Employees
DIVERSITY
The BAUER Group worldwide employs people of 74 different nationalities. All employees are valued equally. Diversity and equality of opportunity – focusing on our workforce as a whole, incorporating all its variety, and treasuring all we have in common – are goals to which we are firmly committed, because the individual character and experience of everyone working for the BAUER Group contributes fundamentally to its success.
However, public debate surrounding the issue of diversity appears to greatly reduce the topic by focusing solely on one aspect: the ratio of men to women in senior executive posts and on boards.
In line with the industry in general, only around 12 percent of the BAUER Group's workforce are female. This is largely due to the technical nature of the Group's activities. We do of course encourage young women to opt for technical and engineering professions. Yet it is still the case today that many women are unwilling to make such a career choice. Reflecting that fact, parent company BAUER AG – which primarily provides commercial and administrative services for Group subsidiaries – actually employs more women than men (58 percent of the total). The situation in corresponding functions at the subsidiary companies is similar.
Overall, skilled technical staff and tradesmen – carrying out the operational side of the business – still account for the majority of the workforce, which in turn accounts for the high percentage of men employed across the Group as a whole.
The Personnel department of BAUER AG, which covers the Group companies at the Schrobenhausen location and a number of others, has evaluated recruitment candidate data. The figures for women applying to the relevant functions in 2010 reflect very clearly how difficult it is to attract women to certain posts and jobs. Just 1.99 percent of candidates applying for trades posts were women, while women accounted for 6.6 percent of applications for technical jobs.
It is the basic policy of the BAUER Group that no one should be disadvantaged by reason of their gender. Consequently, we expressly promote the development of male and female staff equally, and we firmly believe that diversity can only be achieved on the basis of equal opportunities.
However, we consider rules dictating that one person should be favoured ahead of another because of gender rather than qualification to run contrary to the principles of equal opportunity. We are therefore clearly opposed to the introduction of reserved quotas for women, and indeed to positive discrimination in favour of either gender. The sole criteria we apply when recruiting staff are ability, commitment and the interests of the individual.