Bosch is one of the most important investors and employers in Serbia, a company that records exceptional growth and has been among the country’s 15 biggest exporters for years. Bosch is also known for offering equal development opportunities to members of both sexes and for its active and strong support to the development of women
Jovanka Jovanović, General Manager
Benchmark For Equal Opportunities
I joined Bosch in Serbia 17 years ago to take on the position of general manager, at a time when Bosch was organised as a representative office with just 13 employees.
It was a real challenge to be part of a high-tech, innovative company that registers more than 5,000 patents per year and employs tens of thousands of engineers of various profiles, but it was also a great pleasure that provides many opportunities to learn, advance and prove that you can also do something significant in your own country.
Bosch in Serbia is today a company that records exceptional growth, both in terms of employee numbers and across operations as a whole, from production in the automotive industry, via services, including IT services in particular, the development centre in production, distribution of a wide range of products and participation in large, important projects.
I’m particularly proud of the fact that this development was achieved thanks to the contribution of our team of 2,500 employees, consisting of an almost equal number of male and female colleagues, and the fact that a significant number of female colleagues also hold important leadership positions in all segments of operations. The culture of the company and its respect for diversity provides equal development opportunities for members of both sexes, and empowering and developing female colleagues is a special area of focus for the company. Within the scope of the Bosch Group globally, Bosch in Serbia stands out in particular due to the number of female colleagues in leadership positions, so we represent a benchmark in this area.
Bojana Andrić, Commercial And Financial Manager
Creativity Is A Must
I ’ve been doing what I love since my first day at Robert Bosch d.o.o., and that hasn’t changed to this day. For a large organisation like ours to function, rationality isn’t enough, rather creativity is also required.
Creativity is our personal stamp, which illustrates the character and personality of each individual.
Every project or business challenge we face provides us with the opportunity for different forms of self-realisation, while creativity and experience help us to identify – easily and in an interesting way – the simplest possible solution and route to achieving our goal. The constant and continuous development of employees is the basic prerequisite for maintaining top results and satisfaction.
Milana Radovanović, Group Leader Purchasing Quality Assurance
Abandon Your Comfort Zone Work #likeabosch
The goals that I set for myself provide strong motivation for a successful career. Motivation is something that drives me to work #LikeABosch. Apart from being driven by my convictions regarding what will bring me happiness in life, my goals are determined by the way I envisage the future.
My desire to achieve, and my need to utilise my professional knowhow and abilities, contributed to me overcoming the greatest challenges to the development of my career. I wanted to be recognised for my professionalism.
That’s actually why I’m in a leadership position as part of a Bosch company that values and encourages diversity. Bosch supports the development of women actively and strongly, by accentuating the characteristics of women in the best possible way and enabling women to abandon their comfort zone and show what they’re capable of doing.
I’ve had opportunities to work with executives of both genders, but I’ve always admired the way women lead a job. When a woman is in charge, decisions are somehow made simply and quickly. The role of women in the business world has changed a lot over recent years. Women are increasingly interested in developing their careers. That’s why I believe we’re moving towards gender not playing any role whatsoever in business success, rather only one’s ability and competence to perform certain tasks.
Danijela Šarović, Department Leader For Business Digitalisation Organisation, Power Tools Division
Equality Is Reality
Is equality also your reality? In the case that it isn’t, I understand that it’s hard to believe that equality is our reality, because we have opportunities every day, through the media or social networks, to witness different cases of gender inequality. Every working mother encounters a large number of challenges and pressures on a daily basis, the overcoming of which mean her personal and professional success.
The basic cause of all inequality, including gender-based, is unconscious prejudice (bias). The most common prejudice faced by young mothers when returning from maternity leave is the belief that they will not demonstrate the same level of productivity and efficiency as they did prior to realising herself in this wonderful role. Here employers have a key role to play in eliminating such prejudices and providing support.
Diversity is part of our corporate strategy at Bosch and, more importantly, it is an active part of our daily work, and us employees feel that. Diversity and inclusion can be observed at multiple levels and, apart from gender equality, we also focus on age, international and diversity of the working environment. As the leader of an IT department that has more than 100 members, I also have a responsibility to apply this approach within my team, to create a culture of compassion and empowerment, to accept different perspectives and ensure the inclusion of all team members. I note with pride that our team has an equal number of male and female colleagues, and not only among team members, but also in leadership positions. Likewise, a fifth of the members of our department are aged under 25 and we have a great responsibility to be good mentors to them, but also an opportunity to learn from them. If you want equality in your workplace, you have the right to demand the respect you deserve and to act as if inequality doesn’t even exist, to practise the mindset that equality is reality.
Ivana Nestorović, Product Testing Department Manager
Mutual Respect And Support
Engineers ordinarily usually become engineers because they like to make something, to construct and see a finished product as the result of their work.
I have the satisfaction of seeing an entire manufacturing plant as the result of my work – the main and the largest Bosch plant for the production of windscreen wiper systems in Europe, located in Šimanovci. The initial team of around ten of us from Serbia, but also more experienced colleagues from Spain and Germany were scattered around Bosch’s European locations in order to gain our first experiences with Bosch and, more importantly, to acquire knowledge that we can transfer and implement in our own country.
It isn’t difficult to achieve success with a good team striving toward a common goal, and the result is evident: from the ten or so of us to a plant that employs approximately 2,000 people; today we deliver our “Made in Serbia” products to all major car manufacturers worldwide (BMW, Audi, JLR, Audi, Stellantis, VW, Aston Martin, Ford, Dacia etc.). I often mention to my younger colleagues that I very much appreciate that the quality and content of my job at Bosch in Serbia, is the same as it would have been if I’d stayed to work in Michigan, U.S.A. The work in an international team, with mutual respect and support, in a technology-orientated company with a focus on quality – those are the key ingredients of our recipe for success.