The Gamesa Corporate University transcends the traditional understanding of these institutions just focused on training courses. Gamesa University offers a comprehensive talent life cycle management and encompasses a range of activities, such as organisation, recruiting, assessment, knowledge management and career training and professional experiences, in a single programme.
Over 15 years of experience in energy technologies, primarily wind energy, Gamesa is the No. 1 in wind turbines design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance in Spain, and one of the largest in the world.
Gamesa has installed more than 18,000 MW of wind farm capacity worldwide. The annual equivalent of this wind energy output amounts to more than 4 million tons of petroleum (TEP) per year and prevents the emission into the atmosphere of nearly 27 million tons of CO2 per year.
Gamesa is also one of the world’s leading companies in the development, construction and sale of wind farms, with more than 3,500 MW installed and a wind farm project pipeline totalling 22,000 MW at varying stages of development in Europe, America and Asia.
With 30 wind energy manufacturing facilities in Europe, USA, China and India, and 4,400 MW of annual manufacturing capacity, Gamesa has an international workforce of more than 6,300 people.
A benchmark employer and a commitment to Gamesa’s corporate strategy and culture
This initiative is intended to meet the needs of a changing business environment, which requires qualified and flexible human capital. “A company’s talent is not immune to the social, economic, technological and regulatory changes taking place around it,” said Juana Mª Fernández, Gamesa’s managing director for Human Resources. “The speed and frequency of corporate change and the emergence of the knowledge-based economy require that we develop initiatives to promote branding and talent attraction, which will assist us in becoming an ‘employer of reference’ and help to boost our employees’ commitment to and alignment with the company’s strategy and culture.”
To this end, the availability of information and communication technologies represents an opportunity for effective staff development management.
“This idea began to take shape in 2008 in response to the needs of expanding worldwide and hiring global talent. At that moment, we started to discuss the need of establishing an institution to guarantee the employability of our workforce and include comprehensive management of activities that direct impact professional development. To this end, this programme transcends the traditional understanding of these institutions at most companies, since in our case, and as part of the same project, we are including comprehensive employee talent management," said Eduardo García Gerboles, director of the Gamesa Corporate University.
International structure, focused on the entire value chain
The Gamesa Corporate University is global in scope, making it accessible to the company’s more than 6,300 employees worldwide at headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Europe, the United States, China and India.
The University is structured in a corporate and an operational scope, made up of colleges and business schools:
* The corporate scope includes three areas: recruiting and assessment, knowledge management and training, and organisation and professional experiences.
* Campuses are located in Europe, USA, China and India.
* Colleges: Commercial and Projects, Services, Operations, Technology, Business Excellence, Wind farm development and sales, Logistics, Offshore wind and Corporate Functions.
* Meanwhile, the business schools will be hubs for training in fields such as management and leadership.
The Gamesa Corporate University is made up of campuses, both in-person and online and also it has training facilities in Noáin (Navarra, Spain), training centres in the US. In China and India, training centres are under development. The educational facilities will be fully outfitted with the latest equipment and materials (electrical control cabinets, G8X and G5X nacelles, generators and gearboxes, first shaft section, wind turbine hubs and complete blades, etc.
Online University
The University is backed by information systems to ensure an efficient and effective management of talent development processes. Furthermore, the university rounds off its services with an online site to share experiences.
Nowadays the University offers an e-learning educational support tool (more than 4,000 licenses) to boost continuing education and a jobsite, a tool that raises awareness of job vacancies and provides information on a pool of internal and external candidates for recruiting processes.
Talent life cycle management
The Talent life cycle management is made up of a range of steps that are managed in a global and comprehensive scope:
* Defining Talent. Indentify the talent the company needs, aligning talent with the Gamesa’s strategic plan and define the organisational design and the key competencies.
* Attracting Talent. Becoming Gamesa as a employer of reference through internal and external communication.
* Identifying Talent. External Recruiting and in-house assessment and alignment with Gamesa’s goals through a Performance Management process.
* Developing Talent. Enhance employability of the employees through a range of services: up to date training activities, coaching, mentoring, professional experiences, internal mobility, participation in multidisciplinary projects, international assignments, etc.
* Retaining Talent. Retain the key talent managing key groups and developing succession plans.
Gamesa’s Human Resources
Gamesa offers an opportunity to work at a competitive and sustainable company, whose business contributes to industrial regeneration by producing energy from environmentally-friendly sources.
Gamesa in 2009 had an international workforce consisting of 6,360 employees in Europe, the US, China and India (staff outside of Spain represented 31% of Gamesa’s total personnel).
Gamesa has a youthful workforce (the average employee is 35.2 years old), whose tenure with the company averages 4.9 years. Eighty-six percent of Gamesa employees work under permanent contracts. The female workforce continues to steadily expand, with women now accounting for 25.5% of all personnel.
