Shaping the future together

People work with us in 16 countries and from around 20 different occupational groups – from apprentices in sales to mathematicians in the actuarial division and doctors in our Medical Centre of Excellence. Despite our different nationalities, educational backgrounds, characters and personalities we all share something essential: a passion for UNIQA and a desire to play an active role in shaping its future.

The central principle here is that we want to support our customers in living safer, better and longer lives. And we want to create the same culture within the company that we project to the outside world.

Welcome aboard

When new employees start at UNIQA in Austria, we introduce them to the company with our comprehensive onboarding programme FIT4UNIQA. Since 2019 this event has been held at the start-up hub weXelerate, where UNIQA Ventures GmbH is also based.

At FIT4UNIQA we focus on three areas: networking with other employees, learning about the “UNIQA universe”, and getting to know various high-profile members of the UNIQA community, including our CEO Andreas Brandstetter. Around 250 new employees from all over Austria visited FIT4UNIQA in 2019 alone.

In order to draw talented people’s attention to UNIQA as a potential employer at an early stage, we particularly focus on contact with high potentials through university exchanges. For instance, we are one of the main sponsors of the WU Center of Excellence, and we also support various events at the University of Vienna. We regularly have a booth highlighting the professional opportunities in the UNIQA Group at Austria’s largest career fair, Career Calling. In 2019 we were at the TGM career fair for the first time. Our international subsidiaries also participate in various career fairs in their respective countries.

Training & continuing education

Continuing education is part of everyday life at UNIQA. E-learning has been available to all employees in field sales and the back office for some time, including via smartphone since 2018. More than 4,000 employees have used this form of learning since it was introduced in 2002.

In addition, we are constantly working to adapt and improve our internal training and continuing education programmes. Since the beginning of June 2019, for example, all our employees in Austria have had access to 67 online training courses from GoodHabitz, a company specialising in online courses. The training courses are a mixture of a modern library and a wide range of videos; the topics range from mindfulness to goal-oriented work. A new online training course is added every month.

Leading & promoting

UNIQA has also been breaking new ground for several years with its managerial training programme. Our concept is a voluntary programme based on individual responsibility and flexibility, with modules that can be freely selected and combined.

In 2019 the modular management programme NEXT AT – which is offered to all Austrian managers – was once again very popular: 42 training sessions were held between September 2017 and June 2019, with a total of 547 participants; the average number of bookings per manager was 2.4. The module most frequently chosen by this target group was “Motivation”.

As part of a pilot project in early summer 2019, selected managers were also given the opportunity to participate in two new workshops: “Safer, longer, better living” and “Agile leadership”, with the prospect of creating a new management programme. In spring 2019 the workshop “Healthy leadership” was also held for an extended group of managers.

Developing & thinking ahead

As part of our strategic HR policy, we identify our high-potential employees, and show how much we value them by promoting their development.

In June 2019 80 select managers from throughout the UNIQA Group completed a one-week training programme at the renowned Harvard Business School in Boston. In this programme they learned a great deal about the success criteria for change management and the transformation of companies by studying business cases and by participating in interactive lectures and intensive group activities. Development-oriented assessments, development plans, coaching, and peer group meetings completed the offer. One particular focus was to introduce the participants to modern, agile working methods in order to define a “new way of working” for UNIQA. The knowledge acquired at Harvard is now being actively applied by the participants to drive the transformation of our company forward with regard to the UNIQA 3.0 strategy programme.

In 2019 we held management reviews for all the executives at UNIQA International in order to identify talent, and to create individual development plans. By having a uniform design and a central control point for this process, we create a common understanding of the leadership skills we are looking for in the Group.

In addition, there were four Development Centers with 15 participants in Austria in 2019. The aim of this initiative was to identify potential on the basis of company- and sector-specific criteria, and to define concrete development measures that will prepare participants optimally for the current and future requirements of the UNIQA Group.

We deploy talent in Group-wide projects, and thus support them in their development on the job. With this method we can simultaneously use high-potential employees to both participate in projects that are critical for success and promote networking across national borders.

Equal & equal – diversity at UNIQA

In 2019 we once again launched several initiatives to promote diversity; we held awareness workshops with all Management Board members in Austria on promoting women in management; we also offered the first pilot awareness workshops on generation management to selected managers and participant teams.

With the new event format “Get ready”, a platform is now open to all interested UNIQA employees where they can discuss equality for the future. The platform is a mixture of various formats, including dialogue, discourse, an internal think tank, panel discussions and short lectures on current topics. In 2019 the focus was on the topics “Pension gap: need and reality” and “Women and careers at UNIQA”. Both internal and external experts were invited to participate. In total, over 130 people took part in the events. “Get ready” will be held regularly in future.

In 2019 we refocused our diversity efforts on people with disabilities: UNIQA hosted the cross-sector event myAbility Lounge, which took place in the UNIQA Tower.

In cooperation with the start-up Sindbad, we recently began supporting students from secondary schools in successfully launching their training or apprenticeship. Young people are guided by personal mentors from UNIQA headquarters on their path to further training in an innovative one-to-one mentoring programme. The mentors themselves participate in workshops, where they are coached by professional trainers, to expand their social skills and take on social responsibility. We are making it possible for nine UNIQA employees to take part in this individual training offered by Sindbad.

Motivated & engaged

In 2019 we again conducted a comprehensive UNIQA Group employee survey in Austria and at the international locations of UNIQA IT Services GmbH (UITS). The focus was on work situation, work processes, management culture, goal orientation, professional development and corporate image. The results support the conclusions from the previous survey from 2017, but also provide new insights into the set of questions surrounding generation, career opportunities for women, and how mistakes are handled.

All 2019 results have improved compared to the previous survey. The UNIQA Index – the average value of all answers, the “barometer of the overall weather situation” so to speak – is 76 out of 100 points. In 2017 the score was 71 points. The participation rate also rose from just under 72 per cent of all those approached in 2017 to 79 per cent. Top ratings are given to the support by the respective manager, UNIQA’s attractiveness as an employer and the way UNIQA promotes personal responsibility.

With a strong 86 out of 100 points, two questions received particularly high ratings: firstly, UNIQA is seen as an attractive employer; and secondly, the participating employees expressed a high level of loyalty and their intention to continue working for UNIQA for many years to come. This is also reflected in the Engagement Index, which, at 84, was again very high compared to the previous survey (2017: 81). Overall employee satisfaction rose from 77 (2017) to 82 points.

After adding Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (including the UNIQA Group Service Centre), Romania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the previous year, the 2019 UNIQA Group Employee Survey was offered in Ukraine for the first time. The participation rate was 73.7 per cent; the UNIQA Index was 76. Here again, the best ratings were given to the support by the respective manager with 82 points, the working time model with 84 points, and UNIQA’s attractiveness as an employer (87 points). As in Austria, the Engagement Index was 84 points, and overall satisfaction was 79 points.

Succeeding & participating

UNIQA grants variable remuneration components in order to emphasise the importance of strategic company goals, and at the same time to allow all employees to participate in the success of the company. This approach is one of the fundamental principles of the Group.

The UNIQA employee participation programme is a profit-sharing plan that applies to all employees in the office and in the field who do not participate in the bonus programme for managers and experts. This bonus is intended to express our recognition for the commitment and performance of our employees, but it also represents a leap of faith for the future. This is because a high level of commitment continues to be required in order to achieve our ambitious goals in times of rapidly changing customer expectations and to continue to successfully drive our strategic initiatives forward.

Work & life balance

Our multi-faceted and diverse offerings allow employees to experience the “better living” that is part of UNIQA’s DNA: including UNIQA’s Children’s Days, the holiday circus camp for employees’ children that is part of our Family Day, UNIQA’s Daughters’ Day, along with various health incentives through the UNIQA VitalCoaches (including krav maga, Pilates, Sing@Work), massages, options for a “daddy month” after the birth of a child, annual get-togethers for employees who are on parental leave, the “Healthy Management” workshop, the KEEP BALANCE mental health hotline and the Mystery Lunch. Additionally, we offer services such as dry cleaning (located directly at the head office) and a pharmacist delivery service with employee discounts – UNIQA presents plenty of opportunities to make everyday life easier for employees and to promote a positive work/life balance.