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066 ANNUAL REPORT 2006 › adidas Group ›
Highly-Qualified Multi-Cultural Workforce
One of our Group’s strengths is the cultural diversity of our
workforce. We believe this diversity helps us to sustain a com-
petitive advantage, to foster motivation and to ensure orga-
nizational success and stability. Therefore, we are commit-
ted to understanding, valuing and incorporating the growing
diversity of our global marketplace into the corporate culture
of the adidas Group. As a result, our workforce comprises
men and women of various nationalities, cultures, religions
and races, who encompass a wide range of experience, skills
and mentalities. At our corporate headquarters, for example,
we have employees from over 40 countries. Diversity for us
also includes encouraging healthy discussion throughout our
workforce. Via our global intranet, we offer our employees the
opportunity to exchange ideas directly with top management
and submit suggestions for improving our business. This sup-
ports our pursuit of continuous improvement in a cost- and
time-efficient way.
Five Core Processes Define Human Resources Function
Having strong Human Resources capabilities will provide us
with a competitive edge both within and outside our industry.
The main goals of our Global Human Resources function are
to create a working environment that stimulates team spirit,
passion, engagement and achievement, to instill a perfor-
mance culture, and to make the adidas Group the “employer
of choice”. As we strive to identify, recruit and retain the
most talented people and develop career opportunities for
them, our Human Resources function focuses on five core
processes: attracting, recruiting, developing, rewarding, and
retaining staff.
Superior Attracting and Recruiting Efforts
To become and remain the “employer of choice”, we strive to
consistently enhance our employer branding, i.e. to position
the adidas Group as an attractive and credible employer. In
order to attract future high-potential employees, we closely
cooperate with universities and recruiting platforms, illus-
trating our Group’s employment proposition. In 2006, we
ranked second of the 100 most attractive employers for busi-
ness students according to The European Student Barometer,
the largest survey of university students across 14 European
countries conducted by the trendence Institute for Personnel
Marketing. This clearly underlines our successful efforts to
increase our attractiveness as an employer. To strengthen our
workforce, we not only need to attract but also to recruit high
potentials. In order to have access to the best suitable talent
on a global scale, we launched the “World Class Recruiter”
initiative in 2006, in which we established a new strategic
recruiting and employer branding competence center for the
Group. We are also partnering with an external software pro-
vider to roll out our global e-recruiting platform to increase
the efficiency, effectiveness and speed of our recruitment
process. Other initiatives include continuous improvement to
our workforce planning and orientation programs as well as
to our employee integration process.
Employees by Function in %
20061) 20052)
Total 26,376 15,935
1) Including Reebok business.
2) Figures reflect continuing operations as a result of the divestiture of the Salomon
business segment.
Own retail
Sales
Logistics
Marketing
Central functions & administration
Production
Research & development
IT
29
21
16
10
10
7
4
3
32
16
18
13
11
3
4
3