Based on advanced analytics, big data and visualization tools, it advises employees on the skills they must acquire to aspire to positions of interest and allows them to create alerts about tailored job opportunities.
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The tool is based on the same concept that the bank promotes for its clients: to provide them with the necessary advice so that they can make the best decisions. ‘Opportunity’ is a data-driven tool based on mathematical algorithms with multiple variables which learns from employee iterations in order to enhance their autonomy.

Essential remote working has forced a change to on-site employee training plans. BBVA had already espoused a culture of online learning before the pandemic, offering its staff a comprehensive digital training catalog via the Campus BBVA platform. The platform has been refreshed to adapt to employee needs during the weeks of confinement. Employee response has been positive: traffic to the training portal shot up 96 percent with more than two million sessions during the first month of lockdown. A review of the most consumed topics reveals employees’ growing interest in developing new competencies (data, design, sustainability), which are priority for BBVA and and even more apropos given the new reality that awaits.

“‘Opportunity’ is a corporate self-development tool that allows our collaborators to visualize potential career paths throughout the Group. It supports them in defining their own professional career and the one that best suits their interests and expectations,” explains José María Monge, Global Head of Talent Solutions at BBVA. Monge explains that it is a unique, internally created project in the human resources area with which the employee has the freedom to “explore characteristics, requirements and the necessary training to aspire to the role they want, indicating in which areas, units or parts of the world future opportunities are more likely to arise.”

Autonomy to grow professionally

The portal offers BBVA employees a broad view of their career options: once they provide their personal information and interests, employees can reflect on their current situation and learn about the recommended training to improve their position (‘upskilling‘). In this section, the employee can compare their abilities with colleagues at the same level in order to identify and improve possible gaps.

Another feature is a search engine that recommends different roles to the employee based on their profile and interests. Each role includes information and metrics that allow them to know the degree of affinity, the number of people who perform that role and how it is distributed geographically. “The tool presents personalized recommendations for the employee to analyze and identify opportunities in other roles in their own area, in their preferred areas, and according to their technical skills, etc. To do this, it uses powerful mathematical algorithms and receives feedback from the information and feedback provided by the user,” says María Manso, Global Head of People Analytics at BBVA.

One of the strengths of ‘Opportunity’ is the role tree, with which you can navigate from the employee’s current position to the position in which they are interested, record a professional goal, set training objectives towards the position they want, and apply when a vacancy is available. The proposed recommendations take into account a history of internal movements, in other words, what a certain employee has done to reach a certain position.

“The ‘Opportunity’ tool encourages data-based decision-making and further enhances employability, transparency and flexibility so that all BBVA employees can guide their professional careers and take charge of their development,” concludes José María Monge.

‘Opportunity’ was presented to all employees at an internal event by the institution, with the support of the CEO, Onur Genç, and as an example of one of the projects that best exemplifies the corporate value of ´We think big.’ The tool is available to employees in Spain, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, and Mexico. In the first eight business days since its launch, nearly 9,000 employees have accessed the tool and more than 2 million personalized employee role recommendations are being calculated daily.