Advancement of women, family-friendly HR policies

For Volkswagen, family-friendly human resources policies are a key attribute of an attractive employer. Volkswagen intends to increase the proportion of women in the Company in a sustainable way.

The Group made its first voluntary commitment in 2011 in relation to differentiated targets for the proportion of women in the workforce. We hire the year’s best graduates in the necessary fields and take into account the proportion of female graduates in the relevant subject areas. Averaged across all fields of study relevant to Volkswagen, the individual ratios produce an overall goal of 30% women among the university graduates hired.

Volkswagen aims to attract female students at an early stage: we use our Germany-wide Woman DrivING Award and the Woman Experience Day to focus on female engineering and computer science students and graduates, so as to recruit them for technical positions with us.

This increased proportion of qualified women joining the Company will enable us to steadily lift the proportion of female executives in the coming years. To increase the proportion of women in management, Volkswagen AG has set itself the following target quotas: by the end of 2016, the proportion of women in the first management level is to be 9.8%. In the second management level, women are to account for 13.3%.

The Volkswagen Group is aiming to have 30% women at all management levels in Germany in the long term. In the reporting period, the proportion of women in management positions overall rose to 10.3%, compared with 10.2% in the previous year. We are encouraging this development with a number of different measures: for example, 2015 saw the second group to embark on the cross-brand Management Mentoring Program, designed to support women on the way to management positions, with 63 participants from the Volkswagen Group in Germany. In addition, Volkswagen offers the “Compass” program to specifically encourage women with high potential in their decision to aim for a career in management. In the reporting period, 60 women from Volkswagen AG – as well as the companies Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH, Volkswagen Financial Services AG and Autovision GmbH – took part in this program.

In addition, Volkswagen intends to raise the proportion of women among its skilled workers and master-level workers in Germany to 10%; in fiscal year 2015, the proportion of women in the Volkswagen Group in Germany (without Scania, MAN and Porsche) was 4.7%.

Volkswagen specifically targets the recruitment of talented women, for example by arranging special work experience and orientation days for young women, in order to increase the proportion of female vocational trainees in the industrial and technical area from 22.6% in 2015 to 30%. The aim of these events is to give them a taste of training in industrial and technical trades and to support them in their career choices. The Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, MAN and Volkswagen Financial Services brands have participated in the national “Girls’ Day” in Germany for years. In the year under review, they offered over 2,000 schoolgirls a behind-the-scenes look into careers in the automotive industry. On Technology Day, ŠKODA gave 300 schoolgirls the opportunity to get a taste of working in technical and scientific vocations by taking part in practical exercises.

Volkswagen has offered participation in the “Lower Saxony Technikum” at its locations in Lower Saxony, Germany, since 2012. Female high school graduates complete an internship in a specialist technical area and attend university lectures parallel to this. Since 2012, 91% of all participants – a total of 76 women – have opted for a technical degree or vocational training. Of these, 16 completed a dual course of study at Volkswagen. MAN has taken part in the Lower Saxony Technikum at its Salzgitter location since 2015.

In addition to hiring and supporting talented female employees, Volkswagen is working continuously to improve its employees’ work/life balance. The Group provides a large number of operational arrangements and options for individuals to balance professional and personal requirements. They include flexible part-time and shift models or teleworking arrangements at Volkswagen and Audi or home office working at Porsche. In addition, all brands offer programs to ease the transition back into the workforce for employees on parental leave.

Another step toward becoming a family-friendly company is the constant expansion of a range of childcare options. The Volkswagen Group has had positive experiences with near-site childcare in Germany and abroad. In addition to existing establishments, for example at Volkswagen Financial Services AG or at the Volkswagen Group of America’s Chattanooga location, two near-site daycare centers were created in the past year at locations of Volkswagen AG, one in Hanover and the other in Emden, both in cooperation with the local municipalities. There are plans to expand childcare options at other locations as well. Childcare is also available during school vacations at all the Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and MAN locations in Germany. The number of options on offer has been increasing internationally, too: for example, holiday camps for children are also offered by Volkswagen in Shanghai, Navarra, Chattanooga and in Kaluga.