Victory Liner helps employees attain financial security
For the over 2,500 employees of Victory Liner Inc. (VLI), working for the biggest bus company, serving northern Luzon provinces means having a stable job to put food on the table. The company even goes out of its way to keep employees working for them as long as they can by enhancing professional skills through training and by keeping them healthy through yearly sports activities. The average tenure of a VLI worker is from 15 to 18 years, with some serving for up to 30 and 40 years.
VLI’s concern for the economic security of employees extends even to their families and after they retire from service. The company provides scholarship grants to children of good-standing employees to help them graduate and get decent jobs. Financial literacy seminars and livelihood workshops are also conducted for retiring and non-retiring workers to augment their income.
VLI Human Resources (HR) head Alden del Rosario says the company provided P5,000 in educational assistance per semester to around 200 children of employees as of December last year under its scholarship program administered by the Doña Marta Trinidad Hernandez Foundation since 1997. The foundation is named after the wife of VLI founder Don Jose Hernandez.
Under the program, students are eligible to receive the scholarship because their parents applied for the grant and satisfied the requirements to become a beneficiary. The employee must have given at least five years of service with good moral standing. The stu- dent beneficiaries may be in grade school, high school or college depending on the choice of their parents.
The HR department also launched in December its own scholarship program that will provide P75,000 cash assistance to study any course in the University of the Philippines. The grant will be given every year to only one beneficiary or child of any eligible employee. Once the scholar graduates, he or she is required to work for VLI for at least two years.
“We want to provide quality education for the lucky family,” says del Rosario. “We realize that if you graduate from known universities, opportunities are better.”
Getting a good job will allow the scholar to help improve the financial status of his or her family. “In the long run, rising in the career ladder, like employment in multinational companies results in better pay that will benefit the scholar’s parents, siblings and even children,” del Rosario says. “You are helping people and employees elevate their chances in society.”
The Doña Marta Trinidad Hernandez Foundation also conducts free seminars on livelihood, franchise management, and financial literacy for VLI employees. Last year, employees were trained in baking, making embotido, candle and soap. An HR staff who attended a soap-making workshop two years ago now sells her own line of soap, del Rosario says.
Last year, the foundation and HR started holding free seminars on how to save money and budget.
This month, there will be month-long seminars on putting up businesses and how to manage cash income. Retiring employees will be invited to attend the financial literacy seminar.
The seminar also aims to help retirees set up their own business and change the common attitude of quickly spending their retirement pay. “We want our employees to enjoy what they earn and not just work to pay loans,” says del Rosario. “We also want them to be free from the stress caused by wrong practice and wrong values in terms of financial management.”
To learn more about Victory Liner, visit www. victoryliner.com. Also check out the official Victory Liner Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ victorylinerinc.