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A progressive and responsible human resources policy

The roots of KfW IPEX-Bank’s lasting success as a leading international project and export financier lie in its highly motivated employees, who are distinguished by their extraordinary commitment and excellent work – never losing sight of their customers around the globe. Placing trust in all employees and showing an appreciation of their work, as well as a progressive and responsible human resources policy, are firmly established components of KfW IPEX-Bank’s corporate culture.

KfW IPEX-Bank employed an average of 745 members of staff in 2019 (previous year: 697). The proportion of employees working part-time increased again, from 24.6% in the previous year to 26.6% at year-end. Female staff made up 47% of the workforce. The proportion of women in management has also increased again and now stands at 30.4% (previous year: 29.2%). The proportion of disabled employees was 2.3% at year-end (in accordance with the law on disabled persons, previous year: 2.3%), and this figure is set to rise continuously. The average age of the bank’s employees was 42 years. The staff turnover rate adjusted for retirement was 3.1% in 2019 (previous year: 5.9%; if all employment contracts for interns and work placement students that expired were to be included, the figure for 2019 would be 7.1%). This takes account of transfers within the Group.

A remuneration system linked to performance and market developments

KfW IPEX-Bank’s remuneration system helps to promote the bank’s attractiveness as an employer. As a major institution within the meaning of the Remuneration Ordinance for Institutions (Institutsvergütungsverordnung – InstitutsVergV), KfW IPEX-Bank observes regulatory requirements regarding the appropriateness of its remuneration systems. These are designed to link all employees’ remuneration with personal performance and sustained success at bank, department and individual level, and are set out transparently in a way that is easy to understand. There is a balanced combination of fixed and variable remuneration, which is structured so that there are no incentives for employees to take disproportionately high risks.

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Gender-sensitive culture

Gender equality is a key component of KfW Group’s human resources policy. Gender sensitivity is anchored in KfW IPEX-Bank’s guidelines and is at a high level, including when compared with other organisations. In accordance with the German law on equal participation of women and men in management positions in the private and public sectors, KfW IPEX-Bank continues to pursue its objective of increasing the proportion of women in management positions (see also information in the Management Report) and ensuring that the issue of gender balance is further embedded in corporate culture. The ‘Leadership Prospects’ scheme has become firmly established at the bank and was implemented during the reporting year with various measures to foster (female) leadership potential.

Company pension scheme

A reliable, employer-funded pension scheme remains an important component of the remuneration package within KfW Group. In addition to a basic employer contribution from KfW IPEX-Bank, employees are given the option to increase their future company pension benefits through voluntary deferred compensation. KfW IPEX-Bank then boosts this personal employee contribution with a supplementary employer contribution.

This transparent pension system ensures a sufficient degree of planning certainty and, together with the state pension, offers employees an appropriate level of pension benefits once these become due.

Health management

As part of its responsible human resources policy, KfW IPEX-Bank is systematically developing its company health management programme. By helping its employees to stay in good health, the bank hopes to maintain and enhance their motivation, satisfaction and performance at work.

Modern staff development

To ensure that employees and management can continue to work effectively in the future, staff development at the bank concentrates on continuously adapting professional skills from an early stage, developing modern management tools and identifying and promoting talent. The focus in 2019 was on the following areas:

Promoting young talent – trainee programmes

A central focus of our human resources strategy is the training of graduates, who can take part in a 12-month trainee programme at KfW IPEX-Bank. In view of the bank’s efforts to expand its business organically, its positioning as a specialist bank for the German and European economies and the strategic course on which it has embarked in connection with this, the bank significantly increased the number of trainees it recruited in the reporting year. The foundations were also laid for a fifth trainee programme. This means that talented young graduates with an international outlook can, according to their individual aptitudes and backgrounds, focus on the areas of structured finance market, risk, collateral or credit management, or controlling units. In all five trainee programmes, the content of the various training modules has been specifically structured to prepare trainees for the roles they will go on to assume. The trainee programmes include on-the-job training in various positions, professional and personal off-the-job training modules, individual mentoring provided by top-tier management and further communication formats. The intention is to fully integrate young talent into the bank, to provide them with the best possible preparation for their future field of work, and to enable them to identify strongly with KfW IPEX-Bank as an employer.

Flexible deployment and development team

The bank's flexible deployment and development team project, a successful and innovative human resources concept aimed at filling internal vacancies, continued during the reporting year. Employees on this team are permanent staff deployed flexibly in positions that become vacant as a result of temporary absences such as parental leave or sabbaticals. The first aim of this concept is to allocate appropriate, qualified resources to the specialist departments relevant to the credit process. Secondly, the programme helps its participants to advance their careers, as they gain experience in different departments of the bank within a short space of time.

KfW IPEX-Bank Academy

KfW IPEX-Bank places great emphasis on the continuous professional development of its employees. The in-house training catalogue includes over 60 different training courses, some of which are taught in English, and over 100 events were held at the KfW IPEX-Bank Academy in 2019. Employees participate in a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from training on credit processes or sales through to communication seminars and separate units for managers. The entire offering is aimed at maintaining on-the-job professionalism of employees at its already high level or increasing it even further.

Around two thirds of all training sessions are run by the bank’s in-house experts, which enables the organisation to ensure a structured transfer and exchange of valuable experience and relevant knowledge. External partners are generally used for special topics such as sessions relating to management and communication.

Annual development meetings are held between managers and employees, who work together to identify areas for development and set these out in a training roadmap.

Employee survey action areas

KfW IPEX-Bank’s fourth employee survey once again achieved a very high response rate of 72%. The objective of the pulse survey was to evaluate the bank based on seven key topics, including identification with the bank, strategy, digital transformation and risk culture. The results were presented in the departments and areas in which action should be taken within the bank in 2020 were identified based on the survey results.

Employer branding and personnel marketing

Career fairs

Since face-to-face contact and communication with potential candidates is an essential part of its recruitment strategy, KfW IPEX-Bank took part in a number of career fairs during 2019.

Fair Company, fair trainee programme and Top Employer

KfW IPEX-Bank participates in the Fair Company initiative along with a further 600 businesses. This is the largest employer initiative in Germany for students and young professionals, and aims to ensure that university graduates and interns are treated fairly and not used as substitutes for full-time positions. In 2019, KfW IPEX-Bank also again won recognition for its commitment in this area under the Trendence Institut’s charter of fair and career-enhancing trainee programmes (Charta karrierefördernder und fairer Traineeprogramme), while the Top Employers Institute repeated its independent evaluation of KfW IPEX-Bank and awarded it Top Arbeitgeber Deutschland 2019 (top employer in Germany in 2019) certification.

Works council and representation of disabled employees

Successful human resources policy is based on an active social partnership that takes account of employees’ interests. The works council with its 11 members plays a key role in achieving this and a close, trusting working relationship exists with regard to all relevant topics. In collaboration with the representatives for disabled employees, the aim is to continuously increase the number of employees with disabilities.

At a glance: Personnel key figures (2019)

Legal notice:

The information contained in this online Annual Report 2019 is based on KfW IPEX-Bank’s Management Report 2019, which you can download here. Should this online Annual Report 2019, despite the great care taken in preparation of its content, contain any contradictions or errors compared to the Management Report, KfW IPEX-Bank’s Management Report 2019 takes priority.