Three questions put to Susanne Wiemer, Head of Group Human Resources
The question of whether to have a binding quota for female managerial staff is currently being hotly disputed between politicians and business executives. How does TUI view this subject and what is the women's quota like within the Group?
Susanne Wiemer: Essentially we appoint people to managerial positions in the TUI Group not on the basis of quotas, but based on qualification and performance. Our definition of a managerial position is someone who in his or her role has the responsibility for the planning, running and control of routine business and the disciplinary and subject management of a number of employees of an organisational unit. On this basis even now 39 percent of our managerial staff in TUI companies are women, whereby the overall number of female employees makes up 70 percent of the workforce.
That means TUI is in a better position than most other companies. Does TUI regard this as a reason to take it easy or is there still a need to take action?
Susanne Wiemer: Indeed, the women’s quota we have is quite respectable, yet we are still not satisfied. The proportion of women in managerial roles has constantly increased throughout the Group during recent years, but it is still too low considering the gender distribution within the overall workforce. A positive development can be observed above all in middle management, for here the proportion of women at TUI is in part well above average. At top level management there is at TUI – as is the case in almost all major German companies – still room to improve.
Susanne Wiemer: Two things are important. Firstly, at the moment we are thinking intensely about a voluntary commitment. It is a good idea, or even essential, to have a fixed goal in front of you and by keeping an eye on this guideline we can measure our progress and make it visible. And secondly, we have developed in-house a package of measures that should help us achieve our goals. It includes, amongst other things, special successor and talent management training and mentoring programmes as well as the improvement of our child supervision and “active fatherhood“, that is the idea of more male employees taking advantage of parental leave. After all, the easier it is to bring together one’s career and one’s family, the more opportunities there will be for women at managerial level.