Training and education

In order to achieve our vision and advance our strategy, we rely on a learning organization. The targeted personal development of our employees has high priority.

HR Development is responsible for staff development. It supports the other departments, in close coordination with the local HR managers, in building employees’ skills in a directed way tailored to their needs. The objective is to meet current and future requirements and challenges. HR Development and vocational training are part of the HR Group department.

To fulfill future personnel requirements, we regularly assess demand for specific skills and trades, and offer apprenticeships accordingly. We also identify the demand for employee qualifications and successors for different positions in annual talks and in the yearly personnel planning process in order to develop and expand specialized skills and management expertise in a purposeful way.

We have developed and adjusted the training offerings in our leadership and qualification program according to the Group's needs. In particular, options for managers at the foreman level were a top priority. Employees are offered a number of technical training measures.

In addition to qualification and development programs geared to necessary skills, for example in the areas of the AOS and in project management, we also rely on platforms for networking and discussing best practices (e.g., expert panels and online learning groups). We have established a variety of new qualification offers: in our one- to two-hour micro-learning units, called “Learning Nuggets,” participants learn and test new skills. The “Aurubis Essentials” series of short seminars presents important overarching topics to interested employees to promote a comprehensive understanding of the company.

We are proud of our high training and retention rate. This ensures that we have a sufficient number of qualified employees. At our site in Pirdop, Bulgaria, we have implemented a vocational training program based on the Swiss training model.

Aurubis Hamburg has been participating in the internship model AV 10-Plus since 2007. The model supports young people from a range of occupational groups, helping them to gain the qualifications required to begin apprenticeships. In 2018/19, five of the ten participants took on an apprenticeship at Aurubis. The remaining participants started external apprenticeships or have now gone on to higher education.

Recently, we invested in the construction of two modern vocational training centers in Lünen and Hamburg. In Lünen, the building next to the training workshop will also be home to the Occupational Safety and Technology divisions, while in Hamburg, Training and Research & Development (R&D) will be located in the Innovation and Training Center. The shared building emphasizes the even stronger cooperation expected between R&D and vocational training in the future.

Furthermore, we cooperate with partner universities, offer internships to students in Germany, and provide thesis projects and scholarships.

Key measures of the Sustainability Strategy 2018–2023 and their status in fiscal year 2018/19

• Regularly identifying qualification needs to expand project, ­process, and management expertise in a targeted way
  In fiscal year 2018/19, the Aurubis Leadership Behaviors were developed and introduced by bringing managers together in peer groups. To foster young talent, development centers were created to identify potential and thus select participants for the talent development program. Project management training is offered at an international standard including certification, and a “community of practice” – a group for employee dialogue focusing on project management – is under development.
• Starting the Group-wide introduction of the AOS pillar “Education and Training”
  During the reporting year, additional AOS basic training sessions took place and the pilot for AOS e-learning was concluded. Currently, three pilot projects are underway to introduce the qualification matrix in different areas within the Operations division. The pilot projects ran until September 30, 2019 and are now being evaluated. The modular training course to become an AOS Expert started at the Hamburg plant, and by the end of fiscal year 2019/20, a total of 5 % of employees will have completed the entire training course and be AOS Experts. Equivalent AOS Expert qualifications are being planned at other plants and will be carried out locally according to the plants’ specific needs.
• Establishing Group-wide knowledge management to identify, ­preserve, transfer, and enhance knowledge across functions
  The necessary personnel resources were provided during the reporting period. A structured process was drafted and the pilot phase for Group-wide knowledge management started.

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