Employee loyalty and development
New approaches and efficient processes for employee retention and development are crucial to the assumption of greater responsibility, cooperation and performance at DB Group. We support employees in several key areas:
- Perform: “My Performance Management” focuses on honest dialog about performance with the objective of continuously encouraging better performance. Based on the experience in the area of executives, the instruments “My performance” and “My incentive feedback” were introduced in 2021 for more than 200,000 employees. This was the first time that all employees had the opportunity, among other things, to collect feedback about their work from colleagues and business partners and to provide their executives with feedback. With the introduction of a mandatory contribution to performance in the “Women in leadership” dimension for all executives from the level of the leading executive, “My performance” is also an important tool for achieving our target of 30% women in leadership by 2024 (Second Act on Equal Participation of Men and Women in Management Positions; (Gesetz für die gleichberechtigte Teilhabe von Frauen und Männern an Führungspositionen; FüPoGII)).
- Learning: In 2021, we expanded the Group-wide offer of DB Academy and DB Training. DB Learning World has further established itself as a central learning platform. In addition to business unit-specific content, more than 230,000 registered users can access over 500 learning units on strategy, digitalization, lean management/DB excellence, and environment and sustainability. DB Learning World enables employees to learn autonomously and independently, and to develop further. The newly integrated “Employees for employees” unit offers employees the opportunity to prepare and present their own knowledge and make it available to everyone.
- Developing and appointing: The purpose of strategic succession planning is to identify succession risks at an early stage, plan succession scenarios and speed up appointments. The aim is to increase the quality and diversity of appointments and to orientate employees towards Group-wide professional development. In 2021, succession planning related to over 1,000 management roles. With our three career pathways – leadership, expert and project careers – we are committed to the future and offer attractive alternatives to traditional management careers. The DB “specialists” career path is currently being implemented and will be introduced to DB Group in all business units by the end of 2022. In addition, in 2021, we realigned our talent management with DB Careers Lab (DB Karriere Lab) in order to better reward initiative and individuality and make talent more visible across all career paths.
- Onboarding and transfers: Once an appointment decision has been made, a structured onboarding management helps the starter prepare for their new role and ensure that they feel comfortable on arrival in the new department or company. With our onboarding platform, we provide relevant information about how to get started. Structured and integrated knowledge transfer processes help new recruits to familiarize themselves with their tasks, processes and the Integrated Rail System. Personal support from executives and colleagues plays an important role in social integration. Our Group-wide mentoring program and intergenerational management promotes integration and mutual learning for experienced and new employees. In addition to the entry of new employees, a reentry management supports colleagues in ensuring the successful reentry into work after temporary absences. In doing so, we promote women in leadership and/or women with leadership ambitions, and make an important contribution to achieving the target of 30% women in leadership by 2024.
Employees are responsible for all of these areas and are supported by their executives. The “compass for strong teamwork” is a common benchmark for these topics. It is intended to lay the path for changes in leadership, cooperation and culture within DB Group under the framework of the Strong Rail strategy. The compass is based on the five most important principles that everyone in DB Group can use in their day-to-day roles to make Strong Rail a success. The compass principles have been systematically anchored in diagnostics, entry management, performance assessment, career development and qualifications. For example, the “compass for strong teamwork” was integrated into all executive training courses and the initial selection process for executives was aligned accordingly.
Further information is available in the section Personnel development.
