Preventive healthcare and occupational safety
Volkswagen’s holistic healthcare management system extends beyond traditional preventive healthcare and occupational safety; it also covers aspects of work organization, workplace design, behavioral ergonomics, psychosocial aspects, rehabilitation and reintegration into working life as well as programs for preventing widespread diseases. The Group’s Health Department performs standardized health audits for this purpose. The Overall Factory White Paper for vehicle production plants serves as the basis for planning new factories in the Group. In the latest edition of the White Paper, released in 2016, international requirements were added, which means that the topic of health now applies to all locations worldwide.
To maintain and improve employees’ health and performance and help keep them fit, a free and comprehensive voluntary screening (check-up) is provided for all employees at almost all production facilities. In some cases, country-specific supplementary examinations, such as HIV and tuberculosis tests, have been added.
In light of the general increase in mental illness and stress, we also offer a broad range of services in this area to employees in the Group. This includes psychological training for managers and psychological support in emergencies – such as at SAIC Volkswagen in China – as well as a project for collecting information about psychosocial stress factors at SEAT in Spain and a psychosocial risk assessment and consultation at Audi in Hungary.
Another important action area in the Volkswagen Group is the continuous improvement of ergonomics. Volkswagen is aiming to ensure that the ergonomic quality of the workstations is taken into account throughout all production and work processes. With this in mind, we collaborate with scientists to combine state-of-the-art ergonomic workplaces with innovative work processes. As regards occupational safety, all Group companies covered by Group occupational safety management system used this to analyze their occupational safety organizations and processes. The results have been incorporated into a Group-wide benchmark and now provide the foundation for further improvements of the system.