Competent, Flexible, Motivated

Employees as central asset

As a constantly growing, internationally active service provider, the UNIQA Group owes its success to the qualifications and motivation of its employees. Their extreme professionalism, flexibility and mobility have been essential in enabling the strong growth in recent years and positioning the Group as a leading player in Central and Eastern Europe. In full awareness of this fact, the UNIQA Group implements a wide range of measures in the area of human resources development. Likewise, supporting and informing all sales partners also represent a key focus.

Last year, the 2008 UNIQA European Football Championship was very well received among the employees. At the start of May, teams from many countries of the UNIQA Group played against each other at the Wiener Neudorf stadium. A total of 24 teams competed ambitiously but with fairness and comradery, and were followed excitedly by colleagues from all UNIQA countries. After three tournament days, the team from Tyrol won the title of UNIQA European Football Champions. The most successful international participants were Poland, Italy, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

Roughly 130 managers from the entire UNIQA family were familiarised with the current Group strategy and corporate planning in 2008 at two ManagerCircle events in Vienna and Montenegro. The picture shows the ManagerCircle in Budva, Montenegro.

Go Ahead – Focused promotion of mobility within the Group

“The competence, flexibility and mobility of our employees and partners in their daily work are the primary prerequisites for us to realise our ambitious corporate goals.” Gottfried Wanitschek, Member of the Management Board

Having the right employees at the right place and the right time is a central part of operational human resources management, particularly within an international Group. Established in 2003, the UNIQA Group’s mobility programme Go Ahead has proven itself effective in accomplishing this goal. Continuously improved with new elements and more efficient organisation, this programme supports temporary assignments for Austrian employees at international Group companies as well as for international colleagues at locations in Austria and other countries.

The programme, which represents both a recognition of talent and an opportunity to advance one’s career, is directed not only toward the exchange of information within the company and expanding of horizons but also toward active networking and the associated strengthening of a shared corporate culture. With consistently positive evaluations by the participants, Go Ahead can certainly be considered a great success. The popularity of Go Ahead is constantly increasing, as can be seen in the growing demand: While 88 employees started in the programme in 2007, the number of new participants in 2008 was 105. In total, Go Ahead has provided assignments to 318 employees from 15 countries.

The programme was made even more attractive in 2005, especially for employees with families, through creation of the Go Ahead Light module for short assignments abroad as well as the introduction of Go Ahead Light Mentoring (international knowhow partnerships) in the year 2006. While the “normal” foreign assignment extends on average from 12 to 24 months, assignments as part of Go Ahead Light and Go Ahead Light Mentoring last only one to three months. Roughly 68% of all participants in Go Ahead have since chosen this abbreviated version with high success levels and excellent cost-efficiency.

Maximum efficiency in personnel development and management

In order to better coordinate the increasingly complex work processes within a constantly growing group, UNIQA consolidated its operational personnel management and personnel development into UNIQA Human Resources-Service GmbH (UHRS) already in 2007. This company represented an expansion in the range of service companies within the Group and is responsible for the development and implementation of all processes in the areas of recruiting, education and personnel administration.

UHRS also ensures Group-wide use of modern tools for employee management and training. The employee meetings for in-house staff instituted in 2001 were also comprehensively continued in 2008. This instrument was implemented for salaried field sales staff last year for the second time and within the Broker Service for the first time with great success. The focus of the manager training for the salaried field sales staff in 2008 was placed on strengthening the function of the sales managers and their duties. The individual development plans introduced in 2007 for managers in new positions were continued in 2008.

Talent management

The focus of personnel development in 2008 was placed on talent management for the first time in pursuit of UNIQA’s goal of filling a majority of the many management positions in the rapidly growing Group from within its own ranks. In order to lay the appropriate groundwork, talented Austrian and international employees are given the opportunity to prove their management potential in a Development Center. Based on the results of the qualified observation process, development plans are created for the identified talented individuals to ensure that the existing potential is transformed into real skills and capabilities over the short and medium term.

In Austria, 65 especially talented employees took part in a Development Center during 2008. Of these, 44 succeeded in convincing the observers of their exceptional management potential for the next higher management levels. In addition to further development of management talent, considerable value is also placed on promoting technical specialists. This satisfies the requirements for focused knowledge management in order to maintain qualified employees for UNIQA over the long term.

International apprenticeships

The apprenticeships for the youngest colleagues have also been “internationalised” at UNIQA. The two-year insurance apprenticeship at an Austrian regional office is combined with a fivemonth international internship at a UNIQA company. This is intended to promote a willingness for mobility while at the same time supporting the creation of a personal network within the Group. The pilot project between the Vienna regional office and UNIQA in Slovakia was very successfully completed by the participants in June 2008. In the year 2009, apprentices from the regional offices of Vienna and Upper Austria along with the partner companies in Hungary and the Czech Republic will take part in the international apprenticeship programme. In fall of 2008, the programme was expanded to include an apprenticeship in Exclusive Sales in order to offer the apprentices their first sales experiences in addition to specialised knowledge.

Exclusive Sales: Continuing on the path of success

Exclusive Sales traditionally holds a central position in supporting UNIQA’s customers. In order to keep the level of information, professional know-how and motivation of sales managers and employees as well as of UNIQA General Agencies as high as possible, UNIQA offers its partners in this segment a broad range of information and training opportunities. In the interests of accomplishing the main strategic goals, the focus in the year 2008 was on the areas of “total customer”, “sales expansion”, “sales not administration”, “fulfilling more standards” and “intensifying provision products”.

The management and support staff in Exclusive Sales had access to a wide selection of seminars once again in 2008 within the framework of the Managers Development Forum. The offered trainings centred on targeted support for seminar participants, customised for their specific duties and with an intensive practical orientation. The application of corresponding controlling, management and marketing instruments formed an integrative focal point.

In 2008, more than 450 customer advisors in Exclusive Sales started their basic training, and the partial reorganisation of the training programme that took place in 2007 proved very effective. The training is now increasingly focused on the process of customer management, whereby the application of the life tree as a method of professional consulting analysis represented a central topic in the basic training programme.

Fifth UNIQA General Agency Conference

High transparency and support in day-to-day sales work is a key goal of the UNIQA Group in the collaboration with its partners in broker sales. Accordingly, the fifth UNIQA General Agency Conference on 8 and 9 October 2008 at the Linz DesignCenter offered comprehensive information about the development, strategy and products of UNIQA.

Roughly 600 participants from Austria as well as some particularly interested representatives of General Agencies from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria took part in the information exchange regarding the developments of recent months and assessment of the future while also enjoying a first-hand look at important details of new products, advertising opportunities and much more. Twelve fair booths, workshops and a podium discussion offered a broad platform for this.

This very well received conference represents an important milestone in strengthening and expanding the UNIQA General Agency system. Even from an early point in time, UNIQA began relying successfully on this sales partnership, which has proven itself throughout Europe. Since 2005, the number of agencies in Austria has grown to 750 General and Partner Agencies, with the establishment of over 50 new locations. The General Agency system in Austria is therefore becoming increasingly important to the entire Group.

The new content orientation of the General Agency Academy, UNIQA’s central training and continuing education institute for its independent sales partners, has proven itself very well. In addition to the basic training, in which new General and Partner Agencies learn about the most important solutions for managing risk and providing for the future within the framework of the total customer strategy, the General Agency Academy now also offers a wide range of seminar modules for in-depth treatment of specific topics. These topics range from Entrepreneurs & Management Strength to Product & Argumentation and from Sales & Professionals to Practices & Technology. The spectrum is rounded out by seminars specifically geared toward back office staff.

More than 600 interested participants from Austria and CEE at the UNIQA 2008 General Agency Conference at the Linz DesignCenter.

Broad range of information and training for brokers

UNIQA is also setting new standards of quality and innovation in its ambitious seminar programme on professional and personal development for brokers. The UNIQA Broker Service is not only the largest partner to Austrian brokers, it also frequently proves itself a pioneer in the development of industry standards. In 2008, UNIQA once again made numerous modifications that were all positively received by the brokers.

A central element in UNIQA’s success with independent brokers is the Broker Academy (MAK) founded in 1997, which has already hosted events and seminars for over 2,000 participants. The most frequently booked seminars of recent years with topics ranging from business, finance and the stock market to personal fitness and mental training were sent by the Broker Academy to 4,000 brokers in the form of a “best of” programme. The resonance to this attractive offer was correspondingly high. Over 230 people visited one of the offered modules in 2008 alone. The international conference held within the framework of MAK International brought a total of 120 UNIQA business partners to the Russian metropolises of Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 2008 – two important future markets for the Austrian economy.

Effective sales platform for brokers

Cooperation programmes in bank sales remain very successful

The sales cooperation programmes of the UNIQA Group with banks continue to develop very advantageously for all partners. In the foreground here is the Preferred Partnership with the Raiffeisen bank group in Central and Eastern Europe, which is being continuously intensified. The cooperation with the Veneto Banca group in Italy is also yielding valuable, positive sales momentum, particularly in the area of life insurance. Raiffeisen Versicherung functions here as a competence centre for the entire area of bank sales within the UNIQA Group.

The cooperation with Raiffeisen extends to include 13 markets besides Austria. In addition to offering combined banking and insurance products, the focus lies on the staged introduction of capital-forming life insurance products in selected markets. The mutual utilisation of sales channels offers noticeable synergies to both UNIQA and Raiffeisen.

To improve the performance in bank sales still further, Raiffeisen Versicherung started an optimisation programme in 2008. This programme makes it possible to measure compliance with customer- oriented quality standards on the basis of key performance indices and is directed toward a reduction in response and processing times. In total, over 100 individual measures in a wide range of areas are being implemented here.

Roughly 300 female consultants from Raiffeisen banks as well as high-ranking representatives of the Raiffeisen bank group, policymakers, business representatives and the media attended the event under the motto www = weiblich-wertvoll-womanlife (feminine-valuable-womanlife). Financial, legal and medical aspects as well as role expectations, career prospects and gender ratios were discussed in detail.

Consulting initiative on the topic of provisions for women

Womanlife, the innovative programme focused on provisions for women, was not only continued by Raiffeisen Versicherung in 2008 but received increased visibility as well. The financial securing of women, so often neglected in the past, is of particularly high importance today. The average pensions held by women are currently roughly 41% below those of men. In order to draw increased attention to the need for corresponding provisions, Raiffeisen Versicherung held a prominently attended matinee on 8 March 2008 at the Vienna Hofburg on the occasion of International Women’s Day. At the same time, it represented the kick-off for an intensification of consulting activities for women at Raiffeisen banks.