Balance 2015 ENG - Interview with Åsa Lautenberg

Thus, we have not only introduced job rotation for management positions, but also launched a pilot project that allows employ- ees to transfer from one Lufthansa Group airline to another as smoothly as possible. Have you already set some goals for 2016? Indeed we have. Next year, a focus area will be the strategic project “HR Digitaliza- tion”. Here we will be investigating the jobs of the future and evaluating which proces- ses can be digitalized to an even greater extent. With this project, we are also aiming to increase efficiency further. Besides, we’re working on maintaining and deepening the commitment and trust of our employees – despite the current difficult climate. To achieve this, it is indispensable to establish a modern, open and less hier- archical management culture. Here the HR function stands by our managers as a sparring partner and supports them with effective instruments. One example is “Profile”, a tool introduced Group-wide in 2014 for assessing performance and talent. Another is the new Group-wide employee survey “involve me!”, which will begin in September this year. You have been heading the depart- ment Corporate HR & People Strategy since July 1, 2014. What challenges are you facing? The Lufthansa Group is going through the greatest upheaval in its history, which means an enormous challenge for each employee. In the HR area, our task is to support the ensuing process of transforma- tion with the targeted use of modern, syn- chronized HR instruments. For example, we’ve made the process of posting vacan- cies, filling jobs and managing performance transparent, professional and standardized across the Group. We aim to provide im- pulses in the right places in future as well, so that our Company will be able to act even more flexibly and cost-efficiently. How do you intend to shift more responsibility to employees and managers and grant them more freedom at the same time? Studies show that employees today are motivated only to a limited degree by monetary incentives. To a much greater degree, they are seeking a meaningful type of work. In addition, employees observe with a critical eye how decision-making and communication processes and corpo- Interview with Åsa Lautenberg Vice President Corporate HR & People Strategy Deutsche Lufthansa AG rate values are actually lived out in the company. That’s why in future leadership at Lufthansa will mean above all helping talents to develop their full potential. There is no question that managers will clearly have to assume a good bit more responsi- bility, as they must motivate and inspire their colleagues more than ever to achieve top performance. It is also clear that the Lufthansa Group wants to offer solutions that improve work-life integration and open up individual career paths more attuned to specific life phases. Therefore, we will be expanding our part-time and sabbatical offers in the course of this year. What are you doing to drive the necessary cultural change forward? Many of the changes the Lufthansa Group has set in motion demand a rethink on the part of employees and managers. We want to act in more innovative, courageous and risk-accepting ways. This assumes, for example, that we compose our teams more diversely in terms of age, gender, cultural backgrounds, experience and compe- tence, as this has proved to produce better performance. It is also crucial to provide creative impulses for questioning our con- ventional or habitual way of doing things.  74 // Social Responsibility

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