Vocational training at Siemens

Around 10,900 young men and women worldwide – of whom around 7,900 are in Germany – are currently enrolled in training or two-track programs at Siemens, making the industrial company one of the largest most innovative private providers of such programs in the world. Due to the great success of the German model, Siemens is increasingly offering two-track training, which combines theory and practice, to young people in countries outside Germany, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South Africa, India and the UK. These programs offer instruction in a wide range of commercial and, above all, technical fields. Courses are constantly being updated in a targeted fashion to prepare young people for the challenges of the future.

Since the training year 2017, Siemens has integrated relevant digitalization topics, such as data analytics, software development and data security, in the company’s curricula for all its apprenticeship and work-study programs. Didactic and methodological teaching approaches were also revised to accommodate the digital transformation of the programs’ training content and of the occupational subject matter.

“Occupational training is foundational for our company’s future. One clear focus of our training program is on the responsible use of digital technologies, which are bringing enormous change to the working world and to society. For years now, we’ve been continuously adapting our training programs to new requirements, to digital content and to agile teaching methods in order to keep pace with these changes. In this way, we can ensure that our trainees are well prepared for the future,” said Thomas Leubner, who heads the company’s Learning and Education department.

The success of the training system is also shown by the International Tech Apprenticeship@Siemens (ITA@S) program, which was established in 2012, back then under the name Europeans@Siemens. Young people are being sent to Berlin by the Siemens Regional Companies in their respective countries for dual educational training. In the past few years, however, an increasing number of participants have come from countries outside Europe. Consequently, the program now has a new name: ITA@S.

Since the start of the vocational training in Berlin in 1891 more than 165,000 people have undergone training with Siemens in Germany alone.

Siemens is also blazing new trails when it comes to recruiting trainees. In its “MINTfluencer” social-media campaign, short video clips star Siemens trainees as influencers. The campaign name is a word play on “MINT,” which is the German equivalent of science, technology, education and mathematics (STEM).