Volvo Trucks rewarded for diversity initiatives
The factory manager, Anders Olausson, at Volvo Trucks, received the ‘Competence Award for Diversity Initiatives’ by ‘Manager’, the Swedish management magazine for his work on increasing the proportion of women in Volvo’s Tuve assembly plant in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Tuve factory assembles the company’s heaviest and most complex trucks, and since its inception in 1982 has been strongly male-dominated. Anders Olausson has worked to increase the proportion of female employees. The aim is that one out of every three new recruits should be female; an aim that has increased the proportion of women by 70 per cent – from 237 to 407 – in two years. “We can see that our business results benefit through greater diversity, not least through better balance between the genders in all jobs,” adds Anders Olausson. “We currently have 15 per cent female employees, of whom 8 women are in managerial positions. These are figures we aim to improve still further.”Apart from establishing clear-cut goals regarding new recruits, all the members of the executive management group at Tuve have undertaken the ‘Partnership for Success’ training course, an EU project which aims at boosting the number of women in leading positions. All managers at the level below the executive management group will also participate in the course in order to acquire greater awareness and practical experience of this issue.
