Innovation and high quality are not conceivable absent continuing employee training and professional development (CPD). Hence training courses are an important prerequisite for voestalpine’s success. In addition, they promote employees’ career opportunities at the personal level as well as their ability to network across departments and locations. Besides customary face-to-face training sessions, by now digital learning formats as well as blended learning approaches that combine live online sessions and self-directed learning phases have been firmly established.
The total expenditure for human resources development in the business year 2022/23 exceeded EUR 60 million. Fully 81.2% of all Group employees took part in training and CPD programs. The training volume in the business year 2022/23 comes to 797,671 hours in all, which equates to an average of 20.4 hours per trained employee.
Training in voestalpine values
Common values (see the “Sustainability Strategy” chapter) are an important and positive factor in the success of voestalpine’s corporate culture and define the company as such. In their capacity as “ambassadors,” so to speak, both internal HR managers and external coaches tasked with training and continuing professional development play a key role in bringing these values to life.
Hence all individuals in the company’s HR management worldwide have been trained in voestalpine’s values. Simple and standardized internal communications are facilitated through a dedicated area in voestalpine’s intranet where a range of communications materials (banners, icons, visuals, etc.) is available for download. A coaching campaign being carried out for all of the company’s trainers aims to help them enrich and flesh out the content of their training programs.
Management training
voestalpine relies on its in-house “value: program” to train current and future executives. It was possible in the business year 2022/23 to once again carry out this multi-stage leadership program without major pandemic-related restrictions. While participants from particular countries were still unable to attend in person, they were pre-registered for later iterations of the program. Program modules that could not take place due to pandemic-related developments were either repeated later on in a face-to-face format or shifted to digital delivery.
What makes this program special—aside from the wide range of methods that leading international experts use to teach relevant skills—is the intensive participation by voestalpine’s management (whether as presenters, project managers, or sparring partners, so to speak) in exchanges of experience. This mixture of external and internal know-how along with the Group-wide interest in ensuring that employees possess advanced qualifications make the value: program extremely successful and unique. Another one of the program’s cornerstones is the participating executives’ international make-up and diversity, which enables them to build personal networks across national boundaries and corporate divisions. The fact that the value: program participants also work on internal projects gives project mentors, in particular, insight into the benefits of having international teams from the most divergent corporate units and cultures.
Two hundred and fifteen employees from 19 countries participated in this multi-level leadership program during the business year 2022/23. Given that the nominating process as such now prescribes a female quota, the percentage of women participants in the value:program has risen to 23.3%.
International networking through value:digital talks
The value:program was expanded by an online format named “value:digital” in calendar year 2021. It offers participants an exclusive learning-on-demand solution because lifelong learning is indispensable to voestalpine. The program’s successful launch and continual expansion through e-learning modules and video nuggets was followed by steps to facilitate international networking among value:program alumni.
To this end, a moderated live talk is conducted about every four months with experts and trainers on a wide variety of topics in cooperation with LIMAK Austrian Business School. The roughly 90-minute talk comprises a lecture, an interview, and a Q&A session during which the participants have the opportunity to ask questions using the chat function. Key topics focused largely on questions of leadership as well as issues of health and energy management and were ascertained in a target group survey.
Professional academies
In addition to its proven programs for executives and specialists, voestalpine also offers training programs for wage and salaried employees. The given employees expand their professional expertise in this context and enhance key soft skills such as teamwork, self reflection, and agility. Topics such as guiding values and corporate responsibility are explored as well. The voestalpine Group believes that these competencies besides high levels of professional expertise are important factors in employees’ successful future advancement.
Early Career Program (ECP) and the HR Academy
The Early Career Program (ECP) is a unique training program for Group companies in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The fourth iteration of the ECP started in February 2023 through an online kick-off via Webex. The next three modules will comprise face-to-face training at different locations in North America. Some program components will continue into the following business year (2024/25).
The voestalpine HR Academy was also carried out again in the business year 2022/23. It trains HR managers to serve as proactive links between executives and employees so that they can help the company achieve its goals to the best of their ability. The HR Academy structures the focus of its curriculum accordingly. Course offerings range from intensifying participants’ knowledge of the Group’s HR strategy and relevant tools, to practical applications of consulting methods, all the way to advanced topics such as HR trends, communications, finance for HR, and leadership. The three face-to-face modules are supplemented by webinars.