Florentina Boitos, Head of HR, Central Europe Technologies
- Tell us a few words about your company, services provided and type of roles you accommodate.
Central Europe Technologies (CE.T) is a subsidiary of BNP Paribas Personal Finance (BNPP PF), based in Bucharest, which is continually recording a rapid and solid growth, since January 2014.
The CE.T develops, maintains and tests applications, as well as various hosting services on behalf of various BNPP PF entities, from 13 countries mainly in Europe.
CE.T’s core employees are developers with expertise in COBOL, .NET, JAVA, Pyton, AS 400.
- What makes your company a great place to work?
First of all, people are the greatest asset and CE.T is building its strategies around this.
There are many interesting projects, colleagues, the benefits offered by the company, the work – life balance, the relationship with the clients and last but not least, the flexible remote working policy.
- Give us more details about the company’s culture and working vibe/atmosphere.
In CE.T you can find the empowerment and confidence for you to grow professionally with the way in which the projects are being delivered and by accessing our internal/international mobility program. There are a lot of transversal topics for people to participate to and programs of continuously transformation, such as Digital for Us.
Digital for Us is a program where CE.T people who are interested can contribute in developing projects for supporting the company’s culture, its Agile way of working and other essential business areas, together with the company experts.
- Do you ensure career paths to your employees?
Actually, internal mobility program is a key focus of the BNP Paribas Group. This program allows our employees to access missions or jobs inside C.ET, in other SSCs from BNP Paribas PF and even in Central HQ. Locally, we developed our Learn and Development Plan to support not only they professional grow of each individual for their current job, but also for the ones interested in different missions/jobs we support them achieve the requirements by working on the skills gaps required for the opportunity they target.
- What trainings do you offer?
We realized that the soft skills play a major role in increasing the client satisfaction rating and in having a serene working environment by respecting and understanding the roles each one of us have in the company. We decided to invest more and more in this part and we will continue even more in the following years. Our Learn and Development Plan contains a mix of technical, functional and soft skills trainings, with a plan for the next years to invest even more in individual and team coaching.
- You know how dynamic the market place is – so what is your strategy to keep your employees engaged, motivated and boost their creativity so they can innovate?
The strategy is to treat employees with fairness, transparency and to pay attention to their entire experience journey inside the company. Even at their exit, we understand their need to gather professional experiences beyond our company and Group and we leave the door open for a potential return. We consider this strategy to be the most satisfying, having people returning in the company with a positive feedback, by comparison; a great strategy for our culture, projects and for all the company is offering.
- We’re all unique, so how do you succeed to answer to different needs that your employees might have?
We believe that every person has an unique set of needs, regarding career path, professional and personal growth, so we have implemented a general framework based on flexibility and adaptability, while respecting the internal equity rule instead a general plan for all employees.
In terms of benefits, we have decided to allow our colleagues the opportunity to choose for themselves what benefits suits them better from a various package of options offered by one of our partners.
- We are well known for the employee’s benefits. Tell us more about the ones that you are offering (maybe something rare or unique).
The one benefit that steps out of the ordinary is the opportunity to a professional and personal development through missions/ jobs within the mobility program inside the entire BNPP Paribas Group.
Being part of a multinational group from the banking industry gives CE.T employees some amazing opportunities to use the job mobility capacities offered by the BNP Paribas Group, where they have access to all new roles posted on the Group’s intranet platform, while their skills are being integrated through our special platform that is now synced with another internal tool for development and trainings. Beside this great opportunity, we have the flexibility in choosing the benefits, the life insurance option, the flexible schedule and the remote working policy.
- What did your employees appreciated in your offices and how do you think the working (from the office) environment will change post pandemic? What are the new top features?
At the end of 2019 we have moved our offices to Oregon Park and starting February 2020, due to the pandemic, we have decided to work fully remote; so we didn’t had enough time to use the new working space.
The new office is a major improvement in comparison with the previous location adding also the fact that everything was brand new. The post pandemic plans are to transform the office space in a more hybrid working environment, considering that in the future we will work only 50% of the time from the company offices. In addition, the plan is to provide the necessary digital tools for our teams to work efficiently in this hybrid remote scenario.
- Some of the employees appreciate WFH and also the flexibility it comes when choosing their location and program. Besides that, it’s a huge opportunity for companies to access new talent pools. Did your company consider working from anywhere? This includes anywhere in Romania or also abroad?
The pandemic context contributed to the change of our WFH policy by increasing the time working remotely to 50% from the total working time in a month.
More than that, we now consider opening new working points outside Bucharest. So, yes, we are working from anywhere and this includes places abroad within some limits in order to prevent different type of risks and for respecting the laws for taxes.
- Is there a channel/web page where people can learn more about your company and career opportunities?
Linkedin page of BNPP Paribas Personal Finance, where news and interesting info are published – https://www.linkedin.com/company/bnp-paribas-personal-finance
Career opportunities: https://bnpparibasgt.taleo.net/careersection/gt/joblist.ftl