The FINANCIAL — Porsche AG in Zuffenhausen again set records last year with 162,145 delivered sports cars and yet another record turnover of more than 14.3 billion euros.
And for years now, the growth in staff has been also record-breaking: while at the onset of 2010, there were around 12,700 employees working at Porsche Group, now there are over 21,000. 18,600 of them are working in Germany. The sports car maker has initiated a variety of measures to master the huge challenges this growth brings about for the organisation and infrastructure, according to Porsche Cars North America, Inc.
For example, Porsche AG has announced just a few weeks ago that it will be investing around 200 million euros more per year in its locations. With Porsche caregiver leave, optional working hours, voluntary leave for personal reasons, home office and day care centres at the locations in the Stuttgart region incorporated in current employment agreements, the sports car manufacturer has reacted to the changed needs of its employees, thus getting fit for the employment market of the future.
“73,000 applications in 2013 and numerous first places in the rankings among employers underscore the attractiveness of Porsche for employees,” said Thomas Edig, Member of the Executive Board for Human Resources and Social Affairs and Deputy Chairman of Porsche AG. One has to bear in mind, though, that this attractiveness is to a large extent owing to the enthusiasm for the sports cars of the brand. “So it’s even more vital,” Thomas Edig emphasises, “to bring the company to life for applicants and employees as an employer brand – now more than ever. Not least since we bear in mind that the company has not always been a trendsetter especially when it came to the demands of university graduates. It is important that we present ourselves more persuasively as an attractive employer to this target group: as a premium manufacturer working on the technologies of the future. A churn rate of 0.61 percent shows, on the other hand, that our work in terms of staff has been maintained at an excellent level in the past. That’s proven by the fact we have filled 90 percent of the positions at the first and second executive levels with our own people,” he added.
Whether technical or executive staff – Porsche offers women as well as men a broad range of possibilities for development, because as a premium manufacturer, the company is working on the cutting-edge technology of the future. In this context, Thomas Edig is also referring to those topics revolving around e-mobility and networked vehicle technology. Or to motor racing, which offers junior engineers in particular the opportunity of acquiring while young enormous skills and know-how with the development of new technologies. Many of the graduates come from those universities in Baden-Württemberg that have implemented a work-study system and with which Porsche has a close relationship due to the fact that they ideally combine theory and practice. Porsche will offer another incentive to graduates from these and other universities in the future by way of a trainee programme, for which graduates with special academic achievements can apply, according to Porsche Cars North America, Inc.
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