Work-life balance is more valued than salary, according to a job carried out by Jobs.lu recently, with employees and the companies they work for adapting to the balance amid competing priorities. Financial sector firms are responding with a variety of measures.
Earlier this year, Crestbridge promoted 49 staffers globally as part of its twice-yearly promotion cycle, an essential element of its employee retention strategy. Eight out of the 49 are based in Luxembourg, promoted for their achievements and contribution to the company’s performance, Anne Catherine Grave, Luxembourg country head at Crestbridge, a fund and corporate services provider, told Delano in an interview. “Crestbridge empowers its employees to take ownership and control of their career promotion,” said Grave. “It’s an opportunity for the employees to help shape the business and fulfil their own professional ambitions.”
Changing employee expectations
Post-pandemic, employees’ expectations from workplace have shifted. She noted that today employees demand to learn throughout their career, not just at one job. “The new generation want to learn properly, [by] having the knowledge shared, and to have a team behind [them], whereas they feel confident that they can learn not [only] by doing by themselves without any supervision. And that’s what Crestbridge offers, a tailored learning and development programme.”
Flexibility can be a strategic staffing management solution, benefiting work-life balance and productivity, she said. For example, employees have the possibility to adapt their working conditions, including teleworking, variable working hours or reduction in working time for a certain period with their employers’ approval. That being said, “The new generation prefer a balance between private and professional life. When I began to work, I remember that we wanted to do overtime and have more salary, now it’s not [the case] anymore. The mentality of [employees has changed], they want more time for themselves. By [approving] teleworking, we provide some [of employee demands], employees appreciate the fact that they can work from home,” Grave commented.
“We also [apply] flexible working time, [meaning] there is no time when you say ‘okay, you need to be at the office no later than nine or you cannot leave before four’, [in addition] we do two days per week telework and three days a week in the office.”
You make your people happy; they stay longer. Having a huge turnover is not good, you're losing money, and if you're losing money, then you’re losing knowledge
Talent retention policies
HR professionals agree that creating an attractive work environment which makes staff prefer office working then telework and cultivating team spirit by organising social and volunteering events are key factors in retaining talent.
Grave emphasised that the policy to retain talent is a combination of “salary and vacation, Crestbridge [implements] salary benchmarking to stay aligned with the market practice.” Added that “The friendly environment is very important, [as] we spend a lot of time in the office with colleagues, sometimes even more than the time spent with the family, and that’s what we were really paying attention to, that the atmosphere is nice for people to work here.”
Grave provided examples of the employee engagement activities offered by Crestbridge, like volunteering in charitable activities, participating in sports events and the company’s happiness index survey.
“During the year, some of the [benefits] we have is--two times a year, in winter and in summer--what we call happiness measures, [in which] we give two hours per week, for one month, [when] people can leave earlier. It’s something quite common now on the market.”
Still challenging
“In the Luxembourg market, it’s a big challenge to find the right employees, we have a huge growth. Unfortunately, employee stability in the market changed a lot, it’s not always easy to [retain employees].”