No hierarchies, a 30-hour week and extra child benefit: many things run differently with this Nuremberg plumber than with traditional craftsmen.
When Jakob Schröder (26) was supposed to take over the plumbing business of his old boss after seven years, he felt a certain unease: Tell colleagues what to do?
Always be responsible for everything?
“It became clear to me: I don't want this role,” reports the
Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ)
about the
young master plumber.
Instead, he wanted everyone to work together “fairly and on an equal footing”.
And, in his opinion, that worked best in a collective.
Last September the time had come: Jakob Schröder, together with his colleagues Nico Schreiber and Philipp Köchel, founded a
collective company for plumbing and heating
in the Gostenhof district of Nuremberg.
All three take over in the
Plewa Installations GmbH are responsible, are managing directors with equal rights.
The only employee on the team is the secretary who supports her from the home office in Kiel.
Schröder and Köchel had had negative experiences with hierarchical levels and wanted to do without them.
Köchel, for example, disturbed the “stress maker” and “waddling culture”, which are still alive in the craft.
A former boss always threw a rag in his face if something did not suit him, he reported according to the
SZ
.
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Plumber collective: no bosses, 30-hour week and social commitment
But otherwise, at the plumber's business Plewa, which was named after a resistance fighter under National Socialism, things are different from traditional craft businesses.
Employees look after a project here from start to finish
. Advantage for the customer: You only have one contact person. For the employees, this way of working is also more motivating than just completing an order from the boss, reports Köchel in an interview with
SZ
. In weekly team meetings at which the three installers come together, current orders, problems or new acquisitions are discussed.
Instead of a full 5-day week, each manager works one day less,
30 hours
a
week in
total.
And when it comes to salary, everyone is paid the same:
2,000 euros gross
.
An additional plus: if you have
children,
you can get an
extra
company child benefit of 150 euros
per month.
But the social aspect is not neglected at the Nuremberg plumbers collective: Once a year, the three managing directors have contractually stipulated, everyone should make their
work available to a solidarity project
, free of charge.
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The success can be seen
Many friends and colleagues are likely to have been skeptical about this unusual business model.
But the success proves the young plumbers right: According to their own statements, the customers are more than satisfied - they appreciate the plumbers' collective for getting jobs done quickly and reliably.
The plumbers' collective ended their first financial year
with a plus.
However, the business started
without debt - Schröder, Schreiber and Köchel had taken it over from their predecessor for a symbolic euro.
Other companies have already caused a sensation with unusual working models.
In 2017, a German IT company introduced the 25-hour week - with resounding success.
(as)
Survey: A company without a boss - a work model worth striving for?
(as)
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