Professional development and training for all employees

In order to allow employees to progress personally as individuals within the Company, they have to be supported and given the opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities and develop them further. Volkswagen offers opportunities for training to all employees in the vocational groups. A vocational group includes all employees who perform activities based on similar technical competencies and thus work together across experience and development levels. Learning and teaching happens by involving the vocational group’s own internal specialists using both tested and new forms of skills development. This means that learning processes are focused more than ever on the concrete work processes and the specialist skills requirements of the vocational group: knowledge is transferred in an efficient and needs-based way.

Volkswagen’s approach to mutual learning is being continuously built up and expanded: more and more areas of the Company are forming vocational groups with their own academies in which they organize their own skills development. The Volkswagen Group Academy was conceived in 2012 as an umbrella organization for all of the Group’s academies. This is an integrated qualification platform that leverages synergies and ensures high quality and expertise levels throughout the Group. It will be used for vocational training up to and including academic professional development.

The master craftsmen at the Volkswagen Group enjoy particular attention with regard to training and professional development. Their qualifications are currently being adapted to uniform worldwide standards and introduced at the international locations: basic master craftsman qualification training prepares future master craftsmen for their work in production management. Overall, 364 master craftmen qualified at Volkswagen in the reporting period, including 140 abroad.

Volkswagen prepares prospective managers to assume management tasks through basic leadership qualification training and a subsequent exam. These two elements are being increasingly introduced at the international Group companies.

The management selection process enables employees to progress to management positions: candidates are selected for their specialist skills at in-depth selection meetings in the departments. The candidates’ entrepreneurial skills are subsequently tested in a cross-divisional Management Assessment Center. The Management Assessment Center was successfully implemented in India, Russia, China and the USA in 2012.

There are also many tailored training opportunities for other professions in the Group. First and foremost is Volkswagen Coaching GmbH, the main professional development organizational of Volkswagen AG, which offers a broad spectrum of learning. This includes programs for personal development, interdisciplinary seminars and courses, and specialized training programs designed for the particular needs of individual vocational groups. This ensures that all employees are able to develop the unique skills they need for their individual functions. At the same time, we facilitate systematic training for employees with respect to corporate and divisional goals. In 2012, over 110,624 participants received further training at the 9,193 seminars held by Volkswagen Coaching GmbH lasting a total of 269,128 participant days. In the area of specialist skills development (e.g. factory automation, robotics and applications engineering, or business), 70,382 participants were involved in 7,027 seminars covering 162,869 participant days. In the field of “crossfunctional skills development” (which includes leadership skills and personal development), 40,242 participants attended 2,166 training courses representing 106,259 participant days. To ensure that its range of training options always keeps pace with the Company’s training needs, Volkswagen Coaching GmbH developed a further 324 training courses in 2012.