Non-financial performance indicators

Vienna Insurance Group has a corporate culture of appreciation and openness, and respect for fellow employees and stakeholders is highly important in the Group. VIG has been included in the VÖNIX Austrian sustainability index since 2005 and the global FTSE4Good Index since 2007. Both require that the profit-making aspects of business activities be successfully combined with social and environmental objectives.

The insurance business is based on trust. Vienna Insurance Group earns this trust not only in its day-to-day dealings with customers and business partners, but also by assuming social responsibility for initiatives that range from sponsoring local cultural events and providing funding for art projects all the way to active promotion of volunteer activities. Sustainable action takes a wide variety of forms in Vienna Insurance Group and its Group companies.

Social involvement – Example: Social Active Day

The Social Active Day is an important example in the area of social activities. Vienna Insurance Group began this initiative in 2011. It encourages Group employees to become involved in a good cause and as a rule allows them to take one working day off for this purpose. Special-needs facilities, homeless shelters and initiatives, nursing homes, orphanages, children's aid programmes, environmental protection programmes and many more receive active support.

Because of the impressive response, the Social Active Day has been successively expanded since it began, so that Group companies in 19 countries now participate. The number of days used by employees for volunteer activities rose to 4,566 in 2013 from 4,195 in the year before.

Cultural involvement – Example: Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra

The Group feels that arts and culture make an important contribution to a society's quality of life. For this reason, Vienna Insurance Group and its Group companies initiate and promote artists and cultural projects. One of these is the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, which Vienna Insurance Group has supported since 2011. The orchestra was founded in 1986 with the aim of helping young Austrian musicians play music with their colleagues from the former CSSR and Hungary. Since 1992, it has offered highly talented musicians throughout Europe up to the age of 26 the opportunity to work together with the great conductors and soloists of our time. The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra has been an ambassador of Unicef Austria since 2012.

In 2013, Herbert Blomstedt agreed to be a guest conductor. During its Easter tour the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra went, among other places, to Vienna, Paris, Zagreb, Bratislava and Lisbon. As a special honour, during Wagner Year 2013 the orchestra was invited to give two concert performances of Richard Wagner's Rienzi under the direction of Philippe Jordan at the Salzburg Festival.

Environmental factors

Conservation of resources and the environment play an important role for Vienna Insurance Group. This can be seen in the use of district cooling for energy-efficient air conditioning in the Company headquarters, products that promote environmentally-friendly customer behaviour and sustainable building methods for new construction projects. An example of this is the provincial headquarters of Wiener Städtische and Donau Versicherung that was newly opened in St. Pölten in 2013. In addition to providing modern office infrastructure, the design also meets state-of-the-art energy standards. Referred to as a “green building”, it incorporates low-energy design, a photovoltaic system and geothermal cooling of the IT and building services rooms.

Employees

The success of Vienna Insurance Group is based on the dedication of around 23,000 employees. The diversity of the different VIG companies is also a reflection of the diversity of its employees. This diversity is part of day-to-day life within the Group. Respect for different cultures and the cross-border exchange of experience and know-how have played an important role in the sustained success achieved by VIG. Identifying and developing the individual skills of each employee is particularly important, and a wide variety of training and advanced training opportunities, international exchange programs and international cooperations exist within the Group to ensure that this happens.

Employees by region

The Group had an average of 23,139 employees in 2013, with approximately 57% in the field sales force and 43% in administration. This is 947 less than the previous year. This decrease is primarily due to the restructuring in Romania. The decrease in the number of employees in the Central Functions segment was due to changes in the scope of consolidation.

Approximately 59% of the employees in the Group are women. Women held approximately 20% of the positions on the managing boards of VIG insurance companies at the end of 2013. A good third of the managers newly appointed to the managing board of a VIG insurance company in 2013 were women. Including distribution, women hold approximately 40% of the management positions at the level directly below the managing board in VIG insurance companies across Europe (not including distribution: 45%). Removing barriers to women's careers is one of the key elements of the personnel strategy at Vienna Insurance Group.