The key asset for predictable performance
In 2019, our skilled people and teams yet again delivered record performance. To support this strong growth, we have continued to strengthen our global organisation through successful recruitment and onboarding.
During the year, our team was expanded with 89 highly skilled full-time employees to 335 in total. Of these, women make up 33 percent. In addition, we hired in 252 professionals to contribute to our projects during 2019. A key driver in our recruitment process is to ensure that we hire the right people by focusing on objective criteria through more automated pro-cesses, which has also been essential in building our diverse and integrated organisation now counting 40 different nationalities.
Last year, we said that we would continue our work to take further advantage of diversity to capitalise on the strengths it adds to our business. During 2019, we have added knowledge, skills, gender and personality to the equation through systematic focus. We believe a highly diverse workforce improves competitiveness and ensures predictable delivery of projects in a wide range of markets.
In 2018, we conducted our first global employee survey which we followed up with an engagement pulse survey a year later. The most relevant questions from the 2018 survey were included. The results from the 2019 pulse survey showed a 75 percent improvement, where employee pride again scored the highest. The valuable input will be included in our work to further strengthen the company and our high-performance culture.
The core of the performance, management and appraisal (PDA) process, which all employees need to complete every year, is the key people process which is defined as the essence of leadership in Scatec Solar. The need for continuous dialogue between leader and employee is important and essential for improvements from both parties.
We strive for continuous improvement of our people and teams through training and development. Throughout the year we have implemented several e-learning courses and expanded the number of classroom training courses. During the year, a total of 1,600 hours of mandatory training were completed, divided between 12 courses. The courses offered are regularly being revised to ensure they are tailored to meet the needs of a fast-growing organisation. In 2019, we successfully conducted our first global leadership training programme and strengthened the support and leadership development offering for all managers. This year, we will add further activities to the leadership training portfolio, focused on enterprise leadership.
In 2019, we also initiated a competency development frame-work that we utilise as a matrix of critical competencies. The purpose is to improve performance, foster development and a learning culture. Getting a competency framework in place is a requirement to become ISO certified within HR, and we will continue our work towards this in 2020.
Scatec Solar’s operations are spread across four continents and 17 countries. The organisation has been further strengthened in 2019 across key regions and functions, with focus on maintaining flexibility while at the same time utilising the global cross-functional teams to continue delivering consistently and achieving our ambitious growth targets.