Deloitte: “The actual brand building is done by employees”
- May 08, 2018
Considered one of the best companies in Spain to work for, Deloitte is the leading strategy and operations consultancy in our country. The company, which offers services such as Auditing, Consulting, Risks, Tax and Legal and Advice on Corporate Transactions, has more than 8,000 employees nationwide and 270,000 internationally and makes a clear commitment to its human capital.
Maite Poyos is Human Resources Director at Deloitte and she converse to us in this interview about various actions they conduct at the company.
Deloitte is talking about an institution and a great brand. But is the brand itself enough to attract new talent?
The brand is important but not enough. Among other things because the brand is built day by day by our professionals. The current Deloitte was formed in 2001, as a result of the integration of the extinct company Arthur Andersen and Deloitte. At that time we had to build a brand, because the leading consulting organization in Spain disappeared, with a consolidated brand in the market recognized by both talent and our clients, and we had to rebuild brand leadership from both points of view. From a talent perspective, building a brand meant making ourselves known in universities and business schools, explaining who we were, where we came from and what we could offer to talent. We can continue working, of course, but the real construction of the brand is done by our people, every day, with every act… It is not only the branding that we do institutionally, but it is the same branding that our professionals do. The brand is made by them and it is a brand made with passion and enthusiasm, a brand built every day, from the heart. In addition, today information is transmitted very quickly through social networks and the like, in this sense, we have to be attentive to the opinion of everyone and improve with contributions, working every day. The brand is built with actions, every day, is that a brand? Probably yes, it is the brand that will have the most consistency over time.
Is the social challenge part of a new way to attract talent from universities?
Not quite. We undertake many actions to attract talent, but in this case, the talent is for the NGO ExE (Empieza por Educar), with which we collaborate. One aspect that we are very aware of is that it is important to give back to society part of what it gives us, for this reason, we collaborate very actively with NGOs and other foundations. In this case, ExE is a foundation that aims to change and transform society through education, so it goes to universities, recent graduates and incorporates them into its organization. They have schools where they offer training to people who cannot access it, with the aim of changing society through training. When they presented it to us, it seemed to us a purpose very in line with our philosophy. We are not used to collaborating financially with NGOs, but we do it through the participation of our people, in this case, we participate with ExE, in addition to giving them spaces when they need it, going together to universities, and providing them with our help and contact in order to access a greater number of candidates.
At the internal level, what responsibilities do you have?
We participate in very varying projects. Each line of business or work group decides which foundations it wants to participate in, and what it does is to give up part of the hours of its people to be able to participate in volunteering, which can be punctual or periodic, depending on the agreement reached.
Another project, for example, is the “solidarity vacation”, which consists of some employees going to different NGOs, which we know and who know they have a good purpose, during their vacation and we finance everything: the plane ticket, the stay there, if they have to pay anything … And, in addition, they have our support if they need anything.
We have different activities throughout the year. At Christmas, we have an event called “The Solidarity Toy”, in which we organize a day in some special place and as “entrance fee” our professionals bring a toy that we donate to an NGO. We also organize “The Solidarity Cinema”, which is a morning session of the last premiere whose entrance is at a symbolic price (3€), and where Deloitte, in addition to paying the rest of the entrance, donates the same amount to one or more NGOs. We also have “The Penny Wallet”, in which all of us can voluntarily donate our cents from the payroll.
Another event is the “Impact day” which consists of one day a year all the offices in the world doing solidarity activities. Our people dedicate that day, voluntarily, to participate in different events such as a soccer game with children with disabilities, to create solidarity bracelets or to plant a tree.
Do these activities arise from workers or from above?
We have a social action committee, made up of about 30 people and led by Human Resources, from where the initiatives arise. Then each of the lines of business has social action subcommittees. The goal is for initiatives to emerge from this committee and to act as ambassadors for the rest. At the beginning we had a hard time getting people to participate because they had a lot of work, we organized activities and we did not have enough people to participate. And what did we say? Let’s go find ambassadors! Who cares? Who is sensitized with this type of issue? We detected these key people and, next to them, created the Social Action Committee that is responsible for transmitting the actions to the rest of the organization. Anyone regardless of their category can participate in this committee, the important thing is that they believe in this type of social action.
The current involvement is of the entire organization, for example, in the annual meeting of partners and managers, which we do every year in September, we dedicate a space for this type of action, with activities such as making toys or rehabilitating a forest.
We take advantage of any Firm action to participate in social action issues, for example, at the Alumni meeting last year we had a photographer who had a visual disability, with 10% vision and with magnifying glasses who was in charge to photograph the entire event. Furthermore, all vending machines are provided to us by an association whose employees are people with disabilities. Likewise, we are going to buy many of the things we use daily, for example, from Fair Trade, and we have many actions of this style, which are led by this Social Action Committee.
People First es un espacio de inspiración donde compartimos contenidos con un eje común: las personas. Desde distintas ópticas y sectores, abordamos varios temas, tendencias y noticias de interés humano.
