We over I

This value best reveals the culture in our company, which resembles a big real family, says Nevyan Petrov, People and Culture Director at Coca-Cola HBC Bulgaria, to BGlobal magazine.

Mr. Petrov, how does it feel to work for a legendary brand like Coca-Cola? Are there specific qualities in the staff that the company particularly values and develops?

The feeling is amazing. Using your knowledge and skills to develop one of the most successful and recognizable brands in the world gives you a special confidence and satisfaction of achievement every time you tell friends or partners about your work. Of course, there are also qualities we particularly value in the company - among them are honesty in relationships, proactivity, and a constant desire to learn and improve.

In the last four years, you've seen progressive growth in team engagement to company-record levels. How do you achieve it?

We are extremely proud of this achievement. In an increasingly dynamic business environment, we must have high engagement, low turnover and colleagues who give their all to be our clients' partner of choice and build on our business results. The role of our People and Culture team is to contribute to ensuring that engagement is a top priority for the organization and all leaders, starting with our CEO and the entire leadership team, and to deliver innovation that directly improves the well-being of all colleagues. Together with my team, we coordinate the creation and implementation of development and engagement plans, as well as helping leaders enhance their leadership capabilities. In parallel, we have built a new 3-year reward strategy. All of this has helped us achieve a sustained trend of increased engagement and Bulgaria is now one of the highest-scoring countries in the Coca-Cola Hellenic Group, which operates in 29 countries. It is no coincidence to me that we have also achieved sustained and strong business results over the past 4 years. At the same time, we continue to contribute to positive change in society by promoting inclusion, diversity and economic development. We also continue to support the personal and professional development of young people - on the one hand, through our internship program, and on the other, through our Youth Empowered program. Thanks to its more than 460 professionals, 25,000 young people across the country have undergone a range of training for a successful career start since the launch of the initiative in 2017.

Coca-Cola HBC received recently the Top Employer certificate from the Top Employers Institute. Tell us a bit more about this recognition and what it means for the company.

The Top Employer certification has been gaining more and more popularity and weight in Europe in recent years and every company that wants to be recognized among the top organizations strives to have it. The reason is that it is the result of a very serious audit of all the people-related processes in the organization and obtaining it ensures that they are at an excellent level. We are happy that we are one of the first FMCG companies to achieve certification and that in many of the processes we have been audited on, we have received the recognition that we have some of the best practices among all audited companies.

Maxim Meyer's full interview with Nevyan Petrov can be found in the first issue of BGlobal magazine for 2024.