Our employees
With their experience and knowledge, our employees are an essential guarantee for Jenoptik's economic success. As an employer, we focus on our corporate values of open, driving, confident and a dialog-oriented corporate culture that is characterized by initiative, respect for diversity and equal opportunities.
We offer individually tailored training programs so that our teams can change the world with bright ideas. We support employees who drive things forward and have the will to succeed.
Together, we are shaping a future in which the great potential of human creativity is unleashed, in which innovation knows no boundaries and in which our social values of openness, diversity and freedom show us the way to a better future.
Interested? Then visit our careers page to find out more about our entry opportunities and job offers and start your career with us.
Innovation and an open, agile corporate culture need diversity. As a company, we want to use difference and diversity in all areas to promote creativity and generate innovations.
CEO: "Diversity leads to more success"
Jenoptik President & CEO Dr. Stefan Traeger states his opinion on the topic of diversity in an interview. He answers questions about our goals, about dealing with critical voices and how each and everyone in the company can contribute to more diversity.
Jenoptik pursues many initiatives which receive high priority and support from the Executive Board, promoting greater diversity and women's careers, thereby contributing to a modern corporate culture. A global and diverse Diversity Council manages the topic internally.
For example, management positions in the Group are to be filled more vigorously with international employees and women – measured in the so-called diversity rate, set to increase to 33% by 2025.
In the (German) Women's Career Index (FKi), the 2023 audit result was 86 (out of 100), three percentage points better than in the previous year.
As signatory to the Charter of Diversity, Jenoptik promotes diversity in the company and drives cultural change.
Diversity rate
Target by 2025
Health protection and safety
Safety management and health protection are important foundations of corporate responsibility in the Jenoptik Group and important measures when it comes to the basic needs of our employees and job satisfaction. They are firmly anchored in the operating process in order to minimize risks from the working environment that could endanger employees. The prevention of accidents in everyday working life, during the operation of production facilities and on work and transport routes is a top priority for us.
The EHS (Environment, Health & Safety) department is responsible for managing and monitoring all occupational health and safety issues throughout the Group, which is the responsibility of the Chief Financial Officer and provides advice to all companies. It defines responsibilities, targets and framework conditions, such as the published Group guideline “Occupational health, safety and environmental protection”. The Jenoptik companies are responsible for the implementation of statutory provisions in all matters relating to occupational health and safety.
Ensuring a safe working environment is a very high priority for Jenoptik. We take a preventative approach to this. In 2024, we continued to invest at least the legally required hours in the training and further education of our fire protection and occupational safety experts worldwide in order to strengthen employees' sense of safety at work and to ensure correct behavior in our own business unit in the event of an emergency. Workplace-related risk assessments carried out worldwide ensure that workplace-related risks that could endanger employees are identified and the necessary protective measures to minimize risks are implemented promptly.
Company health management
The commitment, performance and, above all, the health of our employees make a decisive contribution to our success. The task of our occupational health management is to maintain the health and performance of our employees in the long term. Occupational health management is managed by the HR department and the implementation of measures is organized locally by local “health steering groups”. In addition to offers that all employees can access (e.g. company integration management, health app, healthy leadership workshop, cooperation with gyms), there are additional local offers that are even more targeted to the needs of employees (e.g. health days, sports and massage offers).
Social commitment
Involving people and combining strengths
Promoting young people, in science and education as well as in social projects - this is at the heart of our social commitment. Jenoptik is primarily involved in the areas of science & education, art & culture, social affairs and integration & volunteering. We are actively involved and have been a partner for many years.
Science & Education: Giving and receiving impulses
Participants in “Jugend forscht” 2025
Proximity to science and education are important to us as a technology group. We want to help inspire enthusiasm for technology and science and promote educational paths for young people. We are also passionate about projects that promote “thinking outside the box”.
Imaginata: Since 2021, we have been the main sponsor and partner of the Jena Science Center Imaginata - an experimentarium for the senses, a place of learning and a training laboratory. In short, a place for explorers of all ages! The premises are also used as a concert hall or gallery for events. Imaginata is housed in the former transformer station in Jena, an industrial monument.
Our CEO Stefan Traeger says: “The Imaginata is a very special place that impressively combines science education, culture, the spirit of research and modernity.”
Jugend forscht: Together with the Thuringia Foundation for Technology, Innovation and Research (STIFT), JENOPTIK AG is responsible for the organization as a sponsoring company. We have been involved in the Thuringian state competition “Jugend forscht” since the first competition in 1991. This is aimed at 15 to 21-year-olds. Since 2012, we have also supported the “Schüler experimentieren” competition for 10 to 14-year-olds. The main focus in both competitions is on the fields of science, technology and mathematics. In the competitions, we award special prizes every year for ideas that are close to what we do.
Partnerships with colleges and universities: Through our cooperation with the Friedrich Schiller University, we are strengthening important links in the Jena network. We have particularly close contact with the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy. We are a long-standing partner for workshops especially for schoolgirls and also for the public Saturday lectures.
SPIE Startup Challenge: Jenoptik is a founding partner of the SPIE Startup Challenge and supports this entrepreneurial competition with prize money and expertise. Every year, startup entrepreneurs with ideas based on optical technologies qualify for the competition as part of the SPIE Photonics West trade fair.
As the main sponsor, Jenoptik supports the entrepreneurial competition of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, with expertise and prize money for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the amount of 10,000, 5,000 and 2,500 US dollars respectively.
Art & Culture: Light, optics and perception - our promotion of art
Video art by Sabrina Ratté on the Jenoptik building
Since the company's beginnings, we have been helping with cultural projects and also doing them ourselves. True to our claim “More Light”, we are particularly interested in light, optics and perception.
Art in the office: We have had our art collection since 1994. It goes back to our founding CEO Lothar Späth, who was a great art lover. We have more than 400 works in total. Around half of them are on loan and set the tone in our employees' offices.
Art exhibition tangente: art touches business and vice versa. We repeatedly promote art under the name “tangente”. “Tangente” was a small and fine series of exhibitions in the foyer of our headquarters, the Ernst Abbe Tower. Today it is called “Tangente digital art”, because since 2022 we have continued the exhibition series in a new digital form and it is visible from afar in the city of light, Jena. Permanently installed laser beamers enable large-format projections on the building. In collaboration with the Jena gallery Huber & Treff (curators) and the Laser Event Company (technology), Jenoptik is showing video art by well-known national and international artists as well as VJs, young filmmakers and students.
tangente digital art: Julian Loscher "Particle Animals", Sabrina Ratté "Florescendi", Robert Seidel "veneer #1" and "veneer #2", Lorna Mills "Living in Loops", Kurt Komell "Dance the Light"
Watch & join in: Full Dome Festival Jena, flicking presents
Theaterhaus and Kulturarena: Jena and summer - that's the Kulturarena. Jenoptik has been supporting the festival since 2006, with a concert or cinema event every evening in the summer months of July and August.
The Kulturarena traditionally starts with the summer theater spectacle of the Theaterhaus Jena, which Jenoptik also supports. The Jena Theater is also something very special: young, experimental and unconventional, a permanent ensemble works together for a few years in a Theaterhaus GmbH in an extraordinarily free and democratic way. The then Jenoptik boss Lothar Späth was one of the advisors when it was founded in 1991. Hence the close and long-standing connection.
Monastery churchThalbürgel: Jenoptik is a patron of the concert summer at the Klosterkirche Thalbürgel near Jena. In the unique atmosphere of the former Benedictine monastery, the parish of Thalbürgel organizes an ambitious annual music festival with religious and secular compositions. Some of the proceeds from the concerts go towards social youth work. With this sponsorship, Jenoptik also pays tribute to the people who volunteer their time to preserve this cultural gem and fill it with life.
Social: Long-standing partnerships and close ties
Donations handed over to the parents' initiative for children with cancer Jena e.V.
Celebrations and donations: At our traditional summer parties, the employees tell us where the proceeds from the raffle will be donated. They always benefit various projects and associations, such as the animal shelter, local initiatives or schools. (Picture donation boxes from the intranet).
The fundraising campaign at our New Year's reception has a long tradition. It marks the start of our annual social commitment. Jenoptik has been combining the New Year's reception with an appeal for donations for charitable social causes since 1997. Thanks to the great support of the guests, a total of over a quarter of a million euros has been collected in all previous fundraising campaigns.
Volunteering & integration: heartfelt projects by, with and for our employees
Fundraising campaign for the Kindersprachbrücke Jena e.V.
Corporate volunteering: Many Jenoptik employees volunteer in their free time. Since 2019, we have had a program to promote this commitment. With “Employees in Volunteering”, Jenoptik employees can apply for financial support for their favorite project. Many associations and exciting projects receive support from us in this way, but above all we want to thank our colleagues for their commitment.
Vacation camp with refugee children: Together with our employees, we are committed to an open society in which everyone feels welcome and valued. Integration of cultures is a top priority for us. Not only in the #BleibOffen campaign, but also directly, for example at the joint vacation camps for our employees' children together with children of recognized refugee families, which have been offered since 2016 and co-financed by Jenoptik.
