Innovation and high quality are not conceivable without 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. Alongside proven face-to-face training sessions, digital learning formats as well as blended learning approaches that combine live online sessions and self-directed learning phases have now been firmly established.
The total costs for personnel development amounted to EUR 69.3 million in the business year 2023/24. 87.4% of all employees in the Group took part in training and further education measures. The training volume in the business year 2023/24 amounted to 850,656 hours, an average of 19.8 hours per participant.
voestalpine COACHING
voestalpine is committed to lifelong learning as an integral part of employee development. With the coaching platform, which has been available since May 2023, voestalpine offers time-limited, individually tailored professional support for personal change processes in a professional context. Coaching promotes self-reflection and self-awareness and is solution- and future-oriented.
Possible reasons for coaching include professional role changes, leadership challenges, difficult change situations, personal development, career issues, and situations of intense stress. The offer is open to all employees in voestalpine companies worldwide.
The use of voestalpine Coaching is possible after consultation with one’s manager and the establishment of an authorization. Employees can use the coaching platform to search for coaches and define their preferences.
Suggestions for suitable coaches are provided taking into account the selection criteria. After the selection, individual coaching appointments can be arranged, which can take place either as online meetings or in person.
TRAINING INITIATIVE “COACHING: EFFECTIVE USE OF HR MANAGERS”
A training course for HR managers was offered in order to further expand the coaching services. In five sessions, which were held in English and German and spread across the time zones, the HR managers were introduced to the voestalpine Coaching offering and received a briefing on how to advise colleagues on the topic of coaching. This additional HR training initiative also served to clarify the difference between coaching and consulting as well as to recognize each manager’s own coaching skills and their possible applications.
MANAGEMENT TRAINING
In the business year 2023/24, voestalpine continued to rely on its internally developed “value:program” to train current and future managers. 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.
In order to meet voestalpine’s high quality standards, the individual modules are evaluated after each implementation and adapted if necessary. Changes are made, for example, based on feedback from participants, in order to set new priorities or to firmly anchor voestalpine’s values.
In the business year 2023/24, 171 employees from 20 countries took part in this multi-stage management development program. As the nomination process for the value:program now stipulates a minimum proportion of female participants, the proportion of women has increased to 32.7%.
NEW FOCUS FOR LEADERSHIP MODULES
The focus of the leadership modules was realigned at the various levels of the value:program. On the one hand, there is an increased focus on energy leadership, with an emphasis on results-oriented and inspiring leadership (ambidexterity), and the management of both personal energy reserves and those of the team.
When it comes to experienced managers, sustainable leadership takes center stage. Sustainable leaders recognize, among other things, the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic systems and strive to create value for all stakeholders while considering the impact on future generations.
The realignment and shift in focus is intended to create awareness among future as well as established managers, and provide new perspectives to prepare them for the constantly changing and growing challenges in their own organization/society and in the market and working environment.
PROFESSIONAL ACADEMIES
In addition to its proven programs for managers 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, in addition to high levels of professional expertise, these competencies are important factors in employees’ successful future advancement.
EARLY CAREER PROGRAM (ECP) AND voestalpine VALUES
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 other three modules took place at various voestalpine locations in North America (Atlanta, Toronto, and Chicago). In order to anchor the voestalpine values introduced in the business year 2022/23 even more firmly in the entire organization, the “voestalpine values” program item was implemented in the first module of the ECP.
DIGITAL AMBASSADOR QUALIFICATION PROGRAM
voestalpine High Performance Metals DIGITAL SOLUTIONS GmbH is organizing a five-day training program that provides participants with the necessary tools and knowledge to navigate the ever-changing digital landscape.
With four cultural and four technical modules, this program is designed to equip participants with the skills they need to succeed in an increasingly digital world. Topics range from digitalization strategies and cybersecurity measures to the use of robotics and artificial intelligence. Insights into the generation and use of machine data also contribute to immediately applying what has been learned to personal use cases, allowing participants to experience the effects of digitalization first hand.
Trained Digital Ambassadors actively support their company on its digital journey and are part of a constantly growing community that continues to exchange ideas even after the program. Since the business year 2023/24, the training has also been part of the Austrian training program and is therefore available to employees throughout the Group.