Corporate culture

The following values are at the heart of our corporate culture:

The bank’s internal procedures and rules are transparent and understandable, because we are committed to being friendly to our employee. We treat everyone equally and fairly. We strive to make every employee feel special and valued.

Our corporate behaviour standards apply to every employee, and we also expect all leaders (managers) to act in line with their leadership commitments.

An integral part of our corporate culture is the Risk Pro culture based on the 5 principles obliging each employee to manage risk:

For more information about the risk culture, see section Risks and impact in the Governance chapter.

We have described our key values and behaviour standards in our General Code of Conduct, which is a comprehensive set of guidelines for all employees, regardless of their roles. The Code sets standards of performance and shapes desirable attitudes in many dimensions of the organisation.

The provisions of the Code are supplemented by additional regulations, including, among others:

• Code of Conduct for Securities Markets,
• Anti-Money Laundering Policy,
• Anti-Corruption Programme,
• Conflict of Interest Policy, and many others.

The formal framework of our corporate culture also includes the „Sustainability Policy” which emphasises the key role of employees in building the bank’s success. In the document we indicate the need to maintain relations with employees based on mutual trust and loyalty. We declare measures that will make employees feel motivated, involved and rewarded. Furthermore, in the policy we commit to:

• promoting employment stability, flexibility of work and work-life balance and taking care of the health and safety of employees at the workplace;
• ensuring that employees adhere to principles of ethics and responsible behaviour based on the „General Code of Conduct” in force;
• encouraging employees to participate in corporate volunteering to support the development of local communities and strengthen employees’ sense of pride in belonging to the organisation.

An important element of our corporate culture is open communication aimed at all employees. As part of our regular activities, we prepare:

• publications on the home page of the intranet – every day we post there daily news from the bank, provide business and employee information, promote charity campaigns, etc;
• newsletters – on Wednesdays we circulate a newsletter on staff matters, and on Fridays we sum up the most important events in the bank that happened during the week;
• „In Touch” – this phrase is used by Michał Gajewski, CEO of Santander Bank Polska S.A., as a topic of emails regularly sent to all employees of the bank. The messages concern important events and strategic directions.

All the time we requested feedback from employees to address their needs and increase the effectiveness of the conducted activities.

We continued to develop our strategy to build a positive employee experience in pursuit of the strategic objective of achieving market leadership from a customer and employee perspective.

• Since June, we have been measuring the effectiveness of our HR activities in a quarterly employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) survey.
• We continued the transformation towards the Agile model and the centralisation of competences using various methodologies, such as Customer Design, Design Thinking and HCM.
• The next edition of the #SantanderWomen project took place. In 2020, it was a series of educational and development workshops („You Have the Power” and „Mastermind”) inspiring women to develop their leadership competences, learn about their strengths and exchange experiences.
• We entered into partnership with the Vital Voices Foundation in supporting the development of women’s competencies for leadership roles.
• We continued our activities within the framework of profiled development programmes designed for representatives of different management levels and managers of the future.
• PowerUp – we implemented an ambassador programme bringing together employees who undertake initiatives to promote the image of the bank as their employer. Participants promoted us in various communication channels, describing many dimensions of employee functioning (wellbeing, corporate culture or remote working culture).
• We conducted a series of training sessions for bank employees on personal branding and image promotion.
• We adapted the employer branding strategy to the new normalcy – based on external and internal research, we identified the employer brand attributes and competitive advantages in the post-pandemic reality.
• „Internal mobility” – we implemented a programme aimed at promoting development opportunities for employees inside the bank, dispelling myths related to participation in internal recruitment processes and defining the key principles of the process.

We did not implement the employee engagement survey in 2020 due to the pandemic. The decision to postpone the „Global Engagement Survey” to May 2021 was taken at the Santander Group level.

We were recognised for our effective performance. In 2020 we found ourselves among the best employers, as confirmed, among others, by the Top Employer certificate.

Other awards and recognitions for employee-related activities in 2020.

^1,2 Number of persons employed in Santander Bank Polska / in the Santander Bank Polska Group, full-time or part-time and regardless of the  employment status as at 31 December, 2020.
³ The average length of service with the bank is 11.38 years as at 31 December, 2020, according to the employment status.
⁴ The number of persons with disabilities employed by the bank under an employment contract as at 31 December, 2020.
⁵ Turnover calculated as number of terminated employment contracts in 2020/average employment in 2020.