SEAT has received the Top Employers España 2015 certification, which confirms that it is one of the country’s best companies to work for. This recognition singles out the company as the first and only carmaker in Spain that is entitled to use this title and Certification Seal. SEAT was awarded the certification after attaining the standards required in an in-depth research survey conducted by the Top Employers Institute, a company that since 1991 has been globally certifying excellence in the conditions that employers create for their people.
More specifically, the HR Best Practices Survey measured the company’s employee conditions by answering questions on nine different topics: Talent Strategy, Workforce Planning, On-boarding, Learning and Development, Performance Management, Compensation and Benefits, Career and Succession Management, Leadership Development and Culture. The survey determined that SEAT offers an outstanding human resources environment, with a positive assessment in each of the topics, and emphasised the company’s career development and talent recruitment and retention programs.
“SEAT does not only aspire to generate employment, as we did in 2014 by hiring more than 800 new workers. We aim to create an environment which is conducive to personal and professional development. The Top Employers España 2015 certification reaffirms that SEAT’s commitment to full-time quality employment is still going strong today”, assured Josef Schelchshorn, SEAT Executive Vice-President for Human Resources.
The SEAT workforce includes 14,000 professionals. To foster their development, the company features a broad range of training programs in technical skills, language and leadership, among others, as well other initiatives such as international experience and personalized career development programs. The company invests an average of 14 million euros a year in training. In 2014, SEAT offered its workers over 304,000 training hours. In addition, SEAT is a pioneer in the implementation of dual vocational training, which offers apprentices an intermediate training course combined with work experience in the company. The first 45 apprentices graduated in 2014 and joined the workforce with an open-ended contract.
One of SEAT’s top priorities is to provide a safe working environment. This is the objective of the SEAT Group Occupational Risk Prevention Policy, which was renewed in 2014 with the consensus of company management and trade union representatives. The policy states the SEAT Group’s commitment to safety, health, efficiency and satisfaction as well as the continuous improvement of safety and occupational health conditions. To achieve this, the company has its own occupational risk prevention management system which has been agreed, renewed and recently audited.
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The company has an equal opportunities plan to prevent situations of gender-based discrimination in the workplace. The plan’s goals are overseen by an Equality Agent as well as a committee made up of company and union representatives to ensure success. As a matter of fact, SEAT stands out for having the car factory that employs most female workers in Spain: 22% of the Martorell plant workforce is female, a figure which is the double of the national average in the sector.
SEAT encourages workers to participate in different initiatives such as the Ideas for Improvements program, which empowers them to submit suggestions for optimising processes, products or other aspects relating to their occupational activity. In addition, to maintain a good working environment, SEAT periodically carries out a survey aimed at all workers in order to determine their level of satisfaction with their working conditions.