Green Qualification

"Our goal is to strengthen our workforce and further improve its capabilities."

Wilfried Porth, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, Human Resources and Director of Labor Relations

The automotive industry is on the verge of a fundamental transformation. The future belongs to new and environmentally friendly drive system technologies. How are you preparing your employees for these changes?

Wilfried Porth   In 2010 we launched our “Green Qualification” initiative, through which our Corporate Academy offers employees and managers training programs and expert workshops that address the new technologies. The academy also puts on information events. Between now and 2013 we expect to provide professional training to around 32,000 employees throughout the Group in Germany and another 21,000 people worldwide. Together with the Works Council and renowned research institutes, we also started a project known as “ELAB.” In this project we study the impact that drive system electrification will have on employment in the automotive industry. We expect the project to provide us with key information on the future challenges our employment and human resources policies will have to deal with.

Daimler is considered to be an attractive employer. However, the competition for skilled and capable staff is becoming more intense. Will you be able to attract the coming generation of workers?

Definitely. Daimler is represented in practically every country in the world and can therefore offer its employees interesting global assignments. We also provide our employees with training and continuing education opportunities throughout their entire career. We utilize several flexible work models, and our “sternchen” daycare centers will be able to accommodate 569 employee children throughout Germany by 2012. The purpose of these centers is to
make it easier for women in particular to balance the requirements of a career and family commitments. At the moment, we’re also conducting a research project with Heidelberg University that examines methods for improving the work-life balance of our employees.

Our efforts to recruit and train the skilled workers we will need tomorrow are centered around our professional training programs, the CAReer program for young talents, and the Cooperative State University.More than 2,000 young men and women began a professional training program at Daimler in 2010, and more than 250 of them are enrolled in the Cooperative State University. We’ve also hired more than 500 young people as new employees.

Our hiring activities are focusing more and more on growth markets and professions such as “mechatronics specialist” that will be in great demand in the future. In order to address the interests of the coming generation, we have created an outstanding program called “Genius” which is designed to get children and teenagers interested in the natural sciences and technology at an early age. To this end, we also cooperate closely with schools.

How do you ensure that new employees stay at the company?

The key aspect is our attractiveness as an employer, which in turn is influenced by a variety of factors. Competitive remuneration is obviously one such factor — but our employees also view the broad range of benefits we offer as very important. They include a viable and secure company pension program. Just as important as financial incentives are interesting assignments, professional training, qualifications, and personal development opportunities. As a large globally operating company, we have a huge array of options available to our people.

We should also keep in mind that we do everything we can to safeguard our employees’ jobs even in difficult times. The recent crisis demonstrated our ability to avoid layoffs by employing instruments such as the depletion of working-time accounts, short-time work, and working-hour reductions, all of which ensured that we could immediately get people back to work and implement special shifts when the situation improved. Our regular employee surveys enable us to gauge our employees’ identification with the company — and despite the crisis, our score on the Employee Commitment Index increased 6 points to 64 points.

The average age of your workforce is increasing. How are you dealing with this situation?

On the one hand, we take measures to boost the performance of our employees; on the other, we safeguard their expertise from the time they enter the company until they leave. Demographic change isn’t just an issue for older employees, however; we also offer our trainees and younger staff members programs for improving their health and enhancing workplace ergonomics. We use our “HR Resource Management” project to plan today for the personnel
requirements of tomorrow, and we have also established so-called employment paths along which our employees can develop their professional skills. Our goal is to strengthen our workforce and further improve its capability, while at the same time ensuring that every employee can apply his or her skills as effectively as possible.

Measures such as those you’ve described cost money. How do
you ensure that your labor costs remain competitive?

All the measures I’ve referred to are designed to achieve two goals. The first is to make sure we remain an attractive employer so that we can recruit the best people — and this justifies the associated investments. Our activities must also pay off in a business sense, however. Ideally, we should be able to achieve both objectives — for example, through flexible working-time models that take into consideration the needs of both the workforce and the company.
We keep a very close eye on these issues and also compare our approach with those of competitors.

I would also point out that labor costs play a key role in remuneration policy. Here, the introduction of the ERA collective bargaining agreement at the company has allowed us to carry out systematic controlling of the structure of job assignments at individual units, and ensure uniform standards.