Equal opportunity as a core value

We are a socially active company, which is strongly expressed in our values „respectful interaction with people and nature” as well as „business as family”.

Our understanding of social interaction includes not only the issues of equal treatment of all employees regardless of their origin, skin color or gender; it also includes the issues of earnings and non-monetary salary components.

Financial equality, for us, means that similar activities are paid comparably. This principle applies to all our employees, regardless of their origin or their gender or their employment at VAUDE - see „equal pay for men and women".

Equal treatment refers to the same access to leadership positions for both men and women. At many of our locations, we strive to fill vacancies from within the company – including highly remunerated management positions: with employees who are qualified for higher positions due to outstanding performance. With appropriate work performance, factors such as gender, age or social background play no role.

In order to purposefully enable women to move into leadership positions, we offer anyone with the right qualifications this chance, including women with children who need support with childcare or part-time positions, provided that this does not adversely affect their ability to do the job - see „Diversity in a world that’s worth living in".

Our open corporate culture contributes a great deal to preventing discrimination based on race, gender or skin color. All new employees are invited to attend our regularly scheduled introductory event „Get the Spirit", in which our CEO Antje von Dewitz introduces the special VAUDE Spirit and our view of mutual trust - see „Culture of value and trust“.

Our managers/executives and our Head of Personnel always offer the opportunity for personal exchange and keep their office doors open to all employees. With this open dialogue, we hope to establish open and respectful interaction in which there is no place for discrimination of any sort.

So far, VAUDE has had no special management approach to dealing with discrimination, as the non-observance of human rights in the work environment is not an evident problem. We regularly request our employees to report any form of discrimination and to actively combat it. 

 
In the introductory courses for new employees, our management always expresses that the respective manager in such cases is the first contact person and that the Head of Personnel is also open to the concerns of employees. In exceptional cases, our CEO offers every employee the opportunity for a personal meeting.