• Professional recruiting and internal mobility

Targeted virtual hiring

In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the end-to-end process from sourcing, recruiting, onboarding and welcoming talent continued to be delivered virtually by our recruitment teams, hiring managers as well as external partners in 2021. We limited hiring to positions that are viewed as critical to the bank’s success and future growth. The bank hired approximately 5,100 officers and 3,900 non-officers from the external market in comparison to 2020 when we hired 3,500 officers and 3,700 non-officers.

The average time required to fill vacant positions was 81 days (2020: 74 days) and the average time required to fill critical vacant business positions was 71 days* (2020: 51 days). This development reflects the candidate driven market. In 2021, 69% of hires were sourced from the external market (2020: 64%) which reflects the need to hire for specialized skill sets from the external market. In total, 31% of hires were sourced internally (2020: 36%).

* Days elapsed between the creation of a job opening and the date a job offer was made; excluding Postbank

Hires by major job categories

in k FTE 202120202019
Officers 5.1 3.5 3.8
Non Officers 3.9 3.7 3.8
Legal entities outside of Deutsche Bank's corporate title systems - - 0.7
Total 9.0 7.2 8.3

2020 including hires of Postbank for the first time. Prior period not restated. Declared Corporate Titles of Postbank (incl. subsidiaries) are only alternative, technically derived and not contractually defined or agreed.

Jill Dyer

“I was a bit concerned about onboarding during a pandemic – would my technology work? How will I meet people? What do I do Day 1? But – the team at Deutsche Bank made the process so easy and welcoming from the moment the offer was signed through to completing all my onboarding tasks.

The Deutsche Bank onboarding team stayed in touch throughout, up to and including what to expect day one. My manager and COO team were fantastic – from the moment I walked in and got my computer (which worked!) to helping me through any minor issues they made things so comfortable.

I had a few hiccups myself – some issues with my badge and accidentally sitting in the wrong place (oops!) but these were minor and quickly resolved. I must give a shout out to the Access team and the Tech concierge! When onboarding at a new company, even outside of a pandemic, I think that welcoming, helpful nature is key and that was pervasive here. The fact that the technology worked and I could start ‘working’ the first day was a bonus! Thanks for making this such a good experience.”

Jill Dyer, CTO Transformation, USA

Supporting internal mobility

Our internal mobility processes are embedded into our professional recruitment practices to support staff in building their careers within the organization. We ensure employees take on new
roles where possible by running a robust redeployment process. Filling 429 positions (2020: 343) internally through proactive redeployment efforts resulted in savings of € 32.2 million in 2021 (2020: € 24.5 million).

We enable our employees to change roles both within and across divisions. Cross-divisional mobility fosters our ‘one-Bank’ approach and enables employees, as well as leaders, to learn and develop skills but also gain a broader understanding of the bank’s operations. In 2021, there were 1,600 cross-divisional moves in the bank (2020: 1,400). Overall, 7% of our workforce changed jobs within the organization throughout 2021 (2020: 7%). In 2021, 31% of open positions were filled with internal candidates, excluding Postbank (2020: 36%).

Alexander von zur Muehlen
Quotation mark

Our first thought for any open roles should be whether we have the talent within the bank to step in. The high quality of our bench means that in many cases, we do. We prioritise our own employees for opportunities, particularly where we see leadership potential. It not only helps us retain our best talent, but strengthens our platform immensely via perspective exchanges and knowledge transfer.

Alexander von zur Mühlen, Chief Executive Officer Asia Pacific and Member of the Management Board

At the Managing Director (MD) and Director (D) levels, the internal fill rate was 39% (2020: 53%). At the Vice President (VP) level 43% of vacancies were filled internally (2020: 52%). In Germany we were able to successfully place employees affected by transformation and restructuring resulting in an internal fill rate of 76% (2020: 80%). Internal fill rate has been impacted by the bank’s selective approach to hiring, where more roles were hired in India and EMEA in 2021 than in prior years and where this growth has required the bank to source talent from the external market. 

Overall, 57% of business critical positions were filled internally, a drop from the internal fill rate in 2020 (96%), reflecting the need to source certain skill sets from the external market.

Internal fill rate

headcount in % of filled positions

202120202019
Internal job vacancy fill rate1 31.0 35.9 37.6
thereof Managing Directors and Directors 38.7 52.7 40.2
thereof Vice Presidents 43.3 52.0 47.5
thereof critical business positions 57.1 96.4 76.9

1 Excluding Postbank

Employees are able to access information on internal mobility processes, upcoming events and training, open positions and links to helpful resources. Connect2Job, the bank’s portal for internal vacancies, remains the core tool to proactively source internal candidates for roles. Connect2Job also allows employees interested in taking on a new role to upload their CV to review a personalized list of open positions for which they can apply.

Fabian Dietz

“Being able to change jobs within the organization is in my opinion not only an important employee benefit you can enjoy at DB, but also a great booster for personal growth and ones career. It essentially means you can change your job – from banking, to marketing to data science to innovation – without the risk to change your employer. In other words, you keep what you like but change what you need.

For me, personal growth and life-long learning is both a passion and a necessity for a successful and rewarding career – in particular for leadership roles which require guidance and coaching of others, as well as navigating change and – at times – also difficult circumstances. Changing jobs cross-divisionally is a great opportunity to walk this journey of personal growth as you step out of your comfort zones, acquire new skills, broaden your network and horizon and become that well-formed, inspiring team mate or leader people can trust, respect, rely on and seek out.”

Fabian Dietz, Cloud & Innovation Network, Germany

Internal mobility by major job categories

headcount in k 202120202019
Total Moves 5.8 5.9 7.9
- Officer 3.4 3.5 5.0
- Non Officer 2.4 2.4 2.9
Cross - divisional 1.6 1.4 2.1
- Officer 1.0 0.9 1.4
- Non Officer 0.6 0.5 0.7
Intra - divisional 4.2 4.5 5.8
- Officer 2.4 2.6 3.6
- Non Officer 1.8 1.9 2.2

Excluding former Postbank and legal entities outside of Deutsche Bank's corporate title system.
Officers comprise all employees with corporate titles, including: Managing Directors, Directors, Vice Presidents, Assistant Vice Presidents and Associates.

Talent Sourcing supports the bank’s gender diversity goals

In order to support the gender diversity goals of the bank, the Talent Sourcing function has determined a series of sustainable actions, both short and long term, to enable recruitment and development of women.

This includes, but not limited to, effective external candidate engagement, improved messaging in relation to our inclusive culture, hiring manager education and awareness on diversity, as well as enhanced focus on data-driven, accountable and transparent hiring decisions.