Appeal as an Employer

Our Approach

We create good and attractive jobs through a combination of an appreciative corporate culture, integrated and forward-looking personnel planning, and the continual adjustment of measures.

That is why we take a long-term approach with our personnel strategy: targeted recruiting is complemented by ongoing training and education, talent promotion and fair remuneration as well as extensive social benefits to promote employee loyalty. Accordingly, we consistently refined our human resources strategy during the reporting year, focusing on these three central levers.

With our insourcing strategy, we can offer our tenants high levels of quality, efficiency and security: Numerous tasks are performed by our own employees; the administration and organization areas are responsible for our technical service (VTS) and our internal residential environment service.

We believe the best way to cater to the variety of talent, skills and needs is through a response and support that is individual and differential. Our recruiting measures are therefore increasingly flanked by targeted advertising formats on social media channels and focus on the design of training concepts that particularly suit the individual roles, strengths and potential of our employees. Our aim is to ensure the constant support and development of our employees in every step of their career.

Our appeal as an employer is reflected in the satisfaction of our employees. Evaluation of employee satisfaction as a Group non-financial key performance indicator has therefore been an important element of the Sustainability Performance Index (SPI) since the 2021 reporting year.

All our HR processes and measures have a solid foundation: We are committed to upholding international working standards and statutory regulations as the minimum standard for our workplace. In the latest version of our Declaration of Respect for Human Rights, published by the Management Board in 2022, we specifically highlight the relevance of global human rights standards to us. This Declaration also applies to our subsidiaries. Neither we, nor any of our partners tolerate forced or child labor under any circumstances (see Human Rights Due Diligence and Supply Chain). We also make sure to comply with all relevant legislation in Germany, Austria and Sweden. We make sure that all changes to the law are reflected in our processes. Our Code of Conduct provides clear expectations for how the company and its employees are expected to behave. Vonovia is committed to the core labor standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in all areas, particularly with regard to freedom and rights of association. We aim to ensure that applicable laws (e. g. individual and collective labor laws), are complied with at all our sites. This means, among other things, that employee co-determination is made possible. We are committed to fostering a trusting and constructive exchange between management and employees in all of Vonovia’s business units through channels like works councils. Our employees are also free to form trade unions and exercise their statutory right to freedom of association.

Organizational Focus

At Vonovia, the CEO is responsible for HR work, which is established centrally as a shared service for a variety of areas within the HR department. In 2021, the shared service approach was transformed into an HR business partner model that continues to be developed on an ongoing basis. From January 1, 2023, this will also include the Deutsche Wohnen subgroup. Austria and Sweden have their own HR departments. Austria reports to the HR department in Germany via dotted-line reporting, whereas Sweden is still not firmly established in the reporting line. Here, monitoring and reporting takes place as and when required. The Head of HR discusses developments with the CEO on a regular basis. The objectives and focus of HR work are developed in collaboration with the Management Board and are then cascaded down throughout the organization. With the exception of the SYNVIA group and the companies in the Care and Assisted Living business area, the organizational integration of Deutsche Wohnen was completed by January 1, 2023 (see Nursing and Assisted Living).

Objectives and Measures

In terms of our processes in the field of corporate culture and employees, the 2022 reporting year was dominated by the integration project and the associated Growing Together initiative: Real estate portfolios, work processes and the structures of Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen were and are being combined throughout the whole Group. In addition, different working cultures, processes and views are in the process of forming a new whole. Preparations were intensively made for this process in the reporting year and will be continued in 2023. Our aim is to create a harmonious basis for our cooperation that is based on trust, and to recognize and develop the potential we have gained.

Various team-building measures were implemented in both parts of the company in the course of the “Growing Together” integration campaign to bring the corporate cultures and the employees together under one Group roof. Alongside this process, Deutsche Wohnen organized further training for employees, e. g., on how to handle changes within organizations and transformation processes. These measures were accompanied by a number of different formats such as our Growing Together hub with varied and informative content regarding the integration process, the “Von Schrippen und Stullen” (about bread rolls and sandwiches) podcast, with its insights into the corporate cultures on both sides and the joint Vonovia Day event in the Ruhrstadion for the entire workforce (see Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen Growing Together).

Project

Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen Growing Together

One highlight of the “Growing together” initiative was the joint Vonovia Day at the Vonovia Ruhrstadion in Bochum.

Recruitment

We want to find qualified and motivated individuals and interest them in the positions available at Vonovia, particularly in the craftsmen and technical fields. In the context of recruiting, we rely on a set of measures comprising the further development of the application and hiring process, the recruitment of skilled workers from abroad, and an optimized training concept and targeted further training for technical skilled workers and auxiliary staff. Our initiative to recruit skilled electrical installation and landscaping workers from Colombia, which was also launched in 2021 in partnership with the German Federal Employment Agency, led to the subsequent, initially temporary, employment of 17 skilled workers at several locations with the prospect of permanent employment, once their vocational degree is officially recognized. A second round of the initiative has since been launched. This process is an element of our recruitment strategy that we intend to expand in the future (see New Team Members from Colombia).

Project

New Team Members from Colombia

In order to counter the immense labor shortage, Vonovia has recruited 17 qualified specialists from Colombia as part of the German Federal Employment Agency's  “TEAM”project.

Project

Recruiting New Talent: 700 Summer Jobs in Sweden

With its summer job project, our Swedish subsidiary Victoriahem is creating real social added value locally that has a long-term positive effect on the entire neighborhoods, the living situations of the tenants, and the recruitment of young talent.

We also published specific job vacancies and launched image campaigns through various channels such as social media and radio, and expanded our “Hand aufs Werk” (in German) recruiting initiative in the reporting year. Our Austrian subsidiary BUWOG came third in the current year in the independent sector ranking for “Best Recruiter” after revising its employer branding concept. Our Swedish subsidiary Victoriahem is employing local recruiting measures, including in schools and in the neighborhoods – e. g. with the “Miljövärds” program, which focuses on the environment, and the summer jobs program, which finds temporary jobs for young people. Around 700 young people found a position in the reporting year (60 of them directly with Victoriahem in the project in Eskilstuna) (see Recruiting New Talent: 700 Summer Jobs in Sweden). Vonovia is planning to revise its employer branding strategy and associated recruiting and HR marketing measures in 2023.

Despite and even during the pandemic, we were able to hire a total of around 2,100 new employees in the 2022 fiscal year. The overwhelming majority of our employees – over 90% – have a permanent employment contract. We do not outsource jobs to other countries and only employ workers on a temporary basis in exceptional cases. In addition, we completely reject irregular employment relationships, such as seasonal work or false self-employment. We also had no need to use the works agreements on company shutdowns and short-time working in 2022.