Employer attractiveness
In 2022, we continued our employment campaign despite a tense labor market. Six large image campaigns and more than 100 recruitment campaigns were rolled-out specifically targeted at high school children, students, university graduates and skilled employees. We won a Red Dot Design Award and a Trendence Award for the “What you are made of” campaign targeted at high school students. We received a bronze Deutsche Digital Award for the campaign “No stress. Do something. At Deutsche Bahn.” campaign aimed at high school students. The launch of our employer branding campaign for 2023 “What is important to you?” was also prepared on the basis of a newly developed global employer value proposition.
We also further developed our diversity recruiting strategy. Among other things, our inclusion center gives all applicants with disabilities, i.e. with a characteristic listed in the Ninth Book of the German Social Code who are rejected in the regular application process, a second chance to find a suitable place to start in DB Group. In order to prevent discrimination in the recruitment process, we offer recruiters and persons involved in the recruitment process training on unconscious bias, errors of judgment and diversity recruiting workshops. We are also part of the “Fair Company Initiative” network, which works towards fairness in the working environment.
In order for us to be visible as a leading employer for women and achieve the goal of “30% women in leadership” by 2024, DB World Women’s Month was also implemented in 2022 as a measure of our women’s recruitment strategy. In March 2022, we changed roles and introduced ourselves to the 26 million women in employment through the “biggest job application in Germany.” The nationwide campaign ran on high-reach digital channels and social media. There were 20 recruiting and networking events, a social media campaign and the live stream “Germany’s biggest job interview,” with around 1,200 participants and around 500 questions submitted. Overall, we were able to hire 718 new women in March 2022 alone, significantly more than in the other months of the year. For our women’s recruitment strategy, we won the German HR Award in the “Recruiting and Employer Branding” category. As the best employer for women in the railway sector, we received the “Women in Rail Award 2022” from the European Union.
Shortly after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, we set up comprehensive advisory services to help refugees get oriented and enter the German labor market. This is based on three pillars:
- Our careers portal contained all the information on working in Germany, an overview of our advisory services and specific job vacancies. In addition, contact data could be stored here for a personal consultation.
- On working days, refugees were able to receive advice via a hotline.
- In cooperation with the Federal Employment Agency, consultation centers were opened near the main stations in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne and Leipzig. The centers also answered questions about jobs outside DB Group.
A total of around 3,500 refugees from Ukraine received advice. We were even able to welcome 75 of them as our new colleagues. We received a Trendence Award in the special category “Companies helping people” for our advisory and support services.
In order to be a force for climate protection on the labor market and position ourselves as a sustainable employer, in cooperation with Bergwaldprojekt e. V., in 2022 we started planting a tree for every new employee throughout Germany. Before their first working day, candidates will receive their plant certificate.
We continued to focus on innovation in addressing our target groups. One example is the DB Job-Welt, where we met with candidates from all target groups at the main stations in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main and offered individual advice on regional entry opportunities.
Our career portal was also further developed. By integrating Google Maps, candidates can search for jobs in specific regions. In addition, all information on how the recruitment procedure works is communicated in a transparent manner. As soon as an application has been submitted via the career portal, candidates can track the status of their application and are also proactively kept up to date by the recruiters by e-mail or by telephone.
DB Group also received other important industry awards: we won a Trendence Award for our job advertisement generator “DB Jack – Job Ad Construction Kit,” which was developed in-house. The Art Directors Club honored us with two bronze nails and an award in the categories of “Digital Product Augmented Reality,” “Motion Design Social Media” and “Dialog Activation Social Media.” We were also awarded the “DB Impact of Diversity Award” by the Women’s Career Index (FKi).
