The demographic change (decline in the population, increasing average age) is affecting the world of work: The personnel structures in companies are undergoing considerable change. Employees will be working longer in the future, managers will encounter workforces with a different makeup, and well trained junior employees will be in short supply.

Salzgitter AG reacted to this change early on, and started the project "GO - the Generation Offensive 2025" in 2005. This project involves the development of strategies in order to deal with the demographic change. The objective is to maintain the group's competitive and innovative strengths and sustainably increase them.

Six spheres of activity were defined for the GO project: corporate culture and management; personnel marketing and recruiting; personnel development and qualification; work organization, time and compensation; health, fitness and ergonomics; and integration management. Numerous concepts, activities and measures have been developed in these spheres of activity for step-by-step implementation in the group companies.

Salzgitter AG is also tackling the topic of "demographic change" outside the company, however. In order to advance the exchange through innovative concepts, it is a founding member of ddn - Das Demographie Netwerk - at INQA (Initiative Neue Qualität der Arbeit) and the Laboratory Demographic Change from econsense.