Maintaining the health and occupational capability of our employees is one of the most important goals of Volkswagen’s human resource policy. The “CheckUp”, a free, comprehensive medical examination, was made available to all employees at Audi in 2006 and at Volkswagen in 2010. Each Volkswagen AG facility now offers this regular check-up using state-of-the-art examination procedures with a view to keeping their employees healthy and fit. The high level of diagnostic quality of the check-ups is generally acknowledged by the employees. So far more than 28,000 Volkswagen employees have taken advantage of this voluntary offering, whose quality is being improved continuously. At the German plants, the focus in 2011 was on expanding the internal and external prevention offerings that are connected to the Volkswagen Checkup. The Volkswagen Checkup also started to be rolled out on a large scale at Group locations abroad.
Parallel to this, our efforts continued to improve ergonomics at all work stations. The deployment of occupational therapists to the production lines enabled the ergonomic optimization of these work stations at many locations. Additionally, employees were able to receive advice and guidance directly at their workplace about improving the ergonomic implementation of their workflows.
In the course of our management development programs, line supervisors were taught to give stronger consideration in their leadership practices to the link between leadership and employee health. A basic seminar was designed for this purpose. We also developed compulsory training modules on occupational safety and introduced them for all prospective managers. Based on the Group occupational safety management system implemented in 2010, all Group brands and companies conducted a comprehensive analysis in 2011 of their current occupational safety organization and the processes associated with it. Examples of good practice identified Group-wide will be used systematically for process improvements in occupational safety in the future.
