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New Generation HR Management

ECONOMIST MAGASINE HR SECTION Speaker: Hilal Kaspeçen Bakan (HR Manager of Setur Marinas)
QUESTIONS:

Can you briefly talk about your company?

Setur Marinas, within Koç Group, started its business life in 1978 with Çeşme Altınyunus Marina. Setur Marinas is the most prominent chain business in the marina industry within the Mediterranean Gulf. We were able to win the tender for the Demre Marina Project, in addition to the Kalamış/Fenerbahçe, Yalova, Ayvalık, Midilli, Çeşme, Kuşadası, Marmaris, Kaş, Finike, and Antalya marinas. We continue to lead the progress of the marina sector in Türkiye with 11 marinas in total.

How many employees do you have? How many people do you aim to employ in 2023?

We provide service to our clients with a team of 450 people. We plan to employ people of various talents in our company.

Can you talk about your HR strategies? What has changed in your strategies after the pandemic?

With our “That’s what freedom is!” slogan, we commenced the Office Free Project. As Koç Group companies, we decided on shared offices. Then we made these offices available to all of the employees of Koç Group. In this way, our employees have the chance to book shared offices of Koç Group in different cities while engaging with other employees. We redefined a worldwide standardized model by updating our performance system so that the employees can keep track transparently, freely, dialogue-based, and OKR-focused. One of our main priorities is employee engagement and experience. Throughout the year, we conduct perception and pulse surveys, and listening sessions to adjust ourselves based on our employees’ comments and feedback.

We crowned our leadership in the industry with the award of “Best Workplaces” 4 years in a row. We are proud to be loved, appreciated, and recommended company by our employees.

What are your standing-out HR projects for 2023?

We started an agile transition process in 2021. Our main goal is to spread this transition in all of our organizations. Another goal is to develop our digitization and automation processes and to utilize our most valuable resource, human resources, in areas with high added value.

We aim for our employees to lead this new era by improving their equipment and gaining new talents for the requirements in their current positions.

We want both our employees and their families to have the best experience. We will continue with leadership, coaching, and rotation programs where we train new talents and our development programs such as “Talent Talks” where our employees learn from each other.

We highly value employing women in field operations such as port operations and technical services. In 2022, we provided the first female employment in our sector in the field of divers and sailors in Kuşadası Marina. We organize training and competition programs that enable our colleagues working in areas other than software and IT to learn new-generation software solutions, and we enable them to carry their own businesses to the digital and technological platform.

Companies choose agile management systems to overcome the competition. Do you have any work on this issue?

Among our most important projects is our work on an agile transition system which has been going on for 3 years. We are receiving consulting from global companies to educate our leaders in this transition process. Under the guidance of our leaders, we include our entire organization in various training and certification programs. We actualize the investment process, which is among the most important strategic priorities of our company, with our teams working in agile methodology.

What strategies do you follow to attract talent?

One of the main topics is to restructure the hybrid working model. We maintain our working-from-home model in a flexible way. We value that our leaders care about their colleagues’ ideas while supporting their creative approaches. Another topic that we value is the candidate and intern experience. We provided our leaders with education on such topics who will engage with the younger generations. We make new talents to recognize us through university events, collaborations, and our social media presence.

Many companies adopted flexible working methods during the pandemic. What kind of working model do you apply?

We have been applying the hybrid working method for the past 2,5 years. Our employees can work from their preferred environment or city during the days that they select for “working from home”.

Employee wellness is one of the most important topics on the agenda of HR departments in recent years. Can you tell us about the projects you have implemented to increase employee well-being?

We value the work and life balance. We have identified the work health and safety of our employees as our top priority and became the first marina company to receive the “Safe Tourism Certificate”. Our remote working and “Office Free” implementations help our employees to create their own free areas and enable them to plan their Schedules in a way that suits them the best. Our “Koç Moments” application allows our executives and employees to create a strong bond and keep track of our colleagues’ personal and important days. We offer time off for our employees' special and important days and organize special events to promote socialization and bonding. We strive to celebrate every success of our teammates.

In our company, we conduct people-first index studies for all our team leaders with a focus on well-being, connecting, and unlocking potential (talent). We continue our practices to improve the physical and mental well-being of our employees, such as sports activities, nutrition and diet counseling, and psychological counseling support.