Building ties...With our People

It is people who make the difference in business and at OTE, we implement policies and practicies that encourage employee personal development and success.
We work hard to develop a spirit of partnership, encouraging career development, while ensuring best working conditions and offering a range of benefits.

We offer Supplementary Insurance

OTE has been offering all employees a supplementary insurance plan (AGROTIKI Insurance Company) for medical care, since January 2002.

Benefits for our People

We offer the following benefits to all company employees, per case, beyond those provided  by Greek Law:

Special leaves of absence
> Maternity (9 months instead of taking advantage of decreased working hours)
> Marriage (a lump sum and a 3-day leave)
> Name day (optional)
> Blood donors' (2-day leave)
> Parental
> Compassionate leave (3-day leave)

Youth Fund
It includes a lump sum to OTE employee children. The purpose of the Fund is to financially help them in their studies, vocational rehabilitation and marriage. This sum comes from the parents monthly contribution, all interest and the OTE lump sum, depending on the years each employee has participated in this Scheme (for a 25-year participation, the company offers the equivalent of 10 average monthly salaries).

Mutual Benefit Fund
The Fund concerns financial support given to employees in case of sickness, which has not been compensated by the OTE Personnel Insurance Fund (TAP-OTE) or the "AGROTIKI ASFALISTIKI" insurance company, as well as maternity and artificial insemination allowances. It also provides a monthly allowance to employee children with special needs, who are not in a position to work.
OTE, being the employer, contributes the largest sum to the Mutual Benefit Fund. About 30% of the revenues, from the sale of obsolete equipment, go to the Fund, while the employees themselves contribute with a small monthly sum.  

Childcare Allowance
A monthly allowance is provided to working parents for childcare expenses, concerning day care and nursery schools.

Visits to hospitalized colleagues
For about 30 years, competent OTE employees visit our ill co-workers in hospital, in order to offer them all the assistance and support required.
 
Financial benefits

Personal loans
Personal loans to employees, in difficult or emergency situations, are available on favourable terms.
 
Advance payment
It is possible for an employee to get one month's advance payment, so as to cope with health problems or unforeseen emergency situations, such as earthquakes.
 
Rewarding the best

Financial benefits for excellent performance
In order to motivate its people towards improving, both qualitatively an quantitatively, their performance, OTE has initiated an incentives reward system including the following:

> Reward for studies related to their professional work in the company
> Additional reward through Project Management procedures
> Performance bonus for achievement of set goals.
 
Financial benefits for training
Financial benefits are granted to employees for acquiring foreign language diplomas, university degrees, as well as for their children who excel at school.
 
Moral reward
The CEO or the company General Directors may grant employees moral rewards, for specific reasons, which follow them in their career development.

Affordable Vacations for all

OTE Personnel Vacation Club (OPAKE-OTE)
OPAKE-OTE was founded in 1989. It includes two vacation resorts in Temeni, Aigio and Fanari, Komotini. 47,000 OTE Group employees and pensioners are members, who do not contribute financially. According to an OTE Union/Administration collective agreement, 20% of revenues from the sale of obsolete equipment/paper recycling are allocated to OPAKE.
In addition, through OPAKE, studios and hotel rooms around Greece are available to employees for their holidays, at very low prices. In 2008, 15,000 people made used of these programmes.

Our place of work

OTE Headquarters Restaurant
The restaurant opened in 2003 and offers OTE Group employees quality meals, at very low prices. Following a bidding process, the company, certified to ISO 9001 and HACCP, which has undertaken the restaurant, has free access to company installations and equipment, in order to provide food, at the best possible prices.
Daily inspections take place by competent OTE personnel with respect to installations, ingredients and prepared food, while certified independent laboratory personnel, who report the findings to OTE, carry out 14-16 unscheduled checks every month.

We work under conditions ensuring our Health and Safety
The adoption of workplace health and safety management standards proves OTE’s diligence in  maintaining high satisfaction standards for its people, ensuring an excellent work environment, training on health and safety issues, a decrease in occupational accidents, and constant measurements of factors affecting the work environment.

Dealing with Emergencies
Besides health and safety schemes for the employees provided by law, OTE offers the 1419 LifeLine, for emergencies in the OTE Athens Headquarters, where about 2000 people work, handled by the appropriate medical staff. IN 2008, First Aid was provided to 1752 employees (1651 in 2007) at special medical care areas by OTE’s 9 doctors (7 on-site and 2 examining doctors).
Moreover, OTE owns an ambulance stationed at the Athens Headquarters for the needs of its employees.

Equal opportunities - Recruitment

At OTE, granting equal opportunities to all employees and complete respect for human rights is the active policy. According to the Internal Personnel Regulation (IPR-OTE) "the freedom of political and philosophical beliefs are respected and ensured by the Company in the context determined by the Constitution and the Legislation in force".

Innovation through life-long Training and Education

Training Centres
There are three state-of-the-art Training Centres, situated in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patra. Most of the employee training is implemented there.
Since the summer of 2005, the Athens and Thessaloniki Training Centres have been taken over by the newly set-up subsidiary, OTE Academy, in order to improve and make them more efficient.  
The Athens Training Centre is equipped with modern infrastructure to cater for the training needs of the OTE employees (28 classrooms, 38 laboratories, a 328-seat amphitheatre, 3 videoconference rooms). In 2008, 152,000 training hours were implemented, namely 25 average training hours per trainee, where 6,000 employees were trained in various subject matters.

Library
The Athens Training Centre Library includes about 10,000 books and 600 journals, which are available to all employees and telecommunications researchers.

Enchancing collaboration, teamwork and cohesion between employees

Internal Magazine
The first official employee magazine, ‘OTECh@t’,  published every 3 months, was published for the first time in December 2007. In 2008, a total of 64,000 issues of the magazine (15,000 in 2007) were mailed to employee homes, OTE’s Cultural Centres, OTESHOPs, as well as to Group subsidiary representatives.  A permanent cross-corporate team of 15 members from all the General Directorate, works on writing the magazine, which covers a variety of subjects, whereas over 180 employees, in total, participated in 2008 in selecting the content of  OTECh@t.

Intranet
In 2008, employees received access to U-link, the Company’s new intranet site. For OTE, U-Link is a point of reference for informing employees on all company issues and activities and a basic channel of communication between Administration and employees. U-link, which includes more than 1000 subject matters, has already received, since its first month of operation, 273,056 visits from more than 8,600 different users (6% increase in the average monthly number of visitors of the Intranet Site - 8,109 users for 2007).

We foster cultural and recreational activities

OTE Personnel Cultural Clubs
54 OTE Personnel Cultural Clubs all over Greece, which have had a successful course for decades, now, are financially supported by OTE. Today, the Clubs number 20,000 active members, while all OTE Group employees can join them. Activities include arts, entertainment and sports.

With the company by their side, 90 OTE employees became volunteers in the Athens Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Furthermore, as our deeds speak louder than words, about 3,000 volunteer blood donors, OTE employees, are a living proof of our beliefs (see "Building Ties in Society").

OTE supports the Association of OTE Employees & Pensioners, who have children with special needs (S.E.SO.E.P)
Being socially responsible, OTE stands by its own people by also supporting this Association and its programmes for more than ten consecutive years.