Danske has expanded its Vilnius campus, but will allow employees to work from home before the end of the year | Deal

In the sixth 15 thousand. kv. m in the building in the district of Žvėrynas will work about 1 thousand. persons. Currently, Danske Bank and the Vilnius Global Service Center employ about 4,000 people. workers. It seems that the enlarged city will be emptier for the moment: all employees can work from home until the new year.

Let’s work from home

Head of the Global Services Center Aistė Készeckienė 15 minutes He said that for the past 3-4 months, bank employees have also worked remotely. They are allowed to work from home until the end of the year.

“It just came to our notice then. We created a flexible work environment in its own right. We certainly monitor the situation, the recommendations and strive to make our employees and the work environment as safe as possible and provided to them. In my opinion, there is a normal balance and maneuver here. We provide the opportunity to work remotely “, – 15 minutes he said, adding that during this period 2 cases of coronavirus were registered in the bank.

Furthermore, according to A. Gataveckienė, when assessing the current situation, the company may consider abandoning some office buildings.

“Throughout this period, the perception of what a workplace is is changing. If we used to estimate that we have 1,000 people, we need 1,000 jobs. Now, of course, it is not necessary. We continue to set challenges to understand and how much is you need and what kind.

Of course, there will surely be opportunities to find optimization solutions. We have fixed-term contracts. Now we have two premises where we rent for half a year because there was not room for everyone. Naturally, we may not expand at some point, “she said Friday.

In addition, A. Gataveckienė admits that in the near future there will not be as rapid growth as has been seen in the bank so far.

“A journey as famous and impressive as the last eight years have been, we probably shouldn’t see the next period. Fluctuation may be, it is a normal response to a need. We do not have the vision to double (the number of employees), “he said.

Change labor principles

Last year, Danske Bank began to change its principles of work organization. According to A. Gataveckienė, having applied the common working principles among start-ups, also called “Agile” in English, the bank is moving towards flexible working groups (specialists working together). Tribes and Squads) and simpler structures. The goal is to operate more efficiently, give employees more decision-making autonomy, and respond more quickly to customer needs.

“I would not say that this transformation should surprise anyone, it is a normal stage for a large organization. The objective of the changes is to make a bank and its client lighter, simpler and more efficient. The fundamental line of transformation is what we call “better ways of working”. Its essence is to move from traditional or more conventional work methods to Agile methodology. This will lead to faster and easier product and process development, ”he said.

According to A. Gataveckienė, so far the work has been carried out on complex, complex and long-term projects. However, staff must now divide the same projects into phases, which is expected to speed up processes.

“The new model means that an existing organization is basically being dismantled, bringing together specialists from different fields in small groups. For example, IT professionals work together with customer service personnel, they become a small team working together. Let’s say they present an improvement for a product or service to clients, then they go to great lengths without 2-year projects, but they test it out and roll it out quickly in weeks or months, ”he said.

The office building was designed by the Archinova company, built by the Mitnija construction company, and the interior solutions were carried out by the designers of the A2SM company. The owner of the building is Eastnine and the developer is Galio Group.

Solar collectors have been installed on the roof of the building, systems for the secondary use of rainwater and automated energy resource management have been installed.

The architectural and interior design solutions of the building reflect the chosen theme of the valley illuminated by red sunlight.

DC Valley is Danske’s sixth office building. The town will be completed with the seventh building of the complex currently under construction.

Last year, Danske Bank decided to suspend the bank’s operations in the Baltic countries. In February 2019, the Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority banned the Estonian branch of Danske Bank from operating.

A few years ago, Danske Bank already exited retail and private banking and business services in the Baltic countries. This year the Lithuanian branch of the bank has a retail loan portfolio of LTL 108 million. sold to Šiaulių bankas.