Volkswagen’s corporate culture places a very high value on both job and family. For Volkswagen, family-friendly human resources policies are a key success factor. This commitment has tradition behind it: in 1989, Volkswagen was the first major German corporation to establish guidelines for the advancement of women and to support them with targeted programs. Volkswagen AG first set concrete targets for raising the proportion of women in the Company in 2007. In spring 2011, the Volkswagen Group proposed individual goals to raise the proportion of women at Volkswagen in Germany as part of a voluntary commitment.

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PROPORTION OF WOMEN VOLKSWAGEN GROUP IN GERMANY*
as of December 31, 2011

 

 

%

 

2012

 

2011

*

Excluding Scania, MAN and Porsche.

Vocational trainees total

 

26.8

 

26.4

Industrial vocational trainees

 

20.9

 

20.4

Commercial vocational trainees

 

52.3

 

52.9

Students in traineeship schemes

 

31.3

 

32.0

Management total

 

9.3

 

8.5

Management

 

11.0

 

10.1

Senior management

 

7.0

 

6.4

Top management

 

5.5

 

4.9

A pioneering instrument for achieving the goal is the quota for the university graduates we hire. Volkswagen hires the year’s best university graduates in the necessary fields and then trains them further. Volkswagen is guided in this by the proportion of female graduates in each field of study. Consequently, approximately 10% of graduate engineer recruits have to be women. For electrical engineering, the ratio is also 10% and for business and economics 50%. Averaged across all fields of study relevant to Volkswagen, the individual ratios produce an overall goal of at least a 30% ratio of women among university graduates hired. Volkswagen approaches female students at an early stage: for example, Volkswagen uses its Germany-wide “Woman DrivING Award” and the newly introduced “Woman Experience Days” to focus on female engineering students and graduates so as to recruit them for technical positions at Volkswagen.

This increased proportion of qualified women joining the Company will enable us to steadily lift the proportion of female executives in the coming years. The Volkswagen Group is aiming to have a proportion of 30% of women at all levels of the management hierarchy in Germany in the long term. For example, the proportion of women in management positions at the Volkswagen Group in Germany increased from 8.5% (2011) to 9.3% (2012). 41 women at Volkswagen AG participated in a mentoring program in 2012, giving them support on their path into management.

Volkswagen also has the goal of raising the proportion of women among skilled workers and master-level workers to 10%. The current proportion of women among workers at the master level at Volkswagen AG is 4.3%. In 2012, 31 women were helped in their effort to become master craftswomen through a targeted mentoring program.

The Volkswagen Group is leading the way in the automotive industry in Germany, with a share of 26.8% female trainees in 2012, and especially with 20.9% in industrial and technical fields. We aim to increase this to around 30%. Volkswagen therefore specifically recruits female talent, for example by offering special information days for industrial and technical vocational training at Volkswagen and career experience days for young women. The Company has participated for many years in the national “Girls’ Day” in Germany and in 2012 offered roughly 2,000 schoolgirls a behind-the-scenes look into careers in the automotive industry.

Volkswagen is also attempting to systematically improve its work/family balance alongside hiring and supporting talented female employees. This includes a high level of working time flexibility and a range of part-time and shift models, as well as local and on-site childcare facilities. Volkswagen offers meetings and seminars for employees on parental leave in order to retain contact with employees on parental leave and help ease their transition back into the workforce.

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