You’ve been with VTG since January 2024. How did you settle in?

By engaging in a lot of dialogue – with my team members, as well as with the VTG managers. I want to understand: What do you do and how? And why? I call this ‘getting close to the business.’ Only when I understand VTG – for instance, knowing which competencies matter, what’s important to our customers – only then can I actively support the business strategy and our transformation course with HR. Of course, I also review all relevant figures and data.

What topics are you focusing on?

I focus on the following five topics in particular:

1. Strengthening the business partner strategy: This means that managers have a permanent contact person at HR with whom they work closely on topics such as recruiting, succession planning, salary issues and the like.

2. The topic of “learning and development”: We need to bring targeted knowledge into the organization and ensure that the knowledge of experienced colleagues is passed on or is accessible to everyone. The VTG Academy is an important project in this regard.

3. The creation of a uniform remuneration structure: Our aim here is to create comparability and establish clear criteria for remuneration.

4. The harmonization and standardization of company-wide HR processes for uniform and efficient workflows.

5. The digitalization of these HR processes through SAP SuccessFactors, among other things.

Your role is new and was created as part of the transformation and growth strategy. Why is this necessary?

More than ever, it is important to see VTG as a whole – across the different office locations, workshops and countries. This must also be reflected in personnel processes, leadership culture and cooperation. This is the only way we can continue to grow together. The way we work together is crucial to our success. This topic is particularly close to my heart. I am aware that we are currently pushing ahead with many relevant transformation topics, but we also need to further develop our cooperation and our understanding of values together. We will start doing this in the coming weeks and critically scrutinize our values once again in line with our guiding principle of “Simplify, Connect, Grow”. Of course, we will not be doing this alone, but would like to involve employees from different locations in the form of international focus groups. We will also draw on the feedback we have already received from colleagues in other formats, such as the VTG Camps – so no feedback will be lost and we will incorporate the many valuable ideas and opinions of the VTG employees. The plan is to further develop our understanding of values from within in this way and ultimately build on the feedback from around 300 colleagues.

As part of the structural changes, it was also pointed out that the results of the last employee surveys, among other things, were decisive for this. In what way?

Based on the last MY VOICE, around 160 team workshops were held and over 500 action plans were developed in the teams – thank you very much for this great commitment! At the Executive Board, we looked at the results of the survey in detail and identified seven key topics that are particularly important to employees [Editor’s note: see graphic].

These key topics serve as orientation and essential fields of action for us in the course of the transformation. This is exactly what we must and want to work on in order to improve the satisfaction and identification of each individual with VTG. This included, among other things, striving for clarity and simplicity as well as the desire for structures that enable everyone to make the best possible contribution. We see this feedback as a clear mandate for us.

Thank you very much for the interview.