Annual Report - voestalpine

tral focus of the human resources management
in the year under review. Along with
the further expansion of the employee shareholding
scheme under the last collectiveagreement
wage increase (already the 5 th
increase since the program started in 2000),
the approximately 4,300 Austrian employees
of the Special Steel Division were also added
to the employee shareholding program.
16,868 Group employees now hold shares in
“their” company, representing a total interest
of 10.8% in voestalpine AG 3 . This is a
further increase of 0.5 percentage points over
the previous financial year (10.3%).
This currently also includes some 150 employees
at Dutch locations of the Automotive
Division. Although a further expansion of
employee share ownership outside of Austria
has been difficult because of the great differences
in national statutory frameworks,
it is nevertheless a stated goal of both voestalpine
AG’s Management Board and its
Works Council.
The voestalpine Group incurred approximately
EUR 44 million in expenses for basic
and advanced training of its employees, representing
more than 2% of total personnel
expenses. Approximately EUR 26 million is
accounted for by apprentice training, corresponding
to about EUR 18,400 per apprentice.
Basic and advanced training was mainly
focused on the areas of “lifelong learning”
(close to 18,000 employees take advantage
of the advanced training courses offered at
the Linz location alone), knowledge transfer
(between young and old employees and between
areas), and targeted training of prospective
executives. Aside from the range
of programs offered, the Management Development
System (MDS) of the “former”
voestalpine Group (completed by 90 employees
from four countries in financial year
2007/08) and the BöHLER-UDDEHOLM
Management Academy (BUMA), which
trained 71 employees from 20 countries in
2007, deserve special mention.
A Group-wide employee satisfaction survey
is performed every three years, allowing
existing systems and instruments to be evaluated,
and priority areas to be identified for
future action. The results of the employee
satisfaction survey performed in the year
under review show two areas of particular
interest compared to 2004: the record
response rate, which increased to two thirds
despite the voluntary nature of the survey,
and the fourth consecutive increase in the
satisfaction index. The Group-wide “LIFE”
program introduced in 2000/01 that aims for
an “attractive voestalpine working environment”
for all employees is probably one of
the main reasons for the above-average
number of positive responses with respect
to indepen dent work, workplace safety, and
quality-consciousness in its broadest form.
Room for improvement still clearly exists in
the areas of knowledge transfer and identification
and development of talent.
1 Previous years‘ figures adjusted retrospectively for the voestalpine Group and the Automotive Division.
2 Please also refer to the respective section in the chapter “Acquisitions and divestments”.
3 As of March 31, 2008, 17.2 million shares and around 560,000 private shares were owned by current and former employees
and managed by the employee private foundation voestalpine – Arbeitnehmer-Privatstiftung.
Management Report
Annual Report 2007/08 43