LIFE

With LIFE voestalpine has brought into being a comprehensive programme aimed at adapting its corporate culture and working processes to the increasing average age of the workforce and to the threatening shortage of younger workers. It is one of the first companies in Austria to do so.

LIFE is leading the shift to conversion of our working world for all age groups, and is aiming at finding the best possible mix of performance, working conditions, health, meaningfulness and co-operation.


The demographic development that is actually influencing the company’s age structure is behind the programme. By 2010 the voestalpine group is reckoning on a marked increase in the number of employees aged over 50. Implementation of the company strategy would become increasingly difficult without adjustment of the underlying conditions for this group of employees, because reduced physical capacity for work, coupled simultaneously with insufficient specialist ‘stretching’, might lead to considerable performance failures by older employees. If voestalpine were to become less attractive as an employer, then that would also be bound up with rising staff costs for new generations of managers that would be in shorter and shorter supply.

It is intended that the balance of the generations be preserved by older employees remaining longer at work, by sustained integration of younger, up-and-coming managers, by the systematic dissemination of knowledge and experience, and by keeping up the quality of teamwork and relationships throughout the group.


The LIFE programme is operated jointly by employees, by the representatives of the workforce, and by the company’s management.