Culture of value and trust

VAUDE is a highly value-oriented company and we live out these values in our daily interaction. One of our core values is trust: we trust our employees and support, encourage and challenge them so that they are both motivated and able to perform at their own personal best.

This vote of confidence creates the groundwork for a trusting and respectful form of cooperation between the company and employees and facilitates growth and development on both sides.

At the same time, we base this trust on the assumption that our employees will honor it accordingly, are satisfied with their work, and behave appropriately, that they will do justice to the trust that is placed in them, and that they will in turn have confidence in the company. These assumptions will be reviewed in a study by the University of St. Gallen in 2015.

Establishing a culture of trust is a major contribution to securing the future of the company and to employee satisfaction and retention:

•  We understand the fundamental importance of the subject of trust for a modern, innovative, and sustainably oriented company, and we understand the positive importance of trust for human development: employees feel comfortable when they can trust others and feel trusted themselves.
•  Therefore, the culture of trust is an essential part of our corporate culture and corporate values and our behavior is consistently based on this foundation.
•  We understand the individual components that need to be established in terms of a lived culture of trust and know the importance that they have in this context.
•  We are aware that this makes us vulnerable as an organization. In this regard, we rely on our employees and their endorsement of our advance confidence. We simultaneously have the means to identify breaches of trust and can react appropriately in appropriate situations.

• our executives to understand the aspects relating to trust and accept and implement their responsibilities in this respect.
• our employees to deliberately choose to work in a culture of trust and contribute to its implementation.

When we perceived violations against our culture of trust, we do not pursue a punitive approach, but try to identify potential conflicts and defuse them in dialog. More drastic violations are processed with established personnel legal instruments (warning, dismissal).

In the intranet, which is accessible to all employees, the appropriate guidelines explaining our understanding of values and leadership are available. Furthermore, we discuss this understanding regularly in management training sessions and special training for selected employees develop it further together.

Employee confidence in the company and its actions must also be justified by the fact, for example, that the organizational changes affecting employees are announced in a timely manner.

We do not have minimum notice periods for this issue. Our executives ensure, however, that changes are communicated in a timely manner. Adequate notice is given before changes take effect. As a rule, these are discussed in various committees in which management is present.

All organizational changes such as new hires, internal job changes or reorganization of departments are published on the intranet (Camp), which all employees have access to. There are also changes to labor laws requiring public posting, that are automatically made available annually by the employer library and accessibly published for all employees.

In 2014 we expanded our static intranet and converted it into a social intranet. This means that every employee can actively participate in the intranet. All content can be commented on and rated. Furthermore, all employees are able to create their own content.

Our employees, their commitment, their identification and the full development of their potential for VAUDE are of paramount importance for the long-term success of the company in the dynamic, cut-throat competition of the outdoor industry.

Finding and keeping suitable and experienced staff in these primarily highly specialized professional fields is important in order to remain competitive in the market. Also, a foreseeable shortage of skilled workers along with our rural location (in close proximity to major corporations on Lake Constance) encourages us to promote an attractive employment policy.

These policies include measures related to company benefits such as non-limited employment contracts and support for the balance of work and family life (see „Family in the best sense") to retain our status as an attractive employer.

Our employees’ satisfaction is not only important for economic reasons. Our view of humanity tells us that our employees are fundamentally self-motivated. They enjoy the power to put their skills to use and enjoy taking responsibility for their work. We want to create the best possible conditions to support this - see also „Happy employees are motivated".

Our employees should have the legitimate feeling that their job is secure. Employees who live in uncertainty are less motivated and less efficient. Therefore, the vast majority of our employees have non-limited contracts - see also „Our employees".

Of course, we also have small seasonal variations, so successful business activity without fixed-term contracts is difficult – as a rule, however, our employees are employed indefinitely in order to guarantee the desired security.