The objective is to identify profiles with potential, improve the skills and abilities of workers and fill vacancies.
MADRID, 29 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
More than a thousand Renfe workers have participated in the railway company’s Internal Talent Detection Program since it was launched with the aim of identifying profiles with potential, improving the skills and abilities of workers and filling certain vacancies.
The manager of the Selection, Professional Career Development and Mentoring Area at the Renfe Group, Laura Bravo, has indicated that in this program, framed in the Internal Talent Development Plan that the public company has applied since the end of 2020, they have participated or 1,026 workers from professional, operational and pre-management categories are participating.
This figure represents 40% of employees with a university degree, level B1 or higher in at least one language and experience of more than one year in the Renfe Group, which are the requirements to participate in the program.
This program allows “to identify profiles with the potential to reinforce, when necessary, the areas of activity that we consider strategic, such as those related to safety and railway operations,” Bravo explained in an interview with Europa Press.
Likewise, it serves to “more accurately plan successions for key positions” and to “have detected workers with skills and competency capacity for more innovative areas, such as those found in the digital field, which it is difficult for us to cover externally,” he said. added.
After evaluating and detecting those employees with the necessary skills to access certain positions, Renfe offers them training and technical support. Thus, workers can “improve their skills and competencies and, consequently, the opportunities to grow professionally”, while Renfe manages to “have its talent map identified and updated”, according to the manager.
This is useful when finding professionals who fit into some positions that are difficult to fill, such as those that require technological profiles; in particular, those related to the areas of cybersecurity, digital transformation, advanced analytics and ‘big data’, because “market supply is higher than demand and salaries set the tone,” according to Bravo.
In a sector as specialized as the railway, it is sometimes also difficult to find railway engineering profiles and engineers who can dedicate themselves to train maintenance. In these cases, Renfe publishes job offers on specialized portals to give them greater dissemination and sends them directly to profiles identified in professional networks.
To promote the professional development of its employees, the Renfe Group has a Business Development Program, which 75 workers will undergo in the current edition, and a Bank of Skills Development Actions, in which skills will be improved. skills of 160 operational and pre-managerial workers. Added to this is Acelera, a training program more oriented towards managers.
Regarding the skills that need further reinforcement, Bravo has mentioned communication and leadership, as well as those related to innovation. On the other hand, in others, such as customer orientation, decision making and results orientation, workers usually achieve “a very good average value” in the evaluations.
On the other hand, the manager has referred to the mentoring programs carried out by Renfe to facilitate the transmission of knowledge among its employees. One of them is focused on railway operations, since “the railway trade is not learned in any university”, but rather through professional experience, as she has stated.
Another program is focused on commercial strategy, which for Renfe “is very important” because, after the liberalization of rail transport in Spain, now “there are private operators competing with us,” he noted.
In addition, last year an Equality Mentoring Program was carried out, through which fifteen Renfe executives served as mentors to fifteen women who occupy operational positions and in the basic structure of the company and who have only been in the company for a few years.
For a year, the mentors accompanied their colleagues in their professional development to “facilitate and guide their journey” in the Renfe Group, where women represent 21% of the workforce.
The vast majority of women who are part of the public company, 77%, are in operational positions (they are machinists, commercial operators and maintenance operators), 10% occupy positions in the management structure and 13% work as techniques.
Finally, Bravo has indicated that this year Renfe has launched a program for senior employees of the company structure whose purpose is to “update their professional skills”, including digital ones, and “value their experience so that they can go acquiring the role of mentor in many cases”.
