We have to invest a lot in training. If they don't have the skills in industrial work, we have to train them.
Staff photo by Erin O. Smith / Nicole Koesling, the senior vice president of human resources at Volkswagen, talks about the employee training process at the Volkswagen assembly plant in Chattanooga.Nicole Koesling is the last German in the top management team at Chattanooga’s Volkswagen plant – a big change from the time the factory opened in 2011.
“At the beginning, a lot of Germans brought expertise and equipment,” said the plant’s senior vice president for human resources. “To build a Volkswagen is not so easy.”
Over the years, however, the German leaders were sent to other assignments and Koesling believes it’s time “to make our own experience and have a multi-diverse culture here. We’re one region – the North American region.”
Koesling, 41, who joined VW in 2003, has worked in Wolfsburg, Germany, where the company has its world headquarters as well as in China and Poland. Also, she worked in France with Faurecia, a major automotive supplier.