In the business year 2015/16, the percentage of female executives was at about 12.0%, thus increasing slightly compared to the previous year (11.0%). Since the business year 2013/14, a woman has been in a divisional management position; and since the last election in July 2014, two women have been on the Supervisory Board of voestalpine AG, which consists of twelve members.
Within the scope of internal leadership development efforts, great importance is being placed on continuing to expand the percentage of female participants. Therefore, voestalpine is making every effort to ensure that women are represented at each training level of the Leadership Development Program (“value:program”). In the business year 2015/16, of the total of 228 participants, 15.4% were women. This means that the percentage of women has fallen compared to the previous year (18%), however, it is still above the Group average.
Overall, the percentage of women in the voestalpine Group in the business year 2015/16 was 13.1% (previous year: 13.3%). This percentage is still low compared to other sectors of the economy, and this has industry-specific, historical, and cultural reasons. In the consciousness of the public, the image of a steel, technology, and industrial goods company is still the image of heavy industry and, therefore, broad-based recruitment of female employees is a challenging undertaking.
None of the Group companies have explicit “female quotas.” Rather, the voestalpine Group is striving to implement appropriate measures in order to increase the percentage of women in the Group at all levels. This includes a number of activities, some of which are country-specific, such as participation in Girls’ Day, advancement of women in technical professions, and/or increased hiring of female graduates of technical schools and universities. Furthermore, establishment and expansion of in-house child care facilities and collaborations with external facilities is being accelerated. As a result of these efforts, women are now employed in top leadership positions in traditionally male-dominated, technical areas of the Company (e.g., hot-dip galvanizing plants, wire production facilities) and are in executive positions, primarily in the financial, legal, and human resources departments, in a number of Group companies. For example, the area “Legal and Compliance” in three of the four divisions is headed by women.
In annual human resources reporting, data on the percentage of women in executive positions is collected and analyzed regularly according to their qualifications and their status in the training programs in order to monitor the sustainability of the implemented measures.
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