Three VTG employees inspect a valve on a wagon.

Social Responsibility

Protecting our people and looking after their welfare has always commanded top priority at VTG.

 

We see our employees not just as people who work for us, but primarily as people, period. That is why their protection and their welfare get top priority at VTG – and not just when they are on the premises!

Protecting our employees
A safe, healthy environment for our people is central to everything we do. It is therefore only logical, that very strict occupational health and safety standards apply throughout our company.

Employee engagement
We deliver top quality to our customers. And to do so, we need employees who are highly motivated and extremely well qualified. We do everything we can to make our industry more attractive to potential recruits. Beyond that, we offer our people attractive terms and conditions, as well as appropriate ways to develop both personally and professionally.

Social responsibility
The VTG Group’s social responsibility naturally includes extensive programs for our own people. But it also includes an ever-growing commitment to society at large. In particular, we support measures in the fields of youth education and the promotion of sports.

Occupational health & safety

The health of our people is of the utmost importance to us. To guarantee excellent standards of occupational health and safety and ensure full compliance with all relevant statutory requirements, we complement an ISO 45001-compliant occupational health and safety management system with our own internal standard operating procedures (SOPs). Every year, we also audit compliance with all occupational health and safety requirements – as well as data protection and information security provisions – across our individual workshops. In addition, we have launched a campaign to reinforce behavior-based occupational health and safety at our workshops and reduce the number of accidents.

Customer Safety

The safety of our customers is of supreme importance to us. We ensure meticulous compliance with all technical and safety-related provisions for operating plant and equipment, as well as observing the requirements of hazardous substance law. As a result, we can guarantee the operational safety of our rail freight wagons, tank containers and workshop equipment at all times. Customer surveys and regular dialogue with stakeholders give us valuable insights into any areas where there is room for improvement.

Employee development

A skilled and highly motivated workforce is critical to our success. This is why we do everything in our power to give our people appropriate development opportunities. The VTG Academy provides in-house tuition using e-learning courses, seminars led by external speakers and specific training and development programs. Annual meetings between the workforce and the management are used to define the focus of our performance, map out development opportunities and, where necessary, agree additional training measures and seminars. Our staff are also given ample opportunity to engage in informal dialogue in a variety of formats.

Faced with demographic change and a shortage of skilled labor and specialists, we are very keen to develop young talents. We provide commercial and industrial apprenticeships and dual study programs. Additionally, we focus on the professional and personal development of our employees. We therefore enable them to take part in various internal and external training programs.

Diversity & equal opportunities

The VTG family is made up of people from different countries, cultures and generations. Diversity is what enables us to find the best solutions for our customers. We therefore welcome any and every talent, regardless  of gender, disability, cultural, religious or social background, sexual orientation, sexual identity and/or social origins.

We foster a culture of openness in which we treat each other with respect – a culture in which different ways of thinking and working can unleash their full potential and in which every individual can make their best contribution.

Promoting diversity and prohibiting any form of discrimination is integral to our corporate strategy. Both aspects are anchored in our values and our Code of Conduct. They lay the foundation for our personnel activities and are reflected in both our competence model and the HR development measures that are derived from it.

International flair
People of a wide variety of nationalities work at our facilities. This fact, coupled with close dialogue with our international customers, helps us consistently find optimal solutions for each and every market.

Gender balance
Attaching special importance to equal opportunities for women and men, we are committed to having 25 percent of top-level management positions and 35 percent of second-level management positions filled by women by 2030. We likewise set great store by the healthy compatibility of family and career, which we explicitly promote with our VTG FAMILY & CARE program.

Compatibility of Family & Career

We support our people as they seek to strike a healthy balance between family life and professional development. Our VTG FAMILY & CARE program brings together a plethora of services designed to help families in all kinds of different life situations:

  • Childcare advisory and agency service
  • Emergency childcare at home
  • Advisory and agency service around nursing care for relatives
  • Psychosocial advice for employees in difficult situations
  • Company doctor
  • Back therapy
  • Group accident insurance
  • Company sports groups
  • Meal subsidies

 

Social commitment

We promote the interests of young people in our hometown of Hamburg. By providing solid apprenticeships and sporting opportunities, we want to give them a chance to find jobs and develop as individuals.

Since 2017, we have been helping young people in Hamburg who, after leaving school, have a hard time making the transition to the world of work due to social, educational or cultural barriers. The VTG RailTrain program gives them the chance to complete an apprenticeship. Each year, ten youngsters and young adults join our training workshop on the premises of venerable Hamburg company Blohm+Voss to commence their training as construction mechanics. Throughout their apprenticeships, the young people are supervised and individually supported by VTG. Vocational skills and abilities are taught, but so too is a general education, flanked by language and social skills. When they successfully complete their apprenticeships, we seek to place the freshly minted construction mechanics in regular employment.

Learn more

 

We also support Zeit für Zukunft – Mentoren für Kinder e. V. (Time for the Future – Mentors for Children), an organization that provides sponsorships for children aged 6 to 16, as well as the Lesepaten (Reading Sponsors) initiative run by local newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt. The latter project seeks to kindle young people’s interest in political, social and economic issues.

 

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