In the business year 2020/21, the percentage of female executives was about 13.6%, a slight increase over the previous year’s 12.5%. one woman has been appointed to a divisional management position since the business year 2013/14.
As part of internal leadership development efforts, great importance is placed on continuing to increase the percentage of female participants. The Group thus makes it a point to ensure that women are represented at each training level of the Leadership Development Program (“value:program”). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated governmental restrictions and/or internal security measures, no new iterations of the value:program were launched during the business year 2020/21. Programs that had already been started, however, were completed in the course of the business year by switching individual modules to a digital format.
Overall, the percentage of women in the voestalpine Group in the business year 2020/21 was 14.8% (previous year: 14.7%). There are industry-specific, historical, and cultural reasons for this percentage—which remains low compared with other industries. In the public’s consciousness, the image of a steel and technology Group still conforms to the image of the heavy industry, with the result that broad-based recruitment of female employees is a challenging undertaking. Nonetheless, the percentage of women in the voestalpine Group among salaried employees up to the age of 30 has now reached about 39.8%; despite all of our efforts, however, among workers women still only account for a mere 7.9%.
None of the Group companies have explicit “female quotas.” Instead, the voestalpine Group generally strives to raise the percentage of women in the Group at all levels in the long term through appropriate measures. This includes a number of activities, some of which are country-specific: e.g., participation in the “Girls’ Day,” the specific advancement of women in technical trades requiring apprenticeships, and/or boosting the hiring of female graduates of technical schools and universities. In addition, the establishment and expansion of in-house child care facilities and/or collaborations with external facilities is being accelerated. Such facilities and collaborations can be found at the Group’s plants in Linz and Leoben/Donawitz, Austria, for instance. These offerings are supplemented by flexible work and shift models; enhanced technical training geared to women; enhanced qualifications for apprentices and assistants; mentoring programs; special health programs; guidance on equality and non-discrimination; and so forth. Thanks to these efforts, by now women are also employed in leadership positions in traditionally male-dominated, technical areas of the company. Women also occupy executive positions in the financial, legal, strategic, communications, and human resources departments in a number of Group companies.
As part of the annual Human Resources Report, data on the percentage of women in executive positions is regularly collected and analyzed based on qualifications and training programs for the purpose of monitoring the long-term impact of all measures.
