In the 2024 DEUTSCHLAND TEST survey by Focus Money, NRW.BANK once again emerged as the industry winner among the state and promotional banks. The categories analysed by the survey are “career”, “corporate culture” and “working atmosphere”. The career opportunities for women and university graduates at NRW.BANK received a special mention.
The knowledge, commitment and performance of the staff are important factors that underpin the long-term success of the Bank’s business activity. To ensure that NRW.BANK can successfully fulfil its tasks as the promotional bank for North Rhine-Westphalia now and also in the future, the strategic objectives of the Bank’s human resources activities include winning and retaining qualified employees and preserving their performance.
As part of its HR planning and development strategy, the Bank has derived three main fields of action from these overarching objectives:
The high relevance of these goals is reflected not least in the fact that the goals and the medium and long-term measures derived from them form part of the Bank’s overall strategy.
Securing Junior Staff
“Securing junior staff” sums up NRW.BANK’s commitment to training young people and enhancing their qualifications. To ensure that junior staff can integrate smoothly into the Bank’s existing workforce after initial qualification, their training is carefully aligned with the Bank’s needs in general and the individual departments’ needs in particular.
In 2024, NRW.BANK filled new study places as follows:
- two places for the Bachelor of Arts “Management & Digitalisation” dual study course in Münster,
- ten places for the Bachelor of Arts “Finance & Banking” dual study course, of which eight in Düsseldorf and two in Münster,
- nine places for the Bachelor of Science “Business Informatics” dual study course, of which five in Düsseldorf and four in Münster.
For all students, NRW.BANK offers not only well-qualified trainers for the practical vocational part but also extensive support in the form of target group-specific seminars and business games. For example, all students take part in a series of workshops on selected sustainability topics. This series covers their entire training, with the contents of the individual parts building upon each other.
Given that NRW.BANK trains young people to cover its own requirements, permanent employment contracts are offered to all those who complete their vocational training with good results. In 2024, the following graduates were offered permanent employment contracts:
- four graduates from the “Management & Digitalisation” dual study course,
- two graduates from the “Finance & Banking” dual study course and
- five graduates from the “Business Informatics” dual study course.
In view of the age structure of NRW.BANK’s workforce, the Bank pays great attention to its objective to “secure junior staff”. The Bank wants its dual students and trainees to replace part of the employees who will leave the Bank due to age in the coming years.
Promoting Development
In order to ensure their long-term retention, NRW.BANK offers its employees numerous development opportunities and prospects.
This includes challenging tasks and growing independence, which encourage professional and personal growth, as well as the possibility to learn new topics and to assume more demanding tasks. For this reason, independence, development and recognition are key topics in the annual planning and feedback meetings between executives and employees. Structured bottom-up feedback supports employees in taking an active creative role. By institutionalising mutual feedback, the Bank continues to support a modern, open and trusting feedback culture. In addition, all employees may initiate an exchange about their individual development opportunities and the necessary implementation steps independently of the appraisal process.
Realising development opportunities means, above all, taking on new tasks and responsibilities. To ensure that this can be done on the largest possible scale, NRW.BANK fills vacant positions according to the motto “internal promotion is preferable to external hiring” wherever this is possible. As internal staffing usually results in a new vacant position, a consistently pursued internal staffing policy is ideally suited to offer the Bank’s own employees the widest possible range of internal career development opportunities. Vacant positions are only advertised externally if they cannot be filled by suitable internal candidates.
To counter the increasing shortage of skilled labour, NRW.BANK established a strategic human resources reserve in all the Bank’s specialist departments in 2022. Under certain conditions, this allows external people to be recruited independently of existing vacancies. In this way, NRW.BANK responds to the expected age-related staff turnover, which, given the age structure, will intensify even further in the coming years. Forward-looking planning ensures that measures to retain expertise within the Bank are taken at an early stage. In accordance with the Bank’s strategic objective, these foreseeable departures will be used to offer junior staff suitable career development opportunities.
Lifelong Learning
Knowledge and experience are indispensable when it comes to accepting and mastering new challenges. NRW.BANK provides a wide variety of HR development measures to support its employees in this respect.
After the initial qualification, NRW.BANK assists employees, for instance, in obtaining the above-mentioned qualifications and degrees by bearing (part of) the study and examination fees. In 2024, 25 employees obtained such a degree with support from the Bank, including eight Bachelor and eight Master degrees.
The internal seminar catalogue includes a large number of different topics. With 1,053 seminar participations, almost 59% of the seminar attendance in 2024 was related to internal seminars. In addition, 1,771 internal digital self-study programmes were successfully completed.
To train its executives, NRW.BANK offers them a multi-part systematic executive development programme, completion of which is mandatory. All modules comprise several training days, which extend over a longer period of time. In order to support an ongoing consideration and discussion of leadership issues, the Bank regularly offers workshops on related topics for this target group as well as supplementary measures to enable executives to handle special leadership situations.
In addition to the extensive range of internal offerings, the employees of NRW.BANK may also take part in seminars organised by external providers. Specialist seminars accounted for over 90% of external seminar attendance in 2024. As the contents covered by these seminars are relevant for only a limited number of employees, it would have been uneconomical to organise them internally.
Equal Opportunities and Fair Working Conditions
For many years, NRW.BANK has pursued a policy of actively supporting the balance of work and family life and promoting equal opportunities. The Bank obtained its first “audit berufundfamilie” (job and family audit) certification in 2015. The third re-audit in 2024 confirmed that NRW.BANK can retain the certificate for another three years. Notably, the strategic anchoring of work/family life balance in the Bank’s mission statement, the new flexible human resources development system “Entwicklungskompass” (Development Compass) and the ongoing collaborative efforts to foster a culture conscious of work/family life balance were convincing, alongside the self-management of working hours, individual and flexible part-time arrangements and the extensive range of mobile working options. Additionally, employees greatly value the comprehensive childcare support, which includes crèche places, emergency and holiday care and a childcare subsidy. These offerings – especially for children below school age – assist young families in balancing work and family life.
Employees whose relatives are in need of care receive support in the form of advice and services for their care and support, especially through the implementation of an in-house care coach. In the reporting year, NRW.BANK additionally became a partner in the state programme “Vereinbarkeit von Beruf & Pflege in NRW“ (Reconciling work and care in NRW).
In its Equality Plan for the period from 2024 to 2028, NRW.BANK publishes measures to promote gender equality, eliminate the underrepresentation of women and improve the work/family life balance. In this context, an internal fathers’ network has been established in 2021 with the support of external experts to strengthen the role of fathers. This initiative continues to be highly appreciated by employees. The Bank therefore renewed its cooperation with the external service provider conpadres in 2024.
In 2023, NRW.BANK also renewed its signing of Germany’s “Diversity Charter”, to again express its open and positive attitude towards all people in a visible manner.
Maintaining Performance
Occupational Safety and Health Management
Good working conditions and exemplary health and safety policies form part of NRW.BANK’s corporate responsibility. For many years, the Bank has implemented this in the context of its occupational health management system, which is continuously being expanded and adapted to its needs. Services range from company medical care – which goes far beyond the requirements of the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) – to a social worker providing confidential assistance and a variety of offerings revolving around such topics as preventive medicine, nutrition and sports.
Occupational health promotion activities aim to encourage healthy behaviour and reduce avoidable strains in the workplace. NRW.BANK regularly conducts a hazard analysis focusing on mental strains, during which all employees are successively consulted about potentially hazardous circumstances and stress factors at work. Thanks to the collaboration between the responsible persons – especially the Occupational Safety Officer, the Occupational Medical Service, the staff council, the Social Officer, HR management, building management and the IT Department as well as the managers and executives – any strains identified by the survey are usually eliminated in an unbureaucratic way.
Basically, NRW.BANK has two working groups which are responsible for all health protection issues for the benefit of all employees:
- The Occupational Safety Committee advises the Bank on all matters of occupational safety as well as accident prevention. Its members comprise representatives of the Bank, the staff council, the Occupational Medical Service, the representatives of the severely disabled, a Safety Officer and the Occupational Safety Officer.
- The Health Working Circle further develops NRW.BANK’s health management and decides on concrete measures. In addition to the Human Resources staff responsible for health management, the regular meetings are attended by the Occupational Medical Service, the social counsellor, the Occupational Safety Officer, the representatives of the severely disabled as well as a representative of the staff council. To ensure that the services provided by the staff restaurant can also be reasonably integrated, the catering services unit is also invited to the Health Working Circle depending on the occasion.
The Bank’s diverse health management offerings, which are usually free, are available to all employees. All internal health promotion measures have been pooled on a central, digital health platform. Besides comprehensive information, the platform offered employees the opportunity to easily and flexibly book external health and fitness courses in the reporting year. NRW.BANK subsidised participation in certified prevention programmes with up to € 150 per employee per year and covered 75% of the costs of such programmes. More than 90% of the employees have registered on this platform to take advantage of the opportunity to find information about health topics including nutrition or to book courses.
In 2024, NRW.BANK’s Equal Opportunities Officer again organised “MOVEMBER” – the month of men’s health – which included digital presentations, texts and stimulating impulses on various health-related topics.
As a bicycle-friendly company, NRW.BANK offers its employees the perfect infrastructure for cycling to and from work. To promote this activity and the physical well-being resulting from it, NRW.BANK offers its employees the opportunity to lease a bicycle by providing financial support for the payment of the monthly lease instalment. The Bank also reimburses the costs of bicycle safety training to its employees.
Under the motto “Wir für andere” (We for others), employees of NRW.BANK also make health-related contributions to society, such as:
- an annual blood donation campaign, which the Bank organises at both locations in cooperation with the German Red Cross and in which many employees participate,
- an ongoing bone marrow typing opportunity via the Occupational Medical Service in cooperation with the Bone Marrow Donation Centre in Düsseldorf,
- short training courses to refresh first-aid skills in cooperation with Die Johanniter.
All current occupational health and safety measures as well as NRW.BANK’s future plans are detailed in the annual health report, which the Bank publishes on the intranet.
But preventive check-ups, no matter how expertly planned and performed, cannot entirely prevent illnesses. NRW.BANK’s post-illness reintegration management system helps employees restart work after long illness and stabilise their health in the long term. This is a service aimed at defining individualised measures matched to the working environment through personal talks with employees affected by illness. The Bank is acutely aware of the sensitive personal issues involved in this process and places the highest importance on respecting the discretion of those affected to accept or reject this option as well as ensuring complete confidentiality and data protection.
Flexible Working Lifetime
In light of the age demographics and the anticipated retirement of a significant number of specialists in the coming years, NRW.BANK has developed a regulation for the old-age part-time work scheme. This offers several benefits for both the Bank and its workforce: NRW.BANK will have an improved ability to control and manage critical age-related staff departures as well as the necessary transfer of expertise. Successor planning will be possible over a longer-term period, enabling the Bank to provide specific development opportunities to qualified junior staff at an earlier stage. Old-age part-time work also accommodates employees’ desire for a flexible transition into retirement.
Awards
Based on ratings by former and current employees on criteria such as satisfaction with the corporate culture, working atmosphere and salary, NRW.BANK was recognised as “Top Company 2024” by Focus Business.
Rated “LEADING EMPLOYER Deutschland”, NRW.BANK was again among the outstanding employers in Germany in 2024. Criteria for identifying such an employer include employee satisfaction, working conditions, job security, a set of values and environmental awareness.
Go to “LEADING EMPLOYER Deutschland” [German]
For many years, NRW.BANK has supported the Fair Company initiative, which specifically addresses job starters as well as young professionals. As a “Fair Company”, NRW.BANK is primarily committed to reliable quality standards and verifiable rules for interns and graduates joining the Bank.
