Volkswagen AG is asking employees to cycle through an escape room experience with collaborative games and puzzles to ease anxiety over job security in the shift to electric cars.
(Bloomberg) — Volkswagen AG is asking employees to cycle through an escape room experience with collaborative games and puzzles to ease anxiety over job security in the shift to electric cars.
Europe’s largest carmaker, spending €89 billion ($95 billion) on new technology through 2026, is using the project at its Wolfsburg headquarters to help switch over about 22,000 workers to making EVs. First up are around 1,200 employees assigned to work on the electric ID.3 model slated to start production during the second half of this year.
“This is one building block in the process of bringing the workers into the world of e-mobility,” Gunnar Kilian, VW’s head of human resources, said during a presentation of the site, co-designed and built by workers. “For many, it’s a totally new thing that the combustion engine won’t be there anymore and we have to train people for a high-voltage environment.”
In teams of four, employees need to solve riddles as they move through spaces themed on electricity and battery technology, moving from an 1860s living room to present-day and future scenarios requiring tech skills to crack codes and find clues in lockers. Earlier this month, Ford Motor Co. said it’s cutting 3,800 jobs mainly in Germany as the carmaker goes electric-only in the region with EV models requiring fewer people to make them.
Aside from the ID.3, VW plans to manufacture at least two more electric models at its sprawling headquarters campus by 2026, the new Tiguan SUV followed by another SUV. The latter is meant to replace the key Trinity electric-car project, which Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume decided to push back by at least two years because of software delays.
VW is investing €460 million by early 2025 to retool the Wolfsburg plant for EV production, with the majority going toward manufacturing facilities and the remainder on qualifying the workforce.
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