Women at Volkswagen Poznań

15 March 2016

Volkswagen Poznań has one of the highest levels within the company of employing women. It is continually welcoming women and is at the same time showing that, even in such a masculine industry as the auto industry, women can find rewarding work. At present, almost 700 women work in various positions at Volkswagen Poznań, and the company plans to hire as many as 185 for the factory in Września, for direct production jobs.

We want to show that work on car production is interesting, provides opportunities and is absolutely not reserved just for men,” says Jolanta Musielak, Member of the Management Board for Personnel at VWP. “We can already boast of a large number of female workers. And I’m not only thinking of administrative workers. More and more women are working in direct production jobs, including in the paint shop and the Quality Guarantee Department. At Volkswagen Poznań, women manage purchases, personnel, finances and more. Many women have taken on management positions,” Musielak adds.

One of them is Dominika Tomaszewska-Lama, who has worked at Volkswagen Poznań for over 13 years. She began as a specialist in the Logistics Department, and since 2008 has been Director of the Logistics Control Department. She currently manages two plants - Poznań and Września. When asked if working in a ‘man’s industry’ requires additional skills and traits, she answered diplomatically that one certainly works differently with women than men.

 “In my opinion, the key is to be aware of the differences between women and men. In the technical departments I represent, a woman may have to show a lot of patience in building up her position and authority as a professional,” Dominika Tomaszewska-Lama summarizes.

Volkswagen Poznań also encourages women to take on direct production jobs, and has already seen measurable results of this policy. These are seen, for example, in the databases in which job applications are gathered. “We currently have more than four hundred applications registered from women who are ready to join us,” counts Jolanta Musielak. “It is worth pointing out that those candidates can boast of having acquired a very high level of medical abilities.”

Women have already found employment at Volkswagen Poznań - 36 paint shop workers, 11 quality controllers, and one automatic control engineer. In addition, in the Volkswagen Poznań foundry, 12 women are employed are employed directly on the production of components.

“We’re banking on women, their strength, responsibility and precision. We want that to be the motto for personnel management in our company,” declares Jolanta Musielak, Member of the Management Board for Personnel at VWP. “We believe and have more and more examples of how work in the auto industry can be great for women, a career challenge with prospects.”