Social relationships at work: a key driver for attracting and retaining talent for BNP Paribas Luxembourg

In the field of recruitment, the dynamics at work are constantly evolving. Labour market trends require businesses to adapt in order to best meet their workforce needs. Alexandra Allet, Recruitment Manager, and Louis de Looz-Corswarem, HR Director for the BNP Paribas Group in Luxembourg, discuss these developments and their impacts.

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Alexandra, you supervise the team in charge of recruitment for the entire BNP Paribas group in Luxembourg. What are the trends and challenges related to your role?

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Alexandra Allet : In 2019, to better meet our needs, we decided to centralize external recruitment operations within a single team. Previously, this management was decentralized. In view of the needs of the bank and the Group's other entities and businesses - such as securities services, asset management, life insurance - our role is to ensure the recruitment of employees under permanent contracts or fixed-term contracts, or even VIEs and interns. We must constantly meet a wide variety of needs, meet a diversity of profiles, with the greatest possible reactivity.

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If we look at recent developments, we see that since the middle of last year, we have been receiving a lot more applications for our open positions, with many experienced candidates.

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How can this change be explained?

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Alexandra Allet: Several elements can be mentioned to explain this evolution. First, we changed the recruitment software in order to streamline the process, thus reducing the time required to submit an application to three minutes. Then, we note that currently, the number of positions available on the market is in decline, as confirmed by ADEM*. Finally, we are receiving an increasing number of applications from abroad. Luxembourg has opened up considerably to talents who now come from areas far from the Greater Region.

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Not long ago, there was still talk of a shortage of talent. Is that period over?

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Alexandra Allet: It depends on the positions to be filled. For many functions, we have no particular difficulties in recruiting profiles adapted to our needs, however some remain more difficult to find. I am thinking of people with experience in the field of IT, multilingual commercial profiles or even skills in the field of compliance that we are not the only ones looking for on the Market. These recruitments sometimes require the implementation of specific approaches.

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How does that translate?

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Louis of Looz-Corswarem: To recruit these profiles, you must be very responsive, very fast and implement dedicated recruitment approaches. We must also take care to fully exploit our range of assets to make them want to join us. It should be borne in mind that these talents are in high demand. They can receive two or three offers simultaneously and you must therefore be able to tell the difference.

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You are talking about responsiveness, the acceleration of recruitment processes. How does this translate into practice?

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Alexandra Allet: Responsiveness is expressed in several ways. For the employer, of course, this implies a fast and efficient recruitment process, from the search for a given profile to the formalization of the offer, while being attentive to transparency towards the candidate at each stage of the process. And the candidate must also be reactive and be able to make a quick decision. We currently tend to leave our offers open for less time because we receive a large volume of applications and we must ensure that we respond qualitatively to each candidate.

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In recent months, there has been frequent talk of an increase in the number of candidates who applied before withdrawing, or who were recruited and did not show up. Is this a trend that you have seen?

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Louis of Looz-Corswarem: This can happen from time to time, but it's hard to talk about a trend. In any case, this is not a problem that we are encountering. On the other hand, on the other hand, we may be in discussion with candidates who are involved in several recruitment processes simultaneously. On these particular profiles, we need to invest more in the relationship, to attract them to us.
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The work environment contributes greatly to the attractiveness of the company.

How are candidate expectations changing? What elements can attract them?

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Louis of Looz-Corswarem: One element seems key to me: the quality of the work environment.

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Alexandra Allet: I confirm: the work environment contributes greatly to the attractiveness of the company, even if when a candidate wants to change employers, it is most of the time a better salary package that motivates him. The next thing that comes next, unsurprisingly, is the search for a better balance between private and professional life. The issue of teleworking is also addressed in each interview, and to meet these expectations, we also offer our employees the possibility of working from two satellite sites (one near the Belgian border in Windhof and the other in Bettembourg), which considerably reduces travel times and the resulting stress.

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Beyond these aspects, what levers do you use to attract talent?

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Louis of Looz-Corswarem: Beyond flexible working hours and remote work solutions, we have many arguments to make. For example, because of our size and the diversity of our activities, we have the capacity to develop talent within the bank and to support everyone's personal development. This includes training, with a rich offer, and internal mobility. Finally, an employee can spend their entire career within our Group, changing functions and even professions, according to their aspirations and their professional project.

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In addition, the services that employees can benefit from, such as a concierge, a nursery, a gym, company restaurants... also play an important role. We must facilitate the daily lives of our employees, especially at a time when, especially with new technologies, we are used to meeting our needs quickly and easily, even almost immediately.

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Finally, I think it is essential to respond to an increasingly strong quest for meaning and to propose a business project that makes people want and that resonates with people. And here the challenge is to show the teams how our activities can not only contribute to customer satisfaction, but also have a positive impact on society.

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Today, work is more often organized in hybrid mode. How do you support a shared culture when employees are regularly remote?

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Louis of Looz-Corswarem: There is a high expectation among employees regarding the flexibility of work organization, which is important to meet. However, the importance of social relationships in the workplace should not be underestimated. If, after COVID, we had the impression that many wanted to telework as much as possible, we see through our satisfaction surveys that things are changing.

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Employees also like to get together and spend time together. Several ingredients make it possible to meet this need for balance and to nourish the feeling of belonging: offering face-to-face events, communicating regularly around a strong and shared business project, supporting Managers in team management in hybrid mode and also rethinking our working methods and spaces. We also have this point in mind for the development of our future SekoIA building, which gives pride of place to collaborative spaces.

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How can we support this cohesion?

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Louis of Looz-Corswarem: Beyond teleworking, satellite sites, flexible hours, we want to offer a fulfilling work environment and re-enchant the work experience. To do this, we offer inspiring events and conferences on various themes that open the mind and allow exchanges in a friendly environment. We also have 27 Friendly and Sports Circles, which allow teams to meet and which offer a wide variety of sports and leisure activities. Moreover, last year, our soccer team, supported by our employees, finished 2nd in the Luxembourg Corporate Cup, and our tennis team rose to 4th place in the Group's international tournament which was played at Roland-Garros. Great successes that made us all proud and that united us around the values of sport!

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We also have communities where everyone can get involved (Ascent connecting recently hired employees; MixCity working for diversity and equal opportunities; and Pride, in support of LGBT+ people).

In another way, we offer our employees the opportunity to come together around projects and values that are important to them and to devote part of their working time to associations through our “1MillionShours2Help” program. Being a responsible employer must be reflected in our actions on a daily basis.

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All these very concrete elements contribute to the fact that employees enjoy coming to the office and find meaning in it. Thanks to an Employee Centric approach, our bank is constantly evolving to offer the best possible experience to our employees. Because we know that we have the capacity to do it, we dare to test new things, evaluate and validate them, or not, based on the results obtained.

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Moreover, we recently obtained, for the 10th consecutive year, the Top Employer Luxembourg certification, which distinguishes employers who offer their employees first-class conditions and who promote their development. This distinction is much more than recognition: it encourages us to go even further, to strengthen cohesion and commitment, and to develop an ever more fulfilling and supportive environment for our employees and our customers.

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*Editor's note: During the month of December 2024, employers declared 2,385 vacancies at ADEM, which corresponds to a decrease of 7.1% compared to December 2023.