Porsche Has Focus On Training And Hiring More Women

Porsche has increased their female worker population from 12.8% in 2012 to 15.5% today, and they want to facilitate even more.
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It’s one thing to inspire women to work for Porsche. Ensuring that they remain with the company in the long-term is just as important and may even be the greater challenge. To help us to achieve this, we have set up individual development programs and implemented a range of measures to enable women to balance their career with their family life”, explains Andreas Haffner, member of Porsche’s executive board for human resources and social affairs. By promoting programs like work-from-home, flexitime, and job-sharing in leadership positions, Porsche wants to ensure that their workers of any gender are given a measure of flexibility. Porsche also facilitates open communication lines while workers are on sabbatical or maternity leave, which allows them to return with confidence that they have not been left behind. In part because of these programs, Porsche have seen an increase in the desire of women to work for the company. 

While attempting to increase women at all levels of the company, Porsche are careful to avoid discrimination, attempting to promote an equal opportunity for advancement. Because they have seen a larger percentage of female workers moving into the company, they have also been able to promote more women to executive roles. In 2012 there were zero women in executive roles, but that has now increased to 8%. “Equal opportunity is our primary aim”, continues Andreas Haffner, “as only organic growth will generate acceptance of the necessary changes in our company.

Porsche says that the process begins with education. Over the last four years, the local university has seen an increase in the proportion of women enrolled in technical industrial training (from 6% to 35%). Porsche, just last week, participated in “Girls’ Day” by opening up their facilities in Saxony and Baden-Württemberg to help teach female students about careers in technical fields. This is just one branch of that ever critical “STEM” moniker people are always talking about, so here’s hoping these young women someday work for Porsche.