Porsche 2012 Annual Report Download - page 98

corporation to establish guidelines for the ad-
vancement of women and to support them with
targeted programs. Volkswagen AG first set con-
crete 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.
A pioneering instrument for achieving the goal
is the quota for university graduates the
Volkswagen group hires. 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 gradu-
ates in each field of study. Consequently, approxi-
mately 10 percent of graduate engineer recruits
have to be women. For electrical engineering, the
ratio is also 10 percent and for business and eco-
nomics 50 percent. Averaged across all fields of
study relevant to Volkswagen, the individual ratios
produce an overall goal of at least a 30 percent
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 gradu-
ates so as to recruit them for technical positions at
Volkswagen.
This increased proportion of qualified women
joining the company will enable the Volkswagen
group to steadily lift the proportion of female ex-
ecutives in the coming years. The Volkswagen
group is aiming to have a proportion of 30 percent
of women at all levels of the management hierar-
chy 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 percent (2011) to 9.3 percent (2012). 41 wom-
en 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 percent. The current
proportion of women among workers at the master
level at Volkswagen AG is 4.3 percent. In 2012, 31
women were helped in their effort to become mas-
ter 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 percent female trainees in 2012, and espe-
cially with 20.9 percent in industrial and technical
fields. We aim to increase this to around 30 per-
cent. Volkswagen therefore specifically recruits
female talent, for example by offering special in-
formation days for industrial and technical voca-
tional training at Volkswagen and career experi-
ence days for young women. The company has
participated for many years in the national “Girls’
Day” in Germany and in 2012 offered roughly
2The company
Group management report
294