Work-life balance is important to us

An important objective of our personnel policy is to enable all of us at VAUDE to shape a productive working life to match our ideas about what makes life good. A challenge that’s worth it: a good life balance for our employees also pays off in the form of outstanding products and service for our customers.

We are proud of our flexible personnel policy

We provide flexible working hours – 40 % of our employees work part-time.

About 300 employees regularly work remotely (from home offices, for example).

In 2023, 51 employees were on parental leave. 22 employees returned to work in 2023 after their parental leave. We work hard to find individual solutions for each and every one of these employees.

The VAUDE Kinderhaus childcare center serves 31 children.

We offer the option of taking multi-week "time off" on a case-by-case basis, as well as the opportunity to work for several weeks from a privately chosen location abroad ("workations").

The foundation for our cooperation within the company is a positive understanding of human nature, which is influenced by trust. We believe that employees are fundamentally self-motivated. They enjoy the effort of putting their skills to use and are happy to take on responsibilities. Read more at "A foundation of trust."

We see it as our job to create the conditions in which employees can grow and learn in their own way. Flexible working hours and leave, part-time positions and childcare in the VAUDE Kinderhaus and trust-based working hours are only a few measures that help our employees live their lives as they wish while staying healthy and productive.

Part-time leadership

»I run my department with a 90 % work week so I can spend more time with my family. That doesn't mean my team can do less. I focus on the delegation of responsibility and high efficiency.«

Gernot Moser, Head of Sales Department Bike Sport

Full-time employees at VAUDE work 40 hours a week. Anything less than this is classified as part-time work and paid in proportion to a full-time salary.

At VAUDE, 23 % of managers work part-time. Around 16 % work less than 30 hours per week.

We try to prevent overtime

Preventing overtime is also an issue at VAUDE. Taking personal responsibility for one's working hours, which emphasizes achieving goals rather than daily presence, is a way to proactively prevent the accumulation of overtime and requires a high level of self-leadership from our employees. Since 2024, all employees have been electronically recording their working hours, providing us with better transparency regarding the resource of working hours and thus making it more manageable compared to 2023.

At VAUDE, overtime is compensated with time off. However, because some of our employees worked without formal time tracking in 2023, we have not yet been able to collect precise company-wide data.

Our last employee survey "VAUDE Employee Barometer" that was conducted at the end of 2020 in cooperation with the IFBG (Institut für Betriebliche Gesundheitsberatung) and the Techniker Krankenkasse however, revealed encouraging results. Overall, our employees felt that the quantitative requirements at work (including the need to work overtime) were lower than the comparative assessment, which is cited as representative of the German working population.

Mobile working for a good work-life balance

We have been offering the option of working from home or another location for several years. A company agreement on mobile working has been in force since late 2017 which grants this option to all employees, provided that the type of work task does not necessarily require a physical presence at the office. In 2023, an estimated 300 employees were primarily using the home office working model.

Since 2022, an interdisciplinary working group has been dealing even more specifically with the needs of different types of work: "On Site Workers" include those colleagues who, partly due to the necessities of their work tasks and partly due to their personal preferences, work 80-100 % of their time on our VAUDE premises; this was an estimated 52 % of all employees at the end of 2022. "Hybrid employees" work approx. 40-60% of their time on the move and the rest of the time on site at VAUDE (approx. 38%). "Vagabonds" spend 80% (approx. 9%) of their time working on the move and only occasionally visit our company headquarters. For us as an organization, the consistent acceptance of the different working models, including the provision of suitable equipment and the corresponding adaptation of the collaboration processes, is both a challenge and a great opportunity to be attractive as a socially sustainable employer for many people in the long term.

Arbeiten von zu Hause aus – ein Vorteil nicht nur für Familien

Even before the Corona pandemic, we received a great deal of positive feedback regarding our mobile working options. During the pandemic, mobile work became an important protective measure for staying healthy. Our employees appreciate the impact this has on being able to balance family commitments such as childcare with work demands, as well as the time and money they save by eliminating their commute.

Time and Space for Personal Pursuits

Our team members also occasionally desire additional freedom for personal projects or relaxation. In these instances, we engage in one-on-one discussions to find solutions that accommodate their plans while ensuring that the productivity and goals of their respective units are not significantly affected. Options may include unpaid leaves of up to four weeks (referred to as "sabbaticals" in our terminology) – 15 individuals took advantage of this opportunity in 2023. Additionally, "workations," where individuals work remotely while abroad, are becoming increasingly popular. Three people opted for this in 2023

Childcare in close proximity

In order to balance private and professional life, dependable childcare that is tailored to the needs of parents is essential. The VAUDE Kinderhaus, operated in cooperation with the city of Tettnang, has been a role model for this since 2001.

VAUDE provides the premises for the childcare center and takes on a significant proportion of the investment, adding up to approximately 50,000 euros per year – see "Creating added value through commitment". The remaining costs are covered by the city of Tettnang.

Up to 31 children are cared for in mixed age groups with after school programs and a crèche. About half are VAUDE employees' children; the other half includes children from the surrounding area.

The childcare center has become so popular that we can no longer fully meet the demand. 

Read more about the VAUDE Kinderhaus

Taking parental leave & returning to work

At VAUDE it is quite normal that parental leave is used extensively by women and men across all hierarchical levels and company divisions and, of course, that it is due to all employees. In 2022, 40 employees took parental leave (35 female; five male). This also includes those whose parental leave began before 2022.

To ensure that the mothers and fathers in our workforce are able to return to work quickly after parental leave in a way that is tailored to their personal needs, appropriate discussions are held with employees in our HR department before, during and after their parental leave. In 2023, 24 employees (17 of them female, seven male) planned to return to work after parental leave. All of them (100%) were able to re-enter jobs that matched their previous profile or - in some cases - were adapted to the changed needs of families in terms of framework conditions. From the 18 employees who returned to their jobs from parental leave in 2022, 17 are still employed at VAUDE.

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