Why is this important?
OMV Petrom is committed to being a fair and responsible employer. Maintaining and promoting labor rights is essential for achieving legal compliance on a local and international level as well as ensuring that our global workforce can develop professionally and fulfil their personal aspirations in line with the business needs.
Our commitment
OMV Petrom fully supports freedom of association, recognizes the right to collective bargaining, and opposes forced or compulsory labor, child labor and any form of employment discrimination.
Employees’ rights and obligations are outlined in their individual employment contracts and in the applicable collective labor agreement.
We constantly inform and consult with the employee representatives on developments in the company’s activities that may affect their interests. We communicate on our internal platform all aspects of collective bargain agreements. The active involvement of our People and Culture (P&C) local teams ensures the timely information of leaders and employees at all the levels of the company. In this respect the operating model in P&C and the integrated approach of projects from both strategic and operational perspective ensure efficient people processes. MySF and EmployeeSelfService are internal applications we use for P&C and personnel administration.
Our personnel policy is based on long-term employment. Both staff and the organization should benefit from long term working relationships. We are also aware that job security represents a major concern not only for the individual employee, but also for society and the region concerned, and we therefore make every effort to live up to these responsibilities by means of contingency planning. Where business, organizational, or security changes require adaptations in the workplace, or even a termination of employment, we evaluate all the options, engage in constructive dialogue, and respond with maximum possible care and sensitivity. All our employees are covers by mandatory notice periods under employment law or collective bargaining agreements in the event of restructuring. In situations where, despite training, transfer, or development programs, staff release becomes unavoidable we make every effort to consider the economic and social consequences of those affected.
The company provides a notice period of 30/60 days (depending on the employee’s age) in the event of an individual or collective dismissal for reasons not attributable to the employee and compensates the employee according to the employee’s seniority as determined by the collective labor agreement. Also, a minimum notification period of 30 calendar days is also required by applicable legislation, in the event of the transfer of an undertaking. In 2022, 100% of our employees were covered by mandatory period of notice under employment law or collective bargaining agreements in case of restructuring.
We respect the rights of our employees, and we fulfill all our obligations in accordance with the relevant legislation, individual labor contracts, and collective labor agreements. In his respect, various communication channels are available to ensure constant communication for the implementation of employee’s rights, such as Employees Front desk, constant dialogue with dedicated BP and employee administrators for regular requests or petitions, parity commissions intended for an integrated approach of the employer and trade unios in respect of interpretation and implementation of the applicable internal regulations.
We assess all our suppliers to identify any potential risks related to human rights violations, potential cases of forced or compulsory labor or any other incidents that may impact our partnerships and operations.
Since October 2021, we sign and communicate electronically the individual labor agreements and addendums, any decisions, conventions, notifications, information letters, certificates or other administrative documents issued in relation to the employment contracts or for the implementation of specific procedures (recruitment, relocation, etc.). The electronic signing and communication of all these documents is performed according to the labor legislation and can be used also in the relation with authorities.
As part of the continuous improvement plan, we implemented new capabilities of electronic signing flow mainly to increase the number of documents signed electronically and to improve the user experience and functionalities. Flow expiry date, notice of flow expiration, recurrent notifications, new roles were added to the documents flow to facilitate the communication chain. A dashboard for a better overview of the most recent documents entered the signature flows. As a result of the proven usefulness of the new capabilities of the signing flows, they have been made available to all departments, thus increasing the added value of P&C products to the entire organization.
Over 5,100 colleagues are using qualified electronic signatures for the main categories of labor documents as well as other electronic approvals used for other regular administrative requests. By implementing shared computers, almost 90% of our colleagues have access to electronic signatures and workflows.
100% of our employees have the right to exercise freedom of association and collective bargaining agreement. In 2022, 86.26% of our employees were represented by our local trade unions. For 99.43% of the employees, the minimum wages or salaries were fixed by law or agreed upon by way of collective bargaining. Based on a trusting and efficient social dialogue, a series of issues concerning the majority of employees have been addressed successfully.
New support measures for new ways of working had been aligned with the representative trade unions to increase flexibility of working conditions, work-life balance and health and safety at home by upgrading the teleworking conditions.
Also, steps have been taken to provide a predictable approach of compensation employees’ earnings in consideration of the external environment challenges, considering local aspects and OMV Group global decisions.
PetrOmbudsman
PetrOmbudsman Department – Out-of-the-box vector of change
The PetrOmbudsman Department was created over eight years ago, as a counsellor for OMV Petrom’s staff, however its mission is far more complex than that. For a more in-depth look, the services provided by PetrOmbudsman can be viewed as a two-level house. On the ground floor, it provides reactive services, like mediation, listening or coaching, in situations when a person has a conflict or a difficult relation to manage. On the second floor, it supplies proactive services. These are called outreach activities and their aim is to develop people’s soft skills and help them avoid entering unpleasant workplace situations.
In 2022, PetrOmbudsman organized a wide range of workshops available for staff, on topics like Assertive Communication, Conflict Management and Empathy. Many were provided in person, both in Romania and to colleagues in OMV Bulgaria. Some of these workshops were also extended to the wider population, like OMV Petrom Filling Stations Partners and people in the local communities – high school pupils & teachers.
In its efforts to create a more pleasant working environment, the department also held sessions focused on team needs, called “Talks4teams” and sessions named “Employee Experience Talks”, which capture challenges and impressions from employees with less than 2 years of experience in the company. The monthly “Book Club” was another popular people initiative.
On international level, one of PetrOmbudsman’s learning and growth moments of 2022 was the European Ombudsman meeting in July, where discussions revolved around topics relating to: support tools offered by companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and development of organizational policies regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. In its efforts to promote such initiatives, PetrOmbudsman has been part of an inter-departmental team aimed to endorse a more inclusive mindset with regards to disabilities.