an average age of 33.8, the Group has a young and dynamic team that is best prepared to meet the challenges of the future.

As a highly customer oriented international financial services provider, the Group sees recruitment of new staff – mainly graduates – as a major priority. Intensive on-the-job training and comprehensive in-house staff development courses ensure that newcomers are quickly integrated and acquire the necessary skill sets. Cross-border training and education for all employees continued to receive special emphasis in 2007, and there was also special focus again on the training of potential next generation managers at the Management Academy. Specialised training for individual employees is increasingly becoming a core preoccupation, as the Group endeavours to ensure the application of uniform standards across the region. Beginning with Treasury, Hypo Group Alpe Adria has launched the Laufbahnstufenkonzept, a career progression pilot project.

In order to be able to adapt to constantly changing market conditions and to support Hypo Group Alpe Adria’s retail banking focus, the Group in 2007 launched a broad-based international personnel development scheme. The project continues in 2008, and its aim is to ensure that all personal banking advisers in the Alps to Adriatic region provide their customers with the best all-round support. The comprehensive staff training program also includes special-purpose sales seminars with a focus on professional customer care and customer relations management. In 2007 Hypo Group Alpe Adria invested some EUR 3.5 m in a total of 1,954 training and education events for its employees.