Advancement of Women

In the 1980s, the Volkswagen Group was one of the first employers to promote equal opportunities for women and men. At that time, a Commission for the Advancement of Women chaired by the Board of Management member responsible for human resources was set up. As a result, the Volkswagen Group is one of the organisations in the still male-dominated automotive industry with the highest proportion of women among its workforce.

For many years, at least 20 percent of the apprentices in the manual and technical trades recruited by Volkswagen AG have been women. There is no other German car company that has achieved this figure for so long. This development is by no means accidental; Volkswagen offers young women the opportunity of comprehensive vocational orientation, Apart from the open days held by Volkswagen Coaching GmbH, especially the “Girl’s Days” in which Volkswagen participates generate interest in working for Volkswagen.

Group-wide Mentoring Programme
Despite all the successes and progress achieved, women are still underrepresented in specialist and managerial positions at Volkswagen. We therefore introduced a Group-wide Mentoring Programme for women several years ago. The objective of this programme is to encourage networking between expert female employees across all our locations.

A similar programme has now been launched with a view to boosting the numbers of women amongst our supervisors, for example at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. Women with training in the manual and technical trades are systematically identified and encouraged to qualify as supervisors. In addition, the Advancement of Women department within Human Resources Controlling and Strategy and women’s representatives at our locations initiate and implement a number of projects in connection with Work-life Balance. Women still face considerable career disadvantages because it is often assumed that they will bear the sole responsibility for their children and family. The objective of all the measures taken is to significantly boost the number of women in specialist and managerial roles.