3.1 Social Responsibility Human resources
THE PEOPLE AT VÍAS
The people who make up the VIAS Group are the most important factor in our growth, and their skills and quality as a human team are our key competitive leverage.
A preferential goal within the Group is to recruit and hold on to the very best professionals. To achieve this we work in partnership with universities and schools all over Spain, participating in employment forums and providing grants for young students to make their first contact with the realities of employment and business. Our growth and volume of business assures considerable opportunities for promotion for those employees who stand out because of their hard work and effectiveness. Our employees' loyalty is further consolidated by our policy of giving priority to internal promotion over headhunting from outside, an option that we only resort to when a given job profile sought cannot be covered from within the organisation.
We firmly believe that ongoing training of our personnel is the best way to assure our Group's growth, resulting in high-quality work as a premise for our customers' satisfaction. That's why the Group has its own training facilities and has set up an e- learning platform, to make it possible for courses to be given both in person and via distance training, thereby fostering the quick, effective transfer of knowledge among our professionals at all our locations.
During the 2010 financial year, over 23,000 hours of training have been given in various areas, for which Vías y Construcciones, SA has an e-learning platform with its own training installations, allowing courses to be taken in person or remotely and encouraging quick and
effective learning among our professionals in all our branches.
As a basic principle for action, we base our relationship with our employees on equal opportunities and non-discrimination, not only when they first join us but also later as their careers progress.
Every day we seek solutions to balance work and family life, by fixing shorter working hours and time off for parents of young children, maternity and paternity leave and flexitime arrangements, and by always striving to relocate people as little as possible, to avoid uprooting families. We also encourage the incorporation of disabled people into the labour market, either directly or in partnership with disabled people's foundations and associations working towards this goal.
Women are playing an increasingly relevant role within the VIAS Group, now occupying key positions of responsibility and senior management. 25% of the qualified personnel at Vías y Construcciones are women. In 2010, Vías y Construcciones, SA set up the equality and training committee in this area.
