KÉSZ Csoport is the most attractive job in the construction industry this year

In the areas of community building and employer branding, the tasks of marketing and HR overlap considerably at KÉSZ Csoport. On the occasion of Randstad awarding KÉSZ Csoport the title of the most attractive workplace in the sector, we spoke with HR Director Balázs Gyenese and Marketing Communications Manager Tímea Zima about their joint tasks and the tools they use to improve employee satisfaction within the group.

Tímea Zima: We have the same goals, the same vision. Although I am primarily responsible for branding and communication processes as the Marketing Communications Manager of KÉSZ Csoport, employer branding is an area that is also of high importance for HR and Marketing. And the close integration and good working relationship between the two areas drives the whole group forward in a meaningful way.

Balázs Gyenese: As well-defined as employer branding may seem, there is a lot of overlap with internal and external communication, social media and community building.

It has been a strategic goal for years to enhance the reputation of the KÉSZ Csoport, and the recognition from Randstad is a great feedback that we are moving in the right direction.

Of course, progress does not stop there. Following intensive external communication activities in previous years, we intend to focus even more on our existing employees in 2024-25. This does not mean that we will neglect other directions, such as reaching out to or attracting new potential employees, but we have now achieved that people who apply to KÉSZ Csoport know us, know what we do and, last but not least, have a good image of us in professional circles. Following a successful external build-up, we therefore have some tasks to focus on in the future in terms of internal team dynamics.

Why did Randstad choose the KÉSZ Csoport?

Tímea Zima: Randstad's annual employer branding research is a representative and independent employer branding survey worldwide. In Hungary, almost 300 companies have been surveyed for more than 10 years, with nearly 8,000 respondents. The results are tracked year on year to provide an overall external assessment of how well known and attractive a company is to the outside world, and how employees perceive each company as an employer compared to competitors within the sector. Exactly why KÉSZ Csoport won this prestigious award this year is a very complex question. What is certain is that the results of our new website and our highly active social media platforms - for example, our followers have almost doubled in the last two years - show that the Group's activities are of great interest to external observers. It is important to mention that the purpose of our social media pages is not only to show what projects we are working on or what professional successes we have achieved, as we communicate a lot about in-house events, incentives and activities introduced among our colleagues, or even which of our staff have won awards and recognition. And these messages are reaching a growing audience.

Our content on the various platforms is therefore mostly about what life is like here in our country, in addition to professional content. And winning the Most Attractive Workplace in the Sector award has confirmed that we are indeed a place where outsiders are welcome to come and see us.

Every year we participate in Randstad's annual employer brand survey. Last year we came in 1.1% behind the first place, which was of course a bit of a sore point. The fact that we won this year, i.e. KÉSZ Csoport as the most attractive employer in the construction and real estate market, is a great source of pride for us. This is a joint achievement of the HR and marketing team; it is the culmination of many years of work.

What next?

Tímea Zima: As I said, it is a great pride to have won this prestigious award this year, but our work is far from over. This year will be the year when we will be able to implement our new employer branding strategy in a truly organised and comprehensive way. Indeed, at the end of last year, we carried out an in-house survey, a kind of employee opinion poll among our colleagues, the results of which proved very useful. The insights, evaluations, ideas and initiatives thus came not from management, but from those directly affected by the day-to-day problems. After all, we are doing this for our colleagues, who are the ones who really know what they want to change. By the way, more than 700 employees completed the questionnaires, including a mix of manual and non-manual workers, as well as those working at different sites and project locations, so the survey is truly representative of the Group.

We will incorporate the results of this feedback into our activities this year. I believe that, if possible, this will yield results that are even greater than in previous years.

What is the purpose of KÉSZ Csoport in terms of the number of employees?

Balázs Gyenese: Based on business needs and performance, the number of employees in each member company moves up and down. Actually, it's not the number of employees, it's the efficiency that is the main aspect, that determines the variables. Our aim is to develop the agility, the values and the value creation capacity of the existing staff.

The construction industry is undergoing a major transformation, both economically and technologically, so the quality, agility, interoperability and changeability of the people we can work with is critical in terms of the workforce.

Broad and up-to-date knowledge and the ability to innovate are perhaps more important than ever. If this message gets through to people, then interviews can be narrowed down to this aspect. This, of course, is the ultimate goal of employer branding: our intention is to focus the composition, structure, skills and quality of the workforce towards the strategic goals of the Group.

So what kind of workplace does KÉSZ Csoport want to be?

Tímea Zima: We have roughly 2,500 employees in the five countries and we operate in three locations (Budapest, Szeged and Kecskemét), which makes it difficult to integrate processes. We have a very large number of intellectual and physical workers and we are not only present in the construction industry, but we are also represented in many other industries. This diversified operation naturally broadens the spectrum of our workforce, so we have colleagues with very different skills and interests, who we can reach and motivate in different ways.

We want to develop a strategy that everyone can identify with and feel ownership of. And closely linked to this is community building, as we have many member companies and strategic partners that are separate companies but part of a whole, KÉSZ Csoport.

It's important to make colleagues feel that they don't work for the divisions, but for KÉSZ Csoport.

Balázs Gyenese: The reorganisation of our Supervisory Board and the Board of Directors of KÉSZ Holding Zrt. was only the first step in a major transformation process of the Group, which is still ongoing. It all started about a year ago and will certainly continue for at least another year. This transformation involves all areas and will have a major impact on the organisation's structure, efficiency and competitiveness.

There is a defined and measured, controlled process to which we have to adapt the human population.

Does KÉSZ Csoport offer something different for everyone?

Balázs Gyenese: It is said that every group of companies has its preferences. In some places competitiveness or efficiency, in others effectiveness may be more important. Obviously all are needed, but to varying degrees depending on the objectives. Individuals, on the other hand, have their own preferences: some people want money or community, others flexibility or location.

Our goal is to have some alignment between the preferences of the group and the individual.

Satisfaction is what we call the matching of individual and company preferences. There are employees for whom money is of paramount importance, so they make their decision based on that alone, but there are also those who see that KÉSZ Csoport offers great potential for development, so they may choose us because the experience they gain here is of greater value to them in the labour market than that offered by another company. Satisfaction is therefore a very complex issue, which can be the result of many factors.

Was this the purpose of the in-house survey?

Tímea Zima: In principle, yes, but this was also a very useful survey because it clearly highlighted the focus areas that we need to address in the future. In addition, we can segment them. If, for example, we want to deal specifically with intellectual workers - or with colleagues doing manual work, people from Szeged, Kecskemét and so on - we can take the results of the analysis and see what is really important for the area in question. Our aim is to keep our staff motivated and successful in their work. To help them do that, we needed to ask them for their specific views.

Balázs Gyenese: There is an organisational transformation within the group, and in this context several groups and projects need to be integrated into one plan. The input from the survey will also strengthen the alignment processes. Overall, our results were good, but we were not overwhelmed. We see what we need to address.

We still have a lot of work ahead of us, nothing is perfect yet, but the path we have mapped out for ourselves is a very clear articulation of these relationships. From this point of view, the Randstad award is not only a well-deserved recognition, but also an achievement that we can build on in the future.