Health promotion you can count on

Only employees who are healthy and feel well can perform at their best. As an outdoor brand, VAUDE wants to provide a good balance for deskwork for all of its employees.

Our health management program focuses on prevention and our employees’ active involvement in their own health.

At VAUDE, we aim to pursue a holistic health management approach including healthy food, prevention, exercise and sports, as well as office furnishings based on ergonomic principles.

We have been working on the establishment of a resource-oriented occupational health management program based on self-determination and self-efficacy since 2014.

We are supported by Stefanie Raaf from EmBODI in the field of occupational health management. A standardized reporting system based on quantitative and qualitative performance figures is being developed to help us specifically manage our occupational health management system.

The following measures were implemented:

• Raising awareness and a 6-week sports program for all managers
• Preventative stress test (heart rate variability)
• Health screening with nutrition advice
• Training of 14 VAUDE Health Coaches who developed a sport program, which includes approx. 8-10 events per week and is open to all employees
• Several lectures by our expert Stefanie Raaf on topics such as healthy nutrition and self-regulated health management
• Coordination, management and evaluation of all measures by a company health management team, which consists employees and managers of several divisions at VAUDE.
• Integration and coordinated management with corporate health management and occupation safety

Integrating the corporate health management policy into the management system is of central importance to directing future interventions and it makes the system measurable and sustainable.

Since 2015, company buildings have appeared in new splendor. After three years of remodeling, a whole new array of health-relevant updates has been made available.

• The in-house VAUDE organic cafeteria provides healthy and delicious meals.
  
• Our impressive climbing area offers all employees the opportunity for athletic challenges.
  
• Our sports room provides the perfect setting for over 400 sports activities per year within the context of our occupational health management program as well as for self-organized employee activities.
  
• During the remodeling, all computer workspaces were ergonomically designed with height-adjustable desks and ergonomic chairs.
  

More about it - "Future-oriented Work Environment"

VAUDE has long provided intensive support of the issue of bike commuting with eight E-bikes, decentralized showers, sheltered bike parking, Jobrad and more. 

See "Bike commuting"

In addition, the VAUDE Academy program normally offers ten to 15 sports and/or outdoor events per year, aimed at both beginners and advanced participants. Our employees can choose between mountain bike training and climbing courses, snowshoeing and trekking tours.

We offer swimming classes on an as-needed basis at our outdoor pool and encourage our employees to participate in a weekly yoga class that’s free of charge. Climbers always have access to our boulder room. Every two weeks we have a professional masseuse come to Obereisenbach who offers an "on the job massage."

Overtime and how to avoid it is also a topic at VAUDE. In order to act preventively against the accumulation of overtime, we follow an approach that is not just focused on employees’ presence at work but that includes goal achievement. 

See "A foundation of Trust"
 

Our absenteeism* (= all absences caused by illness, including accidents at work or occupational illnesses) was 5.87% in 2016. (2015: 6.65%). Thus, we have reached our goal of reducing the number of absences and continue to be under the national average as we have for years.

There were an average of 9.9 days of illness per employee in 2016. The national average is 15.4 days (Techniker Krankenkasse survey).

And this is depsite the fact that we use an extremely strict computation for absenteeism. Unlike most other statistics, we count every absentee day and not just those after the third consecutive day.

We will continue to work on lowering our illness absenteeism rate. To accomplish this we are relying on the occupational heath management program measures described above and on our occupational safety program.

* Calculation: sick days 2016 /(full time × converted working days 2016 (without holidays=30, without national holidays = 10)) in numbers: 5,311 / (410 × 221) = 5.87%