TÜV NORD GROUP  |  CORPORATE REPORT

HR Report

The TÜV NORD GROUP has been the byword for safety and reliability for the last 150 years. We continue to be appreciated worldwide as a guarantor of neutrality and the highest technical standards. As a service provider in the ­technology and safety fields, we are concerned with finding answers to the important global questions of the future – ­wherever we operate in the world. This is how we help shape society and people’s lives every single day. “We” in this case refers to the over 14,000 employees of the TÜV NORD GROUP.

“People are the Key to Our Success”

At the beginning of the year, Dr. Astrid Petersen made history as the first female Board member in the more than 150-year history of the TÜV NORD GROUP to be appointed to the Board of Management, where she has taken responsibility for human resources. She combines the job with her role as Labour Director. She takes over from Harald Reutter, who has overseen these tasks since 2012. The ever broader key issues of digitalisation, demographic change and growth have always demanded complete commitment, as they still do: on this, the outgoing Board member and his successor agree.

The year 2020 was defined by the coronavirus pandemic.
Was it, to put it bluntly, a year to run away from hard choices?

Harald Reutter From an HR point of view, absolutely not! Even though we were forced to introduce short-time working in some areas, we still offered job security at this difficult time. This is what we will continue to work for. Our employees changed their approach to business and how they work in the shortest possible time. We made progress on the issue of making work more flexible. And we saw a significant boost to the digitalisation of work processes, which, although it was already in evidence, developed much more dynamically than expected because of coronavirus.

Dr. Astrid Petersen And you have to remember that we did all this under our own steam. At the TÜV NORD GROUP, we’ve always done well when it comes to developing and implementing ideas which are adapted to our needs. For this, a big thank you goes out to all our employees worldwide! The vast majority of them adopted remote working models in a very short time, for example. Many team assistants also pushed ahead with digital improvements with incredible drive. There are countless examples throughout the Group of which we can all rightly be proud. People have shown just the right kind of energy at the right time …

... which the company will now need to achieve the objectives of the next few years. The key words here are growth and internationalisation.

Dr. Astrid Petersen Right; but we mustn’t forget another really big challenge: demographic change. Over the next ten years, we will need to replace 5,000 employees.

Harald Reutter Our advantage is that a lot of people want to work for us. We get a very large number of applications for our vacancies. We’re very proud of the fact that really good, motivated people want to join us.

Dr. Astrid Petersen We also need these people because we not only have to compensate for all the age-related retirements, but also want to implement the Group’s growth strategy. We hope to inspire a further 2,000 specialists to come and work for us over the next five years. This is about nothing less than the future viability of the Group.

But the idea is for them to feel more at ease with digital tools than clipboards.

Dr. Astrid Petersen If we want to become a knowledge group and a driver of innovation and digitalisation, we’re going to need committed people with digital expertise. We want to address this issue in a targeted way that covers as wide an area as possible – we want to reach out to everyone. Digital natives are currently extremely rare in our company.

Harald Reutter We’ve already achieved good results with the Digital Academy, but further action is needed. Our HR4Business programme, for example, has given us some important pointers in our jobs analysis. Last year, we asked employees about the equipment they have for their jobs and were given some good indications of where we need to make improvements.

In your view, does the working environment also cover the big issue of communication?

Harald Reutter Definitely! It’s not just a matter of exchanging information using digital tools; it's also about the preservation and exchange of knowledge. If we want to develop into a knowledge group, communication is essential. Communication also has something to do with leadership culture: as a manager, do I have the courage to give my employees creative space? And, what’s more, how open and honest are we in our dealings with each other?

Dr. Astrid Petersen You also have the view of the employees: is permanent working from home the ideal way to go? I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this. Hardly anyone is willing to do without the real social contacts you get in the office. However, digital media are now indispensable whenever teams from several countries are working together on a project. By the way, it‘s been shown that teams get better the more mixed they are, in terms of age, gender, cultural background. We as a Group benefit from these teams and their experience – they are the key to our success!

Mr Reutter, Dr. Petersen, thank you very much.

The mission statement of the TÜV NORD GROUP – “We are all the key to our success” – took on a completely new dimension in 2020: with a new code of conduct, a new strategy – and, above all, a virus which forced us to completely change the way we work together, virtually overnight. It is thanks to the commitment of all its employees worldwide that the TÜV NORD GROUP has so far come through the crisis comparatively well.

THE PANDEMIC AS AN OPPORTUNITY

In 2020, nothing shaped the development of cooperation in the TÜV NORD GROUP as much as the coronavirus and its economic and social consequences – and this was by no means just a bad thing. Numerous challenges also resulted in a wide range of new opportunities. Thanks to the innovative strength, commitment, flexibility and exceptional teamwork of all the employees worldwide, the Group was fully capable of action at all times, and at no time was its continued existence ever in doubt. A coronavirus coordination office, which was set up in the shortest possible time, was and remains up to speed with all the activities in the company and continues to organise them efficiently and sensibly. So far, it has been possible to safeguard jobs in the TÜV NORD GROUP across the world – through the phased use of short-time work, but above all through new orders, innovative concepts and very close communication between the executives worldwide and with their employees.

Group-wide digitalisation in particular has taken a big leap forward. So as not to endanger our business and, above all, to protect our employees and customers from harm, we placed their safety and health at the top of the priority list from the very beginning. Many colleagues have taken advantage of the opportunity to work flexibly with regard to location and worked from home. A new digital system of communication was quickly established throughout the Group. To ensure that this changeover was as smooth as possible, the IT team worked at full speed to give all employees the support they needed, whenever they needed it. The online tools established for this purpose were very well received. Before the pandemic, for example, a maximum of 2,000 people per week were using Webex for confer­ences. During the first lockdown, however, we recorded a peak number of over 13,000. The Digital Academy also supported companies and employees in the swift and efficient switch to home working.

While the coronavirus pandemic meant in some cases that it was not possible to provide local services, a significant proportion of these was instead covered online. The TÜV NORD Akademie launched its online academy in April to allow events to be offered virtually which had originally been planned to take place face to face. This move turned out to be a great success: by the end of 2020, the online academy had brought together more than 3,800 participants, both internal and external. The range of events is also under constant development.

Demand for remote inspections and assessments also increased sharply. While the number of remote audits carried out in the whole of 2019 was in the low double-digit range, in April 2020 alone there were more than 1,000.

The well-established expertise of the TÜV NORD GROUP and the good cooperation between the companies also offered high levels of added value during the pandemic: As the demand for protective equipment and masks grew rapidly, we were able to offer support along the whole supply chain – and, in Germany, we moved into a leading position in the shortest possible time. Our Chinese company ensured in advance that numerous shipments would be delivered in full. Tests of goods and functionality were carried out by TÜV NORD CERT and DMT.

STRATEGY2025 – OUR TRANSITION TO A KNOWLEDGE GROUP

Every five years, the TÜV NORD GROUP reviews and realigns its Corporate Strategy. In the years 2015 to 2020, key planned figures were realised or even exceeded. Our position as a group with a broad-based business portfolio has proved its worth – especially in the coronavirus crisis. Alongside our classic services, we are now also in demand in the market as technology consultants and initiators.

The goal for the period from 2021 to 2025 is therefore to further establish ourselves as a knowledge group in the digitally networked world. At the same time, our priority must always remain the success of our customers. We want to further expand our position in the market with the strategic thrusts of innovation/digitalisation, sustainability, customer focus and internationali­sation.

This path should offer all our staff a wide range of opportunities for creativity and personal development. This is why we attach such great importance to offering them as much information as possible about Strategy2025 alongside opportunities to discuss it with them. In October 2020, a worldwide web conference was held with the Board of Management and the members of the Group Executive Committee. Some 2,000 colleagues took part and were also able to participate in the discussion via chat. Information is  continuously provided on the website and Intranet on the strategy issues that are emerging out of the Group and the business units. The Masterplan virtual learning platform will offer in-depth coverage of strategic issues as of 2021.
(> Recruiting and Developing Staff)

THE CODE OF CONDUCT

In 2020, we rolled out a new code of conduct throughout the Group. This fleshes out our mission statement: “We all are the key to our success”. For the Board of Management, management bodies, executives, employees and trainees and apprentices alike, this forms the globally binding basis for their personal actions in the com­pany. All other Group policies and company-internal regulations and instructions either feed into our mission statement and the code of conduct or are derived from it.

KEY CONTENT OF THE CODE OF CONDUCT

Our individual conduct
We are a global network in which we live out our mission statement by projecting our professionalism out into the world. We always act fairly, appreciatively and without discrimination and ­always keep an eye on the economic, ecological and social impact of our actions.
 
Our approach to customers
The focus of our company processes is on customer needs, quality and operational efficiency. We aim to constantly improve and enhance our value added in these areas. Behaving with integrity in respect of conflicts of interest, invitations, gifts and in our dealings with office bearers and government bodies is crucial here.

Integrity and confidentiality
We protect the material and intangible assets of the TÜV NORD GROUP with the utmost care and use them exclusively for legi­ti­mate business purposes. This conduct is particularly evident in the context of financial integrity, data protection, intellectual property and insider knowledge.

DIGITAL DAY 2020

We enjoy sharing our passion for a safe and secure life, lifelong learning and digital transformation with the interested public. For this reason, on 19 June 2020 the TÜV NORD GROUP participated in the first nationwide Digital Day under the #digitalmiteinander banner. In numerous campaigns, contributions and webinars, we offered other participants the chance to look behind the scenes and answered questions about what digital change means to us, the concerns that come with it, and how we aim to learn with and from each other in the future.

The digital transformation is changing our markets. New business models, products and services are being developed worldwide that offer growth opportunities while at the same time demanding new skills from our employees. The HR Strategy of the TÜV NORD GROUP defines how we are going to rise to the wide-ranging challenges of our time and sets out the long-term framework for our HR work within the Group.

TWO YEARS OF HR4BUSINESS

The aim of the HR4Business plan which ran in both 2019 and 2020 was to involve the entire HR division in meeting the requirements of the business units. To this end, we developed five priority projects from a wide range of perspectives within the company, which were dedicated to achieving this goal:

• “Join Us” revolved around target-group-oriented recruitment and HR marketing.
• With “PErspekt”, we honed our portfolio in HR development and vocational training.
• “Plan2Success” was concerned with HR planning and knowledge management.
• The aim of “Diversus” was to help us unleash the numerous potentials of diversity more effectively within the Group and to promote new work.
• “SupVice” analysed the economic viability, quality and speed of HR functions in the company.  

We successfully implemented a total of 31 measures and will continue to work on five more in 2021. Additional follow-up measures are also planned.

EXAMPLE MEASURES FROM THE PRIORITY PROJECTS

Introduction of a strategic professional career path
Due to increasingly flat hierarchies and the advance of digita­li­sation, the need for expert positions is increasing. For this reason, TÜViT, as a pioneer in the Group, has embarked on the introduction of a strategic professional career path as an alternative to the management career path. Individual development opportunities also enhance employer attractiveness.
 

Milestones and achievements:

• Evaluation of existing and potential new expert positions
• Development and approval of a concept proposal
• Call for candidates for the new expert positions (internal and external) after the adoption of the company agreement on the professional career path

Strategic succession planning
Strategically targeted, cross-business succession planning for filling key management and technical positions from our own ranks will reduce personnel risks. For this reason, we ­introduced GLOBENT, a group-wide talent management system.
 

Milestones and achievements:

• Employee retention with transparent career prospects
• Clear, secure and central data overview
• Lower recruiting costs
• Increase in internal staffing quality and speed

Further development of work and family life
We can do a great deal to ensure that employees can easily reconcile their professional and family lives: we can create opportunities, offer our staff transparent and detailed information – and ensure that the executives in the Group recognise and embody their responsibilities and role models in this relationship.
 

Milestones and achievements:

• Revised and extended Intranet presence on the reconcila­bility of work and family life
• Redesign of the digital vocational training portfolio for our executives with the purpose of strengthening the system for exchanging experience and the internal network

OUTLOOK: THE NEW HR STRATEGY

Following the successful completion of HR4Business, we aim to work in a future-oriented manner throughout the HR sector and to prepare ourselves as well as we possibly can for the challenges ahead. We are therefore realigning our HR Strategy between now and 2025, thereby also feeding into the new corporate strategy.
(> Recruiting and Developing Staff)

Our employees are the key to our success, and each and every one of us is an important part of our company. For this reason, we also want to retain newly recruited employees in the long term, to help them in their development and to strengthen their identification with the TÜV NORD GROUP. One key phrase in this context is the digital transformation. A large part of our business is already based on new digital technologies, and many more are in prospect for the future.

For the TÜV NORD GROUP and its HR division, this means that we need to promote international and digital leadership skills even more strongly than before and break down rigid hierarchies. We need more agile and flexible work structures and models in all business units that will leave room for creativity. In doing so, we want to further reinforce the perception of the TÜV NORD GROUP as an attractive employer.

We also have many other objectives: for example, we are working on developing our HR services and concepts for employees of the international companies. In doing so, we want to design the portfolio in such a way that it can be tailored to their individual needs. It is also important to us to continue to promote all the dimensions of equality of opportunity in our activities – for employees and applicants alike. We are particularly focusing on significantly increasing the diversity of our teams in the future.

Finding the right professionals and offering them long-term support are crucial for growth and innovation. For this reason, we attach great importance to a modern, consistent recruitment and talent management programme with a focus on digital and leadership skills. Both internally and externally, we as an employer aim to be the byword for diverse tasks, responsibility, a forward-looking mindset, collegiality and individual development opportunities – and we work every day to bring these values to life for the long term.

EMPLOYER ATTRACTIVENESS

Talents in the labour market rely in particular on what employees say; however, rankings and rating platforms are becoming ever more important. We are therefore delighted that we once again achieved good results in 2020. This is confirmed by an internal survey on the Group’s reputation: the working atmosphere, interesting products and services and the good work-life balance crop up frequently as good reasons to choose the TÜV NORD GROUP as an employer. Last but not least, the relatively low numbers leaving the company also testify to a high level of employee loyalty: At 3.7% in 2020, we performed even better than in the previous year (3.9%).¹ Also very good is the average length of service at the TÜV NORD GROUP in Germany, which has now been over ten years for some time.²

^{1 / 2} Scope of survey: HC; Germany; active regular staff; period 01. 01.–31. 12. 2020

AWARDS & RANKINGS

• For the third year in a row, the independent “Leading Employers” study lists TÜV NORD among the TOP 1% of all German employers and among the TOP 1% of training companies.
• The kununu employer evaluation platform lists TÜV NORD, as before, as an Open Company and a Top Company.
• We once again perform very well in the “Universum-Arbeitgeberranking” (“Universal employer ranking”). With young professionals, TÜV NORD is represented in all categories in which IT has for the first time been added to the fields which students are interested in alongside medicine, engineering and natural sciences.
• The following employer rankings and platforms also rate TÜV NORD positively: Glassdoor, Indeed, Trendence, MINT (STEM) Minded Company, Potentialpark Audit.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING AND DUAL STUDIES

Notwithstanding the challenges of the pandemic, the development of our current 37 trainees and apprentices and 20 dual students was a top priority. With full observation of the applicable hygiene regulations, the seminar weeks for the first and second years of vocational training took place almost as usual. For the first time, however, the skills training for quality assurance for vocational training and studies for the Group's vocational training officers and practical support providers was carried out exclusively digitally. Moreover, for the “ID Monitoring” development programme, a pilot project is cur­rently in preparation after having been presented to the Group Staff Council. The programme should start one to two years after completion of vocational training or studies.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING POSITIONS

• Electronics engineers for devices and systems
• IT specialists for system integration
• Precision mechanics
• Office management employees
• IT system management employees
• Mechatronics engineers
• Medical professionals
• Surveying technicians

DUAL STUDY COURSES WITH INTEGRATED PRACTICE

• Applied computer sciences
• Computer sciences
• Electrical engineering
• Mechanical engineering
• Mechatronics
• Human Resources management
• Process engineering

NEW TALENTS

In 2020, we redesigned the onboarding event for the TÜV NORD GROUP. To enable new employees to get off to a good start in the coronavirus age, even without the option of a face-to-face meeting, those responsible in the Talent Management division joined forces with the TÜV NORD Akademie to develop the first digital international onboarding event. We were particularly pleased to note that a large number of international colleagues also took part – even though they were in some cases in completely different time zones: For some, the event started at 3 a.m.; for others it ended late at night. (> Diversity and participation)

The meeting for scholarship holders also took place virtually for the first time this year, also with more participants than in the previous year. The number of scholarship holders also increased overall: from 30 to 42. (> Diversity and Participation)

RECRUITMENT AND SUCCESSION

In HR requirements planning, we focused in 2020 on the design and further development of various programmes: In the future, we want to further improve our analyses of the potential of the applicants and of all our employees. Industrial Services was the first business unit to start new diagnostic methods. In the course of our development discussions, we were also able to fill many ­vacant leadership positions with internal candidates. Many others have been given responsibility in technical or project management. In addition, a management audit is now professionalising the pre­selection of candidates for top management posts. A relaunch of our guidance and assessment centres is planned for 2021.

So that we can identify and develop potentials at an early stage while at the same time reducing risks, we introduced a strategic succession management system in 2020. Pilot programmes are currently underway in three business units. After completion of the pilots in 2021, the experience gained will be evaluated and and the Group-wide roll-out prepared.

DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT FORMATS

In 2020 – not only in the context of the pandemic – numerous development programmes revolved around the topic of digitalisation: for example, we completely digitalised the development ­programmes for junior, middle and senior management in the course of the year. In the context of GEM, a mentoring programme for intergenerational work, junior participants pass on their digi­talisation knowledge to senior team members, while the latter offer advice on career development and network expansion.

One particular success story is “Masterplan”, a joint project of the Digital Academy and the TÜV NORD Akademie. This virtual learning platform conveys and deepens knowledge of the basic principles and dimensions of digitalisation. It is available to all ­employees who wish to continue their vocational training independently. In autumn 2020, 1,300 users from 25 countries were already active.

The modern world of work is characterised by flexible employment relationships and working models, international competition and digital challenges. We work every day to create a healthy and motivating work environment – a task that took on a whole new dimension in the coronavirus year of 2020.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH PROMOTION

Promoting and maintaining the health of our workforce is a key priority for us – even though large parts of the workforce are not able to work on site. In 2020, we almost completely switched the existing occupational health promotion portfolio to online formats, making access to it less dependent on a particular location. We also developed and offered afresh various formats, some with an explicit coronavirus reference. In addition to the virtual early mor­ning exercise session entitled “Healthy through the day”, also on offer was a virtual active break, a resilience seminar and a relaxation course to promote the ability to relax physically and ­psychologically and to apply what had been learned in everyday life. A motivational talk focused on how to maintain the work-life balance even in the era of digitalisation and how time-out oppor­­tunities for relaxation and rebalancing could be created. Also demonstrated were some of the opportunities and risks of mobile work as well as tips for good time management to help employees manage their current challenges.

BENEFITS

• Flexible working time models
• Opportunities for location-flexible working
• Support for childcare
• Occupational health promotion
• Travel risk management
• TÜV NORD Combined model – occupational pensions

RECONCILING WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

Aside from the pandemic, we placed a special emphasis on the ­reconciliation of work and family life in 2020, for example, by overhauling our Intranet site. This means that the available information on the range of benefits is now available to all employees in a more comprehensive, better structured, simpler and more up-to-date form than before – for example, with regard to preg­nancy and parental leave or the care of relatives.
(> Diversity and Participation)

The conduct of our executives is crucial in determining whether our employees make use of the existing offers or, in collaboration with their superiors, find individual solutions. The executives are the first points of contact, are on hand to provide advice and have the authority to offer creative leeway to their staff. At the same time, they themselves are often faced with the challenge of balancing work and family life. In this way, they are not only enabling greater flexibility for their employees but are also acting as role models. Moreover, the expectations brought to bear on executives have increased in this regard, especially in the case of young talent. For this reason, in August 2020, a first online seminar on the recon­ciliation of work and family life was held for the executives, which provided information about challenges, figures and best practices and offered stimulating ideas for their own work. The feedback from the participating executives was consistently positive, and the follow-up dates were booked out very quickly. For this reason, the plan is to establish this webinar as a permanent offer in 2021 and to develop a second webinar to address further reconcilability issues.

It should be noted, incidentally, that the good work-life balance within the TÜV NORD GROUP has also not gone unnoticed outside the Group. Internal surveys have shown that this is one of the top three reasons to choose the TÜV NORD GROUP as an employer.
(> Recruiting and Developing Staff)

We are convinced that diversity of all kinds within the TÜV NORD GROUP and its business units represents a direct competitive advantage. In the long term, it will ensure greater innovative strength and higher profitability – and, last but not least, it simply makes work more enjoyable. This is why we once again took a whole range of measures in 2020 to consistently promote diversity throughout the whole Group.

Our society is colourful and diverse – and this should also be reflected in our working world. By signing the Diversity Charter, we have also committed ourselves to promoting this diversity. We want to support our most qualified talents – regardless of cultural background, age, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or physical abilities – and secure their long-term loyalty to the TÜV NORD GROUP as an employer.

THE PRIORITY TOPIC FOR 2020: WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

So that we can put this concept into practice even more fully, particular attention was paid in 2020 to reconciling work and family life at all stages of life. The companies of the TÜV NORD GROUP see this as an integral part of their business strategies and have committed themselves to introducing appropriate activities to help employees establish a good work-life balance; this will also promote diversity within the Group. To this end, in their respective action programmes for the “audit berufundfamilie”, they have iden­tified specific measures that follow an overarching objective: to create the framework conditions for an appreciative, open and trusting culture in which employees and executives actively ap­proach each other to come up with shared solutions. Executives should lead by example and communicate the relevant themes and opportunities in their teams.
(> Conditions and Supplementary Benefits)

FURTHER AUDIT AIMS FOR “WORK AND FAMILY LIFE”

Events

On Diversity Day on 26 May 2020, we explicitly celebrated the diversity of the TÜV NORD GROUP. Alongside a major quiz campaign, numerous submissions from our employees have given rise to a cookery book with more than 20 international recipes. Diversity Day is an initiative of the Diversity Charter.

In addition, other event formats also had a terrific effect: at the “International Digital Onboarding Week”, which included col­­leagues from all the companies for the first time in 2020, a total of 118 employees from England, India, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Croatia, Malaysia, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands took part.
(> Recruiting and Developing Staff)

We always attach great importance to finding solutions that are ­directly relevant to the individual lives of our employees. For this, close ­cooperation between the staff councils and the TÜV NORD GROUP as employer is decisive – even or especially in challenging times.

The work of our staff councils was all about the coronavirus pandemic in 2020: Staff council meetings took place largely virtually, as did negotiations on company agreements. This even applied to collective bargaining with the trade unions. The principle of codetermination also proved its worth in these times: due to the crisis, short-time working agreements were concluded in a wide range of companies.

The decisive Group operating agreements all focused on digitali­sation in 2020: for example, a software-supported global talent database was introduced in the Group for strategic succession management and numerous agreements on digitalised workflows were signed. From a crisis-management point of view, however, the agreement on the Group-wide introduction of the Jabber communication client proved to be particularly helpful – following on from a 2019 decision collaboration with the Group Staff Council to allow occasional, location-flexible work in. In addition, Microsoft Teams was initially rolled out as a pilot project in some companies in 2020, and, at the end of the year, the corresponding oper­ating agreement was also concluded for the entire Group.