Colleagues
At the end of the first quarter of 2011, Vestas had 22,216 employees. Vestas will continue to apply the “people before megawatt” principle, because the costs of well-educated excess capacity are lower than the costs of remedying faults due to a rushed staff inflow caused by strong MW growth. Lay-offs will be a measure of last resort for Vestas due to the substantial loss of know-how and experience associated with such lay-offs.Due to enhanced efficiency, improved turbine performance and economies of scale, going forward, Vestas expects its headcount to rise at a lower rate than its business volume. This also applies to investments in new factory capacity as Vestas regularly increases factory output. As a result, growth at Vestas is becoming less expensive. Longer term, Vestas will seek to involve its suppliers in larger parts of the production than is the case today.
All Vestas employees are covered by a bonus scheme. For employees in the business units, 70 per cent of the bonus depends on targets specific to the business unit, whilst 30 per cent depends on the Group fulfilling announced targets for the year including developments in customer satisfaction. For employees in the Group staff functions, the bonus depends exclusively on the fulfilment of the announced targets. When calculating the bonus for 2011, each component is weighted as follows: An EBIT margin of 8.4 per cent (35 per cent weighting), a free cash flow of EUR 200m (30 per cent weighting), revenue of EUR 7bn (15 per cent weighting) and a customer loyalty index of 72 (20 per cent weighting). In the longer term, bonus payments will be more closely linked to the day-to-day performance of each employee. Vestas' global bonus scheme did not lead to disbursements for 2010.
As part of Triple15, Vestas aims, in terms of cultural versatility, to become a more international business with a much higher proportion of both non-Danish nationals and women employed in management positions. At the end of the first quarter, non-Danish nationals held 51 per cent of the positions in the top 3,000, and 18 per cent were women. In the period until 2015, the intention is for the proportion of women managers to rise and to increase the share of non-Danish nationals in management positions. Another aim is to have many nationalities represented at all locations. Qualifications always have first priority.
