INTERNATIONAL HR CONFERENCE

In May 2019, the fourth international HR conference of the TÜV NORD GROUP took place at the Group representative office in Berlin. Under the slogan “HR Strategy and Challenges of Digitalisation for HR 2.0”, 28 international HR managers analysed, discussed and elaborated the responsible role that will need to be played by HR in the digital transformation.

Members of staff and managers
The International Middle Management Programme (MMP), which runs over several months, is designed for prospective and active middle managers and hones their strategic thinking for a better operational result. The participants are prepared for current and future challenges and can network across the business units.

In cooperation with the European School for Management and Technology, TÜV NORD has established a management school for the upper management. The aim is to enhance the skills of the leadership of TÜV NORD GROUP in the areas of strategy, structure and culture and in respect of entrepreneurship and change management.

Developing digital skills
The Digital Academy trains employees as Digital Experts, whose job as multiplicators is to support the process of digital transformation in their business units.

The Digital Experts are supported during and, especially, after the Digital Academy in their efforts to gain recognition as knowledge bearers and to push ahead with digitalisation projects. Moreover, the existing expertise in digitalisation is analysed in such a way as to allow us to make better use of potential and to identify needs. To date, various projects have successfully been implemented by Digital Experts, including a simulation system for driver training and the DMT Safeguard, a web-based tool for all types of monitoring tasks in the field of construction and infrastructure.

+26.5%

APPLICATIONS
show how attractive TÜV NORD is on the labour market (2019: 19,685, 2018: 15,566 applications)

Working hours and locations

In the worldwide TÜV NORD companies, different agreements apply in some cases to working hours. Taking into account company regulations and business requirements, the Group-wide goal is to respond to the individual needs of our employees with different working time models. Part-time work is offered across all the business units, and the offer is taken up by an average of 15.9% of the employees. A total of 36.2% of women and 7.4% of men work part-time in Germany.⁶

In 2019, a Group staff agreement came into force which regulates the flexible working time models – all-day or part-time – with binding effect on all concerned.

Regulations for family emergencies
We have continued to make arrangements that take into account unexpected events in the family. In collaboration with an external family services provider, we can support our employees in private stress situations and help prevent private concerns from impacting on their performance at work.

In 2019, we also worked intensively on the issue of caring for family members. The plan for 2020 is to implement a step-by-step “Work and Care” package. This is intended to help in the systematic development of a care-conscious HR policy.

⁶ Scope of survey: national; active regular staff; time: December 2019

OHP OFFERS
consisting of 14 different measures at the three principal sites as well as twelve secondary sites in 2019.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Promoting and maintaining the health of our workforce is a key priority for us.

Measures to promote health in the workplace
In 2019, we created the framework for the implementation of a Corporate Health Management system (CHM) at TÜV NORD. The CHM comprises all activities of the Group that promote the health of its employees and consists of the pillars of occupational health and safety, integration management within the company and occupational health promotion (OHP). Digital health measures will also be offered from 2020.

The OHP measures will also include flu vaccinations, health checks and measures to counteract psychological problems such as stress or burnout. Our company sports club offers a wide range of sports that promote fitness and a sense of community. We also have cooperative agreements with gyms.

So that our employees are also prepared for emergencies, we ensure the availability of attractive offers for occupational disability insurance.

Good health ratio and occupational health and safety
The payback from our commitment is a very good health ratio among the staff. The year-on-year increase in the ratio confirms that the numerous measures are helping our employees live a healthy lifestyle.

Safety at work has an equally fundamental role to play in the TÜV NORD GROUP. In our company, occupational health and safety protection are implemented on the basis of European requirements and supplemented by internal preventive measures. Our safety concept monitors the correct implementation from top to bottom and includes all the global companies of the TÜV NORD GROUP.

Travel Risk Management
Of course, our safety standards also apply to business trips at home and abroad. In order to prepare our employees as fully as possible and to support them during their trips, the previously piloted Travel Risk Management (TRM) system was successfully expanded in April 2019 to include TÜV NORD CERT and TÜV NORD Mobilität, followed in July by DMT. In 2020, Travel Risk Management will be rolled out successively throughout the Group.

Strengthening our managers
In order to raise awareness among our managers of “healthy leadership” and “the reconciliation of work and family”, two formats were developed in 2019. The aim is, on the one hand, to make managers aware of their special role in these areas and, on the other, to give them the tools they need to actively promote them.

Pensions
Members of staff are given a subsidy for their occupational pensions. This represents a readily affordable form of self-financed pension provision for employees. The offer is used by many staff.

ACCIDENTS AT WORK
were recorded in the TÜV NORD GROUP in 2019 – a comparatively low level. The trend is a downward one. Since 2016, the number of accidents has been at a consistently low level.

GOOD HEALTH RATIO
– a positive development compared to the previous year (2018: 94.3%). This high ratio is common to all the business units in TÜV NORD.⁷

⁷ Scope of survey: national; active regular staff;
time: 1. 1.–31. 12. 2019

We want to attract the best employees and retain them in the long term – regardless of cultural background, age, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities or religion. Because we are aware of the different requirements, we will strive in the future for tailor-made HR solutions such as training measures geared to the expertise and learning styles of the different generations. Internationally, the average age of our employees is 39.9 years, i.e. below the German average age of 46.3 years. The employees in Germany are about six years older on average than their counterparts abroad.

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY

Since 2017, we have been focusing ever more intently on gender balance in our Group and have committed ourselves to increasing equal opportunities. The proportion of female employees in the Group today is 28.9%. Likewise very pleasing is the number of female managers in Germany, at 24%.⁸ Both ratios are good for a technical service provider.

These results confirm that we are well on the way to equality of opportunity and will spur us on to continue on this path. This is why we are developing various proactive strategies to promote diversity in the Group, also in respect of other areas. In connection with our measures for the organisation of working hours and the reconciliation of work and family life, we want to support the everyday reality of our employees.

In 2019, 3.9% of the employees on our payroll in Germany had serious disabilities, exactly the same figure as the previous year. Our HR4Business programme is also intended to further improve the general conditions. In this way, we aim to achieve the Group-wide goal of accessibility and equal opportunities for all employees and to combat the discrimination against and social exclusion of severely disabled people.
(> Diversus)

TÜV NORD GROUP INTERNATIONAL

The TÜV NORD GROUP is active in over 70 countries. In Germany alone, we employ staff of over 50 different nationalities – constituting 3.4% of the German workforce.

This is where there are clear opportunities to expand the knowledge and experience of our employees through the deployment of additional international specialists. This is one of the reasons why the TÜV NORD GROUP signed the “Charter of Diversity”, an initiative to promote the recognition, appreciation and inclusion of diversity in the German workplace. With the “Diversus” focus project and the resulting measures, we are seeking to continue to improve the equal opportunities landscape in our workforce.
(> Diversus)

^{8 Scope of survey: national; active regular staff; time: December 2019
9 Scope of survey: national / international; active regular staff; time: December 2019
10 Scope of survey: national; active regular staff; time: December 2019
11 Scope of survey: national; active regular staff; time: December 2019}

RATIO OF EMPLOYEES WITH SERIOUS DISABILITIES
We also aspire to continuously improve the general conditions in the TÜV NORD GROUP in the future.¹¹

This applies, for example, to modern working conditions in a digital world of work. To this end, we have concluded agreements on mobile working, a mobile device management agreement which makes the use of mobile devices safer, and an agreement on an online booking platform for business trips. Moreover, employees can now also make their views known on the intranet using the Like and Comment functions. We are involved in lively discussions with our Group disability representation on the topics of serious disability and inclusion.

The question of the added value generated by co-determination was discussed intensively at the staff council meeting in Berlin in November 2019. The employer representatives and the representatives of co-determination bodies such as the trade union, the staff council and the supervisory board agreed on one thing: sharing the task of determining the future of the company has played a key role for the TÜV NORD Group in the past – and will continue to do so in the future.

STAFF COUNCILS
are in place in the TÜV NORD GROUP in Germany: with a Group Staff Council, nine general staff councils and 57 local and company staff councils.