KN: Good evening. Katarzyna Nawrocka, on loyalty schemes at night. The topic of today’s episode is loyalty programmes aimed at management staff. This is a rarely discussed but very important topic, which viewers of previous episodes have asked us to cover. At conferences and in the literature, there is extensive discussion of programmes aimed at B2C – that is, the end consumer – and those aimed at commercial intermediaries, or B2B. But behind the scenes, in the privacy of boardrooms and HR departments, individual programmes aimed at management staff are being developed. And that’s what we’ll be discussing today. My guest – and yours too – is Anna Rudzińska. Ania, we know each other, but could you please introduce yourself to our viewers and explain why you, in particular, will be talking to us about this topic?.
AR: Good evening, everyone. My name is Anna Rudzińska, and I am a partner at RSC Frisberg Poland. We are an executive search firm. I now have over 20 years’ experience in this field. The essence of my work is to identify and support the recruitment of candidates for the most senior positions. As such, I am well aware of the reasons why people are prepared to take on a particular role and the methods a company then uses to maintain that manager’s loyalty – in other words, to retain them so that they remain with the company for as long as possible. And I understand that we’ll be able to discuss all of this today.
KN: Ania, I’d like to start our conversation by asking whether it’s true that we’re now in an ‘employee’s market’. It seems to me that, not so long ago, it was still us – jobseekers – who were queuing up for jobs.
AR: Yes, that’s true. Market growth, despite the pandemic, means that it does indeed look as though we are currently still in a period where companies are competing to recruit managers, particularly those with exceptional skills.
KN: In that case, given that we have an employee’s market, what challenges does this pose for someone in your position when looking for such candidates?
AR: The key is to match a job offer very precisely to the individual – and I want to emphasise this – to the individual needs, career plans and capabilities of a particular manager, which means that we must do our best to get to know them as well as possible, so that we discuss a given job offer slightly differently with each potential candidate we wish to attract, tailoring the conversation to what will interest them; and these discussions unfold completely differently each time, even though they concern the same job role with different candidates. I, too, have observed certain changes in these needs and preferences over time. In the past, managers did indeed look for jobs that offered stability – jobs that, for example, carried a certain prestige associated with a global brand. Nowadays, people are more often looking for something more exciting – even at the expense of that stability – by experimenting with more business-oriented opportunities. Offers from start-ups – companies that are just getting off the ground and launching something unique – are particularly interesting. This is becoming the reason why people are willing to take an interest in a new job offer.
KN: I’ll chime in here, because I asked a question about the challenges this presents for you, in your role, and it turns out that it’s actually the candidates who are looking for challenges.
AR: Yes, that’s true; that’s the sort of times we live in. This presents us with challenges that mean we have to get to know our candidates well and be able to connect with them. We have to take a very personalised approach, and we have to show them that this job offer provides exactly the challenge they’re looking for. And here again is that individual approach, because a challenge means something different to everyone. For one person, it’s doing something they’ve never done before; for another, it’s doing something on a much larger scale than they’ve done before, and so on and so forth. So it takes a long conversation to identify what makes that particular person unique in an individual way. It strikes me that another interesting observation is that a generational shift is taking place, because today’s managers are people who belong to the next generation, the sons and daughters of previous managers in the modern post-communist reality, and I do indeed see that this younger generation is acutely aware of the world’s immense volatility; consequently, any deferred bonuses, all the planned elements of remuneration, for example, which are spread over several future years, are of less interest to them. They do not count on anything that is deferred; they are not interested in deferred rewards and prefer to exchange such a promise – for example, one set out in a job offer – for non-monetary incentives or motivational measures designed to retain them within the company; these may include offers of training, support from the company for their development plans, or participation in a project that holds a kind of ideological or mission-driven value for them. It’s also very interesting, isn’t it, that young people need to feel they are doing something important for people and for the world. This is also a factor that fulfils their interests.
KN: And from a practical point of view, what are the best ways to reach highly specialised candidates?
AR: These days, absolutely every recruiter – including those specialising in highly specialised managers – starts off by checking LinkedIn; I’ve even heard that the name is becoming more common in Polish, with some people calling it ‘LinkedIna’. So it’s absolutely vital that everyone has a properly described profile on LinkedIn, one where you can actually learn a great deal about them. However, for a company like ours, which genuinely wants to reach those unique gems hidden at the bottom of the sea, we have to try to do something more. One method that’s been very helpful for us is simply making use of our network, because my business partner and I – with whom I run the company – can share over 20 years’ experience with the rest of our staff, during which we’ve built up a network of people who can now recommend the candidates we’re looking for – people who possess something unique, something very hard to find on the market – so this is our personal network. Another factor is, of course, our internal database, which differs from LinkedIn in that we can record precisely that unique information we already know about people we know, have worked with, or who have been recommended to us, and these are the key details that can help us encourage that person to accept this specific offer. Another way of reaching out to interesting candidates is through our participation in events relevant to the sector in which we’re seeking experts; so we try to attend interesting conferences, follow the trade press, discussion groups – these days they’re mainly online – so we try to be there to meet as many people as possible, to see who’s the star of the business community in that particular sector, who’s setting the trends and who’s the most innovative, who has the most followers, so to speak. All of this provides us with very useful insights.
KN: I’d like to ask you about the financial and non-financial incentives designed to persuade the chosen candidate to take this job, as we know that one such incentive is a loyalty scheme, and I’m sure you can tell us about the most attractive elements of these loyalty schemes that are specifically aimed at management staff.
AR: There are actually two issues here. One is how to recruit an employee for a particular company, and the other is how to retain them afterwards for some time – hopefully for years – within the company. These are two distinct matters, which sometimes overlap, so to speak, and sometimes do not at all. So let’s try to illustrate this with some examples. Recruiting an employee. It sometimes happens that, to encourage someone to join a company, the company is prepared to offer what is known as a „signing fee” – a sort of welcome bonus, which is simply a specific, substantial sum of money. This is certainly a common way of, so to speak, resolving the problem that when a person leaves their previous job at some point, they lose a certain portion of the bonus to which they are entitled and which has been promised to them. But because we’re encouraging them to leave that job relatively early, they lose part of that bonus. We try to compensate them for this here with this welcome bonus. These are actually very interesting matters, as they often involve lengthy, intricate negotiations. Let’s imagine a situation where, at their previous job, they have, say, 300,000 waiting to be paid out in a year’s time. So the new company, trying to attract candidates, says, „Well, if it were half a year, we’d wait for you. But a year is simply too long.” And this is where very specific calculations come into play, because according to some very interesting research cited by Forbes, the costs a company incurs to find and hire, identify and recruit an employee at the very top level can sometimes cost the company 200% of that person’s annual salary. So this is a very significant cost indeed, which the company tries to avoid at all costs. So that is the primary reason why these loyalty programmes, which retain employees, have emerged in the first place. And now, when we want to encourage such an employee to opt out of the loyalty programme promised to them by their current employer, we enter into negotiations. And it very often happens that the company says, „Okay, of those 300 you’d be losing out on at that other company, we’ll give you 100 as a signing fee” – simply for turning up for work on your first day. But you’ll definitely get the other 100 at the end of the year. So we’re already securing their loyalty a little for that one year. Of course, at that point, they simply lose out on that third 100. And I want to say that if this is the only argument for changing jobs, it won’t work. Put simply, this person won’t turn down that third 100. And that’s precisely where the whole point of my job comes into play. It’s essential that the person has genuinely different, non-salary-related reasons for changing jobs. If, in this new job, they’re going to have much more interesting tasks, a more inspiring working environment and so on, then they’ll genuinely shrug off that extra 100, and sometimes even the second one. So that’s how it plays out. Each case must be considered on an individual basis. What else can we say about such examples of arguments for attracting a candidate? We can say a great deal here, particularly about situations where a new job requires the candidate to relocate – usually with their whole family to a completely different place. Companies usually have a whole relocation policy in place. But it does happen that a candidate is so important, so essential, that the company departs from the terms of that relocation policy and negotiates something entirely tailored to them. This might involve, for example, helping the spouse find a job in the new location, or providing a second company car – essentially for that spouse. I remember one such situation where a candidate couldn’t make up his mind and eventually admitted that, in truth, the biggest problem was his teenage daughter, who is an equestrian competitor very attached to her club, and it was simply impossible for her to move to a completely different city. And it turned out that it was possible to find a very interesting, and even more interesting, equestrian club in this new place than the one she belonged to. What’s more, the company funded some additional training for her at that club. So, in each case, there is an attempt to identify what the real barrier is to the decision to change jobs, and an attempt to address that problem. In this case, it was her daughter’s passion for horse riding. And these are the kinds of examples that companies can look to when seeking ways to attract talent.
KN: We already know how to recruit staff. Now let’s talk about how to retain them.
AR: The factors that make people willing to stay with one company for longer can be both financial and non-financial. Let’s try to list the most common financial incentives. Let’s call them loyalty schemes. In a sense, that is precisely the function they fulfil. Some sectors, such as the financial sector, are even subject to a top-down regulatory requirement which means that part of the remuneration – usually part of the annual bonus, i.e. this does not apply to the monthly salary but to such additional remuneration paid at the end of the year – is deferred. Part of it is deferred. This means that in a given year, only a portion of that annual bonus may be paid out, whilst a certain percentage of the bonus is carried over to the following year and will, as it were, be paid out with that deferral. This not only means that it simply isn’t worth leaving before we receive the full amount of remuneration due to us, but it also protects the company against such a risk. Fortunately, this does not happen often, but the law is designed to prevent such difficult situations, and at least in theory we can imagine a scenario where a manager, whose annual bonus is directly dependent on the company’s results or the outcome of a task, for which he is responsible, might take certain business decisions of this kind which, in a given year, would push the results up enormously; consequently, his bonus – which is a percentage of the company’s profit – would be very high. In subsequent years, however, the same decision might actually result in losses for the company. And we can imagine that, at least in theory, a person who is not very honest or loyal to the company might decide to take the bonus to which they are entitled and leave the company, failing to stand by it during a period when it faces greater difficulties. So, in order to simultaneously increase managers’ sense of responsibility, the very structure of the contract means that, by staying on for subsequent years, they must take into account that they will also be accountable for those years, and that the decision must be the right one in the long term, and not just in the short term. That is one way of doing it. Another example is what is known as profit-sharing. This is a very interesting concept. Companies usually have an annual plan for the entire organisation, or for individual projects, which is defined by a specific profit target to be achieved. However, there is an additional provision stating that if the company manages to exceed this target, a certain percentage of that excess – for example, 20% of the additional profit – may be distributed amongst the managers who have made a significant contribution to the project that has been so successful. Now let’s imagine that this is actually a major project, such as the construction of a motorway. It may well be that this profit will be several million higher, of which 20% would amount to, say, over a dozen million. If that sum is to be divided amongst, say, 10, 8 or 15 people, that is a very large amount of money.
KN: That sounds like a good incentive.
AR: That’s a very good incentive. And now there’s another factor. It fosters loyalty in the sense that the company knows it has a major pipeline of projects for the coming years, and that these projects – some of which last a little longer than a year – mean that such a large bonus isn’t paid out every year, but only every few years, and that you have to see the project through to the end to receive, say, a bonus worth a million. And that really is the reason why people work at one company for an average of over a dozen years. The average length of service for an employee in such a company is indeed a dozen or so years. Another way of encouraging people to stay with the company for a longer period – a fairly standard one – is the long-term incentive plan. This is commonly referred to as ‘managerial share options’. It works by either promising this to an employee upon joining the company, or, for example, offering them the chance to join this share option scheme after a certain period of time. This means that a certain percentage of their salary is set aside to purchase shares in the company where they work, either at the share price on the date the bonus is granted or at a very preferential price not available to anyone else on the market – in other words, a very favourable price. And the manager can only dispose of these shares after three years. This means that, for the first three years at the very least, it is not really in their interest to leave the company. What’s more, every year, during the annual review of their performance, the company buys them a further tranche of these shares. Consequently, every time he wants to leave, some of these shares have not yet reached the end of that three-year period. And so, a portion of them can never be cashed out. This means that there really is never a ‘perfect’ moment to leave, and so this is a classic example where it’s fairly easy to calculate exactly how much you stand to lose by leaving. And sometimes, this is precisely the signing fee that a new employer might offer. Another example is the promise of a very large bonus linked to achieving a significant business milestone for which the person is responsible. This might be, for example, in a start-up company – that is, a new business – reaching break-even point. It could be in a company whose aim is to increase its value, and perhaps even eventually sell it to another owner – achieving precisely that, in fact. So we promise a very large bonus, which is often simply a percentage of the company’s sale price, or of the profit resulting from the sale of the company. Each year, these interim targets are also rewarded separately, and these interim targets involve the steady growth in the company’s value. An increase in the company’s value is really… We’re talking about much larger sums of money than the example I gave earlier, namely sharing the company’s profits. Because profits are, in fact, what we’ve generated in a given year minus costs. The company’s value, on the other hand, includes everything – property, staff and so on. This involves significantly more money, so a percentage of the company’s value and of how much it has increased – that company value – is a very compelling argument that keeps even highly-paid managers in their roles. And I suppose those would be the most interesting, or the most common, purely financial bonuses. Perhaps we could also mention that in some companies, the bonus is calculated according to a specific algorithm adopted by the firm. If a manager fulfils certain objectives or tasks correctly, the value of the bonus to which they are entitled is calculated. However, if this bonus happens to exceed a certain amount – for example, 100% of that person’s annual salary – then they cannot be paid more than that 100%. And this excess is, as it were, carried over to subsequent years, which has a twofold effect. Firstly, it’s a shame. As a result, you find yourself waiting for the next year all over again; and secondly, it provides a minimal sense of security, in that if I were to fail to achieve such success the following year, that outstanding bonus – as if due from the previous year – would still be waiting for me.
KN: So we set these thresholds, and thanks to them we have a loyal employee who is also willing to wait for their main salary.
AR: Exactly. As I’ve already mentioned, this bonus may also be linked to certain financial thresholds that must not be exceeded for various reasons, or to a specific task that needs to be completed. Reaching break-even, securing a sale, increasing the company’s value – in other words, reaching a certain stage in the company’s life cycle.
KN: Ania, we’ve covered the financial reasons why it’s worth working for a particular company; now let’s focus on the non-financial ones.
AR: Especially as we’re talking about top managers on today’s programme, let’s be honest about this. They’re usually people who’ve already paid off their mortgages and, in some cases, secured their future – so the sums involved really do have to be very substantial to actually make them stay. If the sums aren’t quite that substantial, then all those non-salary factors do indeed take on great significance. Among them are also those which, in some respect, do have a financial aspect – for example, funding for very expensive, highly specialised training courses. For a true IT enthusiast, an expensive training course in Silicon Valley – which is incredibly difficult to get into and, on top of that, is exorbitantly expensive – is indeed very attractive. Similarly, an MBA – take Heineken, for example – is a company renowned for always reserving a few places for its top managers at the world’s leading universities. Such MBA programmes can cost 50,000 or even 70,000 euros. This is very often an offer that fosters loyalty not only, shall we say, morally through a sense of obligation, but also in very practical terms, as it can be treated as a kind of loan that is, as it were, repaid in instalments year on year. Consequently, if an employee decides to leave the company before they have, shall we say, worked off the loan amount equivalent to the cost of the studies, they must repay that sum themselves. So this is another reason why people stay. Other non-salary factors may include highly personalised development programmes covering further study, additional training, and sometimes mentoring, sometimes cross-mentoring – that is, I act as a mentor to someone, whilst my own mentor is elsewhere, sometimes in a completely different company, sometimes in the other hemisphere, in a very distant place. And finding someone who is truly a great source of inspiration and a great help to me is a very interesting motivating and loyalty-building factor. Especially as these always involve a series of meetings and take some time. Employees are often willing – indeed, paying almost no attention to the financial aspect – to remain loyal to a company that shares their individual values. This is incredibly important these days. It serves a mission in which that person believes. A company that is currently working on the next Covid vaccine gives its employees the sense that they are part of something important for the world. A company working on, say, the utilisation of waste heat or other aspects of climate protection and combating climate change gives its employees a sense of being part of something important. Companies that are doing something incredibly experimental from a business perspective also simply make people feel engaged. They have a sense of being part of something extraordinary, something unique. All of this together keeps an employee on board, regardless of the financial aspects. A high standard of workplace culture and interpersonal relations, which the company genuinely cares about. Sometimes it’s the little touches, such as a well-equipped kitchen where staff spend time cooking up a storm, which somehow helps relationships develop more quickly.
KN: They are integrating.
AR: And it brings people together. For example, I know of a company where there’s a nursery for staff on the ground floor of the office block. Firstly, the nursery is on everyone’s way to work. Secondly, everyone bonds a little around this nursery, getting to know each other’s families and so on. And at least whilst their child is of nursery age, they try not to change nurseries, which is usually a very good one. Thirdly, for example, a company might promise in the contract that after a year it will take over and fund the nursery. So these are the sort of things. But generally speaking, this is something we’re seeing – these non-wage factors are becoming increasingly important. It’s growing enormously and is becoming much more significant than financial factors – apart from extreme cases – than it used to be. To sum up, I’d like to share one more general thought: generally speaking, people feel very much at ease in schemes where they have some say in the decisions. In other words, a sort of ‘cafeteria-style’ structure offering various forms of bonus. This could, for example, be designed so that an employee or manager, by carrying out their tasks properly, showing commitment and taking the initiative, can accumulate sort of extra points. At some point, they can convert these points into some sort of bonus, with a whole list of options available. It’s up to them to decide whether, for example, they’d prefer extra holiday leave. Sometimes this might even be a year’s holiday funded by the company. According to the latest research, the most attractive programmes are those where a specific promotion plan – that is, a career path – is linked to this individually tailored skills development programme. The things I’ve been talking about – mentoring, coaching, various training courses – are sometimes very sophisticated, expensive and hard to access. If these are, as it were, linked to a promise of promotion and the opportunity to work on interesting tasks, then it’s very appealing. And one more thing that comes to mind – managers who stand out can be offered the chance to participate, for example, in strategic company decisions. This is incredibly motivating. In general, the sense of having an influence on the company is something that really engages people and keeps them loyal for the long term. As a headhunter – as my profession is commonly known – I find it extremely difficult to persuade someone to leave a job if they feel that the company’s fate and strategy depend on their decisions. So even if lower-level staff are invited to participate in a committee, or in the discussions of a decision-making body where they also have a say and can discuss the company’s strategy, it can be very compelling. That’s all I think we can say about these non-wage programmes.
KN: You mentioned the possibility of managers earning points and redeeming them for appropriate bonuses. We tend to associate earning such points and redeeming them for rewards with loyalty programmes aimed at B2C customers. I’d like to ask you about the overarching objective when it comes to loyalty programmes aimed at management staff.
AR: Whilst in consumer-focused loyalty programmes we want customers to buy as much as possible from us, we take particular care to cater to these different consumers in various ways. For example, we are prepared to offer more to a customer with a so-called ‘high-value shopping basket’ than to one who buys very little anyway. And it’s very much the same when it comes to looking after employees. The overriding aim, of course, is to retain them with the company for as long as possible. Perhaps not for as long as possible, as it’s said that a turnover rate of around 6–8 per cent staff turnover is optimal for a company, so it’s not about everyone staying with the company forever; rather, we do indeed strive to secure the loyalty of those key employees, and just as with consumers, we go to the greatest lengths to retain the most valuable ones. Can we draw a complete parallel here, an analogy? But the fact is that we know that, if we’re a company selling services, it’s the ‘heavy user’ of our services who we’ll go to great lengths to retain. The return on the costs we incur is obvious, whereas the customer who makes very little use of our services is the one who, for example, sometimes cannot get through to the helpline at all – in other words, hardly anyone actually uses it, because the cost of deploying too many call centre staff to answer calls from these consumers – who are of the least importance to us – exceeds the expenditure on them and outweighs the potential profit from these customers. The same applies to staff. Lower-level staff are more readily available on the labour market and easier to replace when they leave. A manager, on whom the company’s strategy depends, on whom the greatest value for the company rests, does indeed enable the company to employ far more costly methods of securing loyalty. It’s a very clear idea.
KN: I get the impression that we’ve already answered the question I was going to ask next, namely about the differences between these loyalty schemes, which are aimed at employees at different levels.
AR: That’s one thing, because we might think that these programmes vary depending on job level, but it’s also the case that sometimes, at a fairly low level, we have an employee with skills that are extremely rare on the market. That’s also a very interesting phenomenon. I remember that we were once looking for an engineer specialising in forgings. We’re all familiar with the term ‘castings’, but ‘forgings’ is a term few people know. Well, it turns out that there are probably only a dozen or so enthusiasts and experts in this field across Europe. Various Western European countries are turning to Poland, as they are already facing a shortage of such managers, and they are prepared to offer very generous loyalty schemes not because these individuals hold high-ranking positions, but simply because they possess absolutely unique skills, which they bring to the company and provide for it. They, too, are being looked after very carefully. Let’s imagine, using the example mentioned today of companies producing COVID vaccines, or those committed to the environment, working on something new – a medicine that isn’t yet available, but which we’re eagerly awaiting. Usually, when such hope emerges, several companies set out in parallel and work on the same topic. And it’s a race. And at that point, the loss of an employee who possesses that rare and exceptional knowledge, and who has already gained some experience through working with us – the loss of that employee is indeed a huge blow to the company, and this even triggers special loyalty programmes, even if the person isn’t at a very senior level. And the third difference we see when looking at various loyalty programmes is one that stems from a company’s business model. From the sector we’re talking about. Sector-specific differences mean, for example, that a property development company can offer its employees bonuses in the form of preferential prices on the purchase of flats. A company that is a start-up, whose ultimate goal is to sell to a new owner. This moment of sale presents enormous financial opportunities – the prospect of a truly substantial bonus – which a company whose growth strategy does not involve a sale to a new owner cannot offer. A company planning to go public means that, upon listing, we gain a new incentive to retain staff, as we can offer them shares again at preferential prices that will not be available on the open market. It also depends on the business model, as I’ve said, the type of industry, and the company’s stage of development. Indeed, a start-up can offer extra remuneration for reaching break-even and then for generating its first profits. So these are the reasons why such programmes can take very different forms depending on the industry, not just on job level and, in particular, an individual’s skills. I think there’s another important difference, a reason for the variations between loyalty programmes, which relates to the fact that this remuneration policy needs to take into account the specific characteristics of different professional groups, even within a single company. In other words, it is not the case that we have the same loyalty programme for all employees; rather, for a group of sales staff, for example, it might be very appealing if they were offered the chance to exchange their car, let’s say a perfectly ordinary one like the one they’ve been driving so far, for a company BMW. That would be very appealing to them. For a group of IT specialists, however, this turns out to be a completely unattractive proposition. On the other hand, if they were offered training in Silicon Valley for achieving specific results in their work, that would be interesting. So these differences are linked to the specific nature of the job. I think this is also very important.
KN: And what determines whether a particular company offers a more limited or a more comprehensive loyalty scheme?
AR: Well, I think this ties in with what we were talking about earlier. There are different sectors, and they offer different opportunities. It also simply depends on the company’s financial strength, and on the stage of its development. We talk a lot here about companies sharing their success with their staff, but the opposite can also happen: a company may be in decline. It lays off staff, but a few key employees have to stay on board to, as the saying goes, ‘turn off the lights’, and they are also rewarded for their loyalty. A kind of agreement is also signed with them, which includes a financial incentive to ensure they do not look for other work – which is, of course, understandable, given their full awareness that the company is closing down, isn’t it? There are also reasons why companies are prepared to make an exceptional effort – a costly one, so to speak – to retain staff, given the particular circumstances the company finds itself in, for example, precisely this fierce competition between companies that have entered the race to, for example, develop a new Covid vaccine. This is also a time when a particularly large company is prepared to go to great lengths to recruit an employee.
KN: Ania, to round things off, I’d like to ask you about your experiences and about the most unusual – yet spectacular – elements of loyalty schemes aimed at management staff.
AR: Some very interesting – I would even say extreme – loyalty schemes were offered – although this approach is now gradually being phased out – in one of the mature markets of so-called ‘old Europe’. Bank CEOs were encouraged to remain in their posts right up until retirement. This was achieved by the company funding their pension at a rate of 80% of their salary from the time they were in active service. Sometimes this was a promise to pay out, for example, 10 years after leaving the company to retire. Sometimes it was for life, and sometimes it even included a promise that the benefits would pass to the wife. In other words, even after his death, his wife would continue to receive 80% of his salary from the time when he was working. This represents an enormous cost for the company, and today firms are indeed gradually trying to phase this out. Another rather interesting initiative, or programme, was a very thorough study carried out by one company, the aim of which was to identify those professions that will soon disappear from the market because, for example, artificial intelligence will replace some of the skills and competences, but today we still need those skills; we need people who possess them. Consequently, the company offered these individuals the opportunity to retrain or prepare for a different profession. And the company funded specific degree programmes or specific courses for them as a result. And sometimes, where possible, it even promised to transfer the person to a different role – a completely different role – once they had acquired these new skills. That’s also very interesting. Sometimes it’s the little things, such as a mindfulness course appearing in the range of options on offer. It seems to have very little to do with actually doing one’s job, and yet, doesn’t it? One such interesting example I recall is when a company entered the Polish market and bought a plot of land at a very favourable price, on which it built a factory and an office. The favourable price of the site was also down to the fact that it was far enough from a major city for employees to commute there comfortably every day. Well, but still within reasonable reach of that major city. As a result, to persuade people to take up jobs in this remote and not particularly convenient location, the company financed the construction of an entire housing estate for staff, comprising charming little houses with gardens; employees at a certain level were granted these properties under a specific lease arrangement. After a certain number of years, they could decide whether to continue paying the instalments and become owners of the property, or whether to transfer their rights to someone else. This led to a small town springing up around the company, complete with nurseries and all the necessary infrastructure. It fostered a tremendous sense of community amongst the staff; whole families with children got to know one another, and so on. Furthermore, apart from the strictly financial aspect of the house, this integration also fostered a sense of loyalty. And these are probably the most interesting examples I can cite.
KN: That’s very interesting. Unfortunately, I have to bring our conversation to a close, although it’s been a fascinating chat. Thank you very much for joining us today and for sharing your knowledge. All we can say to you is: see you soon and good night, and I look forward to seeing you for the next episode.
