Diversity in a world that’s worth living in

Diversity in our workforce and equal opportunity for all, regardless of individual factors, is not just a matter of course for us; it’s a matter that is truly close to our hearts. Nevertheless, we do not currently have formulations for a corresponding management approach that reflects this.

We see ourselves as a socially responsible company and try to implement our convictions in our daily interactions. Our slogan also reflects our company values and what we stand for: „dedicated to making (y)our world a better place”. While this understanding cannot be captured in facts and figures, we are implementing measures that underpin our commitment to social leadership.

A diversified workforce in which everyone is respected and accepted promotes innovation and creativity. As a European brand in a dynamic and competitive market, we are particularly dependent on innovation and creativity. We serve a diverse, international audience that covers a broad age range. Diversity in the workforce is a major advantage in meeting their different needs.

Furthermore our employee’s motivation is important to us. Unfair treatment or even the subjective impression of it is a significant de-motivational factor.

If an employee does not feel fairly treated, there is always an option of involving the Human Resources Consultant who takes on the issue and looks for possible solutions, in addition to the standard procedure of speaking with the relevant manager. In addition, we are planning on providing targeted coaching and mediation offers by internal staff and external support in 2015.

As a company, our goal is to avoid barriers to motivation, create the ideal conditions for our employees to be intrinsically motivated and able to provide us with their best performance. This can be very successful in a climate that encourages and respects diversity and equal opportunity.

We see the active and intensive development of our culture of trust as a measure that will support us on this path. More about this here.

Independently from this, we are always looking for the best employees. Our social beliefs and values, but also a foreseeable shortage of skilled workers, discourages us from selecting our employees based on aspects such as age, gender, sexual orientation or nationality.

Diversity factors such as gender, skin color or ethnic origin do not affect recruitment at VAUDE. Vacancies are advertised and filled in accordance with the Anti-Discrimination Act.

As a sustainability-oriented and socially active company, the ecological and civic engagement of our employees is at least as important as school grades or certificates.

Therefore, we are in favor of both 1. offering attractive employment opportunities to lateral hires, regardless of their origin, skin color or gender with equivalent qualifications and 2. accepting candidates as trainees, even when they do not have optimum school grades.

As a family-friendly company, VAUDE provides targeted support for women on maternity leave so that they can quickly return to work. This explicitly includes women in management positions. To this end, we have defined a clear process which includes allowing women to do some of their work from home. As a company, we strive to stay in touch with these colleagues with regular meetings of all employees on parental leave to emphasize their solidarity with VAUDE - see „Family in the best sense".

Furthermore, the appointment of women to senior management positions is a major concern. Our CEO position is filled by a woman, and in addition, 16 of our 43 executives in 2014 were women, which corresponds to a rate of over 37 percent.

Since the company handover in 2009, some newly created management positions are now held by women, such as the management of our subsidiary, the VAUDE Franchise GmbH.

We are committed to strategically increasing this ratio in the coming years. We have set ourselves a concrete target for this purpose: In the first management level we set the goal to increase the percentage of women to 43 percent. This target value will be implemented gradually. In the second and third management level we set the goal to maintain the level of women. We are very glad that we have a very low turnover rate and want to maintain it. This is the reason that we can only change the rate of female executives over the long-term.

Composition of the employees:

Number and percentage of male / female employee by employee category**:

When the need arises, VAUDE offers the opportunity for women to return part time to work in management positions after taking parental leave. Currently, five management positions (approx. 12 percent) are occupied with part-time employees (3 women and 2 men).

In our „Frauen-Power" (Woman Power) program that has been in effect since 2013, we offer select women in management or other important positions whose communication, leadership and entrepreneurial skills are in demand, a way to optimize the use of their female potential.

Number and percentage of employees by age group and MA category**:

Minorities and other diversity factors are not recorded separately at VAUDE. In 2014, we had 40 employees with non-German nationality, which corresponds to a share of nearly 8 percent employees with non-German nationality.

In the future, we plan to reflect our social orientation even more by filling certain positions with people with disabilities within a specifically designed program that will be gradually implemented.

During the reporting period, we employed three people with a status of „severely handicapped” - two men and one women. One of these was a trainee – and altogether this corresponds to a percentage of 0.62 percent 

We had set ourselves the goal of improving job opportunities for people with disabilities and/or hiring more people with disabilities at VAUDE in 2014. This goal was not achieved, because the broad range of topics and the high level of dynamics meant that this issue could not be intensively addressed.

We intend to give the topic of inclusion an even higher priority at VAUDE in order to substantially increase the rate of 0.62 percent over the medium term. For next year, we take the right to double the rate.

With this, we want to make an active contribution to the inclusion of people with disabilities and to further increase diversity within our workforce.

To achieve this goal, we specifically plan to offer even more people with disabilities attractive employment opportunities. As soon as possible, we will make and expand our contacts with local institutions for the disabled as well as with integration services. 

In addition, we will take a good look at which departments have positions that can be filled by people with disabilities and which tasks are particularly suitable for them. This applies to both permanent employment opportunities as well as internships. This also includes defining adapted processes in the filling of positions that allow for inclusion.

Within our internal training program, we are increasingly offering presentations on the inclusion of people with disabilities in order to create understanding for these types of situations.