Corporate culture at Audi

Most people know what Audi stands for and what qualities an Audi vehicle has. But the company is more than just its product. Audi is more than 80,000 people worldwide who dedicate themselves to providing sustainable and individual mobility for the future and who share the goal of delivering the best of the best for customers and stakeholders. More than 80,000 people who work together and stick together – as they did during the various social and economic challenges in recent years.

Whether it’s production, research and development, marketing or procurement – in a culture where employees feel safe, accepted and heard, teams are more successful and develop more creative solutions and more innovative ideas.

It is no coincidence that “People & Culture” are at the heart of the Audi Strategy. The aim is to create a strong community where managers lead with confidence, employees support each other, have the courage to learn from mistakes and act with responsibility. And this community extends far beyond Audi. The Volkswagen Group Essentials, too, serve as guiding principles for employees and managers as they work together on a day-to-day basis. They are the universal foundation. 

The transformation of Audi and our changing working world make it necessary to further develop our collaborative culture. Specifically, we need to move away from a silo mentality and toward a more networked approach. Nowadays, teams work together across time and space, hierarchies and department boundaries quite naturally, whether digitally, in hybrid models or face to face. This requires a great deal of trust, because employees can only speak freely in a trustful environment. We at Audi call this a speak-up culture. Audi has launched various initiatives to actively promote such a speak-up and positive error culture and is thereby allowing its employees to learn and experience an innovative culture of taking action.

Diversity & Inclusion forms an important part of our sustainability strategy. Different perspectives, ideas and opinions make Audi successful as a company and are instrumental to innovation. Inclusion is a way of ensuring that the different voices and perspectives within the company are heard and taken seriously. This diversity creates a strong foundation upon which the company can strategically align itself for the future. Because differences make the difference!

As the working world is transforming, leadership and thus the role of a manager are being redefined. The Leadership.Compass, the central mindset for all managers at Audi, provides the foundation for this. The compass is designed for all Audi employees who manage people, projects or specialist topics and therefore have particular responsibility. It is divided into four clusters – Be a role model, Be a coach, Be a pioneer and Be an entrepreneur – and nine guiding principles.

Leadership and collaboration are characterized by “empowerment & ownership” at Audi. What this means in concrete terms is that managers offer their employees a greater scope of action and leeway in decision-making through empowerment, thereby promoting an independent and self-effective way of working. At the same time, there needs to be ownership – in other words, employees who are willing to take on personal responsibility.

At Audi, responsible business conduct means considering sustainability in all its facets. This goes beyond the development of innovative mobility solutions, resource-friendly production and responsible supply chains, and also includes social sustainability. With our commitment to CSR (corporate social responsibility), we contribute to social cohesion and solidarity worldwide. We strive to be a “good neighbor” at all our production locations. To achieve the greatest possible impact, Audi is focusing its international corporate citizenship strategy on three key aspects: Engage, Educate and Empower. And with the Audi Environmental Foundation, the company supports research in new technologies and scientific methods for a livable future.

As one of our company’s four values, integrity goes hand in hand with compliance. We understand integrity to mean responsible conduct that is aligned with socially recognized values and principles that we have agreed upon in the company. Compliance refers to the observance of legal provisions, internal company policies and voluntary commitments by the company, its corporate bodies and employees. Compliance and integrity are thus two sides of the same coin, inextricably linked as deeply rooted components of our strategy and culture.