Sustainable human resource strategy
With focus on METRO Wholesale, METRO is targeting long-term, consistent growth of sales and earnings. In addition to expanding our core business, we intend to use our Wholesale 360 approach to further strengthen the competitiveness of our customers in order to build long-term customer retention and establish ourselves as a partner for our key customers. We are therefore aligning our human resources strategy with our corporate strategy and continuously developing our employees. As a foundation for sustainable employee development, we have been investing in our leadership culture and management development for years.
Our engagement levels, which have been rising since 2011 and are well above the industry average, are proof that our employees are doing their best every day to achieve the goals of the group. With our efforts in human resources, we are contributing to reinforce this motivation, to encourage teamwork and to promote entrepreneurial thinking, open-mindedness and taking responsibility in the company. Our focus is on the following areas:
- Development of our talent management and investments in our employer brand in order to fill positions in our company with the most talented employees.
- Evolution to an adaptive, learning organisation that responds quickly to market and customer needs and participates in shaping trends. Therefore we make significant investments to accomplish this.
- Creating an appealing, open-minded and inspiring work environment for our employees. We firmly believe: only satisfied employees who are treated in accordance with their capabilities and engagement can offer a first-class customer experience.
- Increasing efficiency through conscious use of our resources and continuous improvement of our processes.
Our underlying holistic approach to human resources with customised initiatives and programmes spans the entire career of an employee – from recruitment through various career and life stages to retirement models. Involvement of the Management Board or country boards or management of the service companies respectively often already takes place during the development phase of the personnel concepts and thus ensures proper balance between adaptation to local conditions and standardisation throughout the group. One example is METRO-NOM’s new M-Trails career model. It was developed in collaboration with members of the management team, human resources managers and the works council. It is a role-based model that emphasises self-responsibility, reduces hierarchies, focuses on employee expertise and aims to improve fairness, transparency and collaboration. M-Trails thus creates a framework for the modified organisational structures and principles of METRO-NOM. It reflects agile operating principles in order to be able to act more efficiently and flexibly and to respond to changes.