Training and professional development for all employees

As a family owned company, our employees, the full development of their potential and continuing training are crucial for us to ensure the company’s long-term success in a dynamically competitive outdoor industry. Finding and keeping competent and experienced employees in the many highly specialized professional sectors is important to stay competitive in the market.

Highly specialized professional fields at VAUDE often require internal training and corresponding specialization. Furthermore, our corporate culture puts equally high demands on the social skills of our employees, which is why personal development is encouraged.

A key element of our training and development program is the VAUDE Academy course offering which is published annually. Since the beginning of 2012, we have employed a consultant for human resources development who sets the focus of our training program and expands its conceptual development.

The goals of human resources development are both the personal and professional development of our employees, as well as authentically exemplifying and anchoring the corporate culture throughout the company at all levels.

The VAUDE Academy offers around 120 events annually in the following six categories:

• understanding VAUDE– advancing VAUDE
• working at VAUDE - basic concepts and methodology
• qualifying at VAUDE– getting into peak form
• adventure VAUDE – experiencing the Spirit
• health at work - fit for life
• training at VAUDE

These events are open to all our employees, mostly free of charge. The VAUDE Academy offers training on a wide variety of themes including: the exchange of our vision and values, „who's who" in the industry and the market, business content, organization and leadership, product knowledge, quality management, environmental management, production and production sites, mountain and bike tours, safety training, health promotion with cycling, swimming and running clubs, rock climbing and yoga.

Participation in our Academy events is documented and evaluated at the end of the current program. Based on this data, a program for the upcoming year is developed. The Academy program is available to all employees on the intranet.

For our young professionals, we have offered a talent program since 2012 in which six young employees are intensively monitored and coached on the path to a professional or managerial career over two years at VAUDE.

Since 2013, the focus has been on project management, with a qualification program for future project leaders. With internal and external monitoring, we are training seven colleagues in methodological and social aspects to become project managers.

We provide training on our trust-based values and management style several times a year which our executives and selected employees are required to attend. These events take place both on an hourly basis at the facilities in Tettnang-Obereisenbach and over two-day outings in a rented mountain cabins or other premises. They are designed not only for professional development, but also to develop and strengthen our culture of trust and innovation over the long-term. In this process, we have been accompanied by MANEMO eG since 2013. As part of this cooperation, a series of coordinated action takes place. Events include training courses and workshops, consultation sessions and occasional coaching measures. Scientific monitoring of the measures is done by the University of St. Gallen in order to trace the program’s success.

Our exceptional and comprehensive training program is shown at VAUDE in the numbers participating in the events: Each of our employees participated, on average, in over 7.9 hours of internal training in 2014. Men averaged 10.7 hours of training while women averaged 6.5 hours.

Training and professional development per employee-category**

* Due to the absence of some participants lists, 2.5 percent was deducted across the board from the calculated training hours

** Employee categories:

• MA- Category 1: Upper management – management and division heads 
  
• MA- Category 2: Middle management - all department heads
  
• MA- Category 3: Lower management - all team leaders
  
• MA- Category 4: all other permanent employees (permanent = open-ended contract), all employees with a limited contract 
  
• MA- Category 5: Apprentices, interns 
  

The breakdown used in previous years of Administrative (V*) and Industrial employees (G) is, in our opinion, not strict or meaningful so we have eliminated these.

These figures are based on professional development offered as part of the Academy program and are primarily cross-divisional or cross-departmental courses as well as our departmental and division-specific training. Our bike and mountain sports activities were not included in the calculation.

The strong difference in the average number of hours between management and employees is due to multi-day management training .

VAUDE is a training company. Each year between six and ten new apprentices begin working at VAUDE and are trained to become industrial clerks, IT specialists, computer scientists, warehouse logistics specialist or alteration tailors. Overall, we supervise 15 trainees on a long-term basis, many of whom are employed directly afterwards.

For us, a good training program doesn’t just entail learning professional skills. Trainees should also grow personally. We want to provide our younger colleagues with a good education and accompany them on their way to becoming mature adults. While school grades do play a role, we also value community involvement and an interest in mountain sports during our selection interviews.

We want to give our trainees a good education and accompany them on their way to becoming mature adults. School grades play a role, but we place a high value on social commitment and interest in mountain sports in our selection interviews.

In the course of the training, regular feedback on academic performance, work at VAUDE and activism within the VAUDE community takes place with our consultant for employee development.

Each employee, regardless of the hierarchical level, has an annual feedback meeting in which annual targets are agreed upon with his or her manager. In 2014, this was extended to a uniform employee evaluation system. Each employee is evaluated by his/her manager on issues of work efficiency and effectiveness, responsible behavior and the implementation of VAUDE values. Annual targets based on these discussions are then agreed upon. There are guidelines available to all managers and employees for our target agreements and employee interviews.

The meeting is documented, goals are defined and possible action for the coming year is determined. This agreement on objectives is signed by the employee and manager, submitted to the Human Resources Manager for review and placed in the personnel file.

Giving and receiving constructive feedback, is firmly rooted in our understanding of good leadership: "VAUDE executives (and VAUDE employees) deal constructively with an employee’s mistakes (or a colleague’s) and give constructive feedback. VAUDE executives (and VAUDE employees) admit to their own mistakes and accept constructive feedback."

In addition, every employee has the opportunity to give his own manager feedback in regular meetings.