Porsche 2011 Annual Report Download - page 85

Advancement of women, family-friendly HR
policies at Volkswagen
Volkswagen’s corporate culture places a very
high value on both job and family. For Volkswagen,
family-friendly human resources policies are therefore
one of the key success factors in becoming the top
employer. This commitment has tradition behind it: in
1989, Volkswagen was the first major German cor-
poration to establish guidelines for the advancement
of women and to support them with targeted pro-
grams. Volkswagen AG first set concrete targets for
raising the proportion of women in the company in
2007.
In spring 2011, the Volkswagen group pro-
posed individual goals to raise the proportion of
women at Volkswagen in Germany as part of a volun-
tary commitment. Volkswagen follows a system for
this that defines detailed requirements for all relevant
levels of the hierarchy as to when a certain propor-
tion of women must be reached. An important in-
strument for achieving the goal is the quota for the
university graduates hired. Volkswagen is guided in
this by the proportion of female graduates in each
field of study. Consequently, approximately
10 percent of graduate engineer recruits have to be
women. For electrical engineering, the ratio is also
10 percent, for information technology 15 percent,
and for business and economics 50 percent. Aver-
aged across all fields of study relevant to Volks-
wagen, the individual ratios produce an overall goal
of at least a 30 percent ratio of women among
graduates hired.
This increasing proportion of qualified
women joining the company enables the Volkswagen
group to steadily lift the proportion of female execu-
tives at the various management levels in the coming
years. The goal for the Volkswagen group in Germany
is an 11 percent ratio of women in top management,
a 12 percent ratio in senior management and a
15 percent ratio in other management levels by
2020.
In the reporting period, the proportion of
women in the management ranks for the Volkswagen
group in Germany already increased to 4.9 percent in
top management, 6.4 percent in senior management,
and 10.1 percent in other management levels (at
year-end, excluding Scania and MAN). 45 women at
Volkswagen AG participated in a mentoring program
in 2011, giving them support on their path into man-
agement.
The company also has the goal of raising the
proportion of women among skilled workers and
master-level workers to at least 10 percent by 2020.
The current proportion of women among workers at
the master level is just below 4 percent. In 2011, 25
women were helped in their effort to become master
craftswomen through a targeted mentoring program.
Personal development programs for women, an im-
proved work/family balance and flexible working time
models accompany the system used by Volkswagen
to achieve the individual quotas.
Volkswagen specifically recruits female talent.
These efforts encompass 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
2011 offered over 2,000 young women a behind-the-
scenes look into careers in the automotive industry.
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