BMW works council chairman Manfred Schoch calls for a cultural change in the group.
In the future, managers would also have to be measured by how many employees could work on the move.
Munich - There are probably only a few employee representatives in Germany who enjoy as much respect among colleagues and management as
BMW
Works Council Chairman Manfred Schoch.
The industrial engineering graduate, who celebrated his 65th birthday on Thursday, started out 40 years ago as a trainee in
BMW
HR in Munich.
Seven years later, he moved to the head of the works council and has since represented the interests of the employees "hard on the matter, fair to the people", as
BMW
supervisory board boss Norbert Reithofer recently praised the top employee representative and deputy supervisory board chairman of the Munich car manufacturer.
Schoch's greatest successes include the establishment of the
BMW
plant in Leipzig, where Schoch compensated for the cost advantages of possible foreign locations thanks to a clever working time regulation, and the decision to build the fully electric i4 in Munich.
It should roll off the assembly line in the main plant from the end of 2021.
Merkur.de * spoke to the experienced employee representative about home office, jobs, economic development and the consequences of Corona for the automotive industry.
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Measuring executives by the mobile work rate: BMW works council boss Manfred Schoch wants a cultural change in the company.
© Matthias Balk / dpa
Mr Schoch, BMW struggled for a long time this year because of the corona pandemic. However, in the third quarter just ended, the free cash inflow in the core business was just under 3.1 billion euros after 714 million euros in the same quarter of the previous year. That should be enough for black numbers for the year, right?
In any case, based on the current status, we will definitely post positive results for 2020 as a whole, despite the corona crisis and the decline in sales.
That is very gratifying.
If we manage the corona crisis in this way despite the production interruption and short-time work of over two months in our plants, it is a great achievement by the entire team.
According to the company agreement, redundancies for operational reasons are excluded if the numbers are in the black. So can BMW employees now look forward to the end of the year with complete peace of mind?
Absolutely.
There will definitely be no redundancies in 2020.
And the corresponding works agreement will also apply to 2021.
In all probability, Corona will be with us for some time. How secure are the jobs for 2021?
Unless something serious like a lockdown comes up, we will surely be well above the results of 2020 across the group in 2021.
As a result, not a single gray hair grows on me.
In view of the unexpectedly strong increase in free cash inflows, one could come to the conclusion that CFO Nicolas Peter did a good job in the corona pandemic?
No.
Why?
That is not a performance of the board of directors.
Just like other car manufacturers, we too benefit from significantly changed mobility behavior.
People fly significantly less and they take less trains, subways or buses.
The car is rapidly gaining importance for this.
Many people now see their own car as a personal shelter.
And people don't want to share anymore because you don't know who was in the car before.
Corona, not the board of directors, brought this trend towards owning a car.
The situation at BMW was still rather tense in the summer. Therefore, as part of a package of measures, the group had announced a total of 6,000 job cuts, albeit without making redundancies for operational reasons. Will it stay that way?
BMW
offers employees termination agreements on a voluntary basis.
Of the roughly 80,000 colleagues in Germany, over 1,000 have accepted this offer so far.
We support this on the part of the works council in an advisory program, plus pension and tax advisors so that everyone knows what the net result of the severance payment will be.
Everything is going very well.
So far there have not been any complaints that I am aware of with the legal advice center of IG Metall.
We are very satisfied with that.
One of the countless consequences of the corona pandemic is the relocation of many jobs to the home office. At Siemens, around 140,000 employees will in future be entitled to two to three days of home office per week if their supervisor agrees. When will a comparable regulation come about for BMW employees?
In 2013 we signed a company agreement on the subject of mobile work.
If someone looks after his demented mother in the old people's home during the day and during that time - because the mother is sleeping, for example - is working on his e-mails, that's
working time
at
BMW
.
When someone works on the train, that's
working time
at
BMW
.
The subject of mobile work at
BMW
is one step further than home office.
But it is also clear that we are not a building society or an insurance company, but an industrial company.
Take our FIZ development center, for example: we have an acoustics center there or the wind tunnel.
There we measure how quiet a car is or optimize air resistance.
None of that works at home.
The employees from production in the plant must also be on site.
The situation is different for software engineers or colleagues from invoice verification.
A general rule makes no sense.
But wherever possible, I think a reasonable mix - for example three days in the office, two days at home - is very desirable.
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Acoustics test stand in the BMW Research and Innovation Center (FIZ) in Munich.
In the laboratory, the engineers optimize the noise generation.
© Matthias Balk / dpa
And will this existing company agreement on mobile work at BMW then become the basis for a new company agreement?
We are not aiming for a new company agreement here.
What we need at BMW is a corresponding cultural change and it has to take place in the head and not on paper.
That is a question of leadership behavior and the right criteria.
So far there has been a clear consensus on the question of sick leave: a high sick leave is a signal of poor leadership.
We have to get to the point where a low mobile work rate is a signal that the manager has not yet understood the possibilities of digitization.
Good managers have a high mobile work rate, bad managers a low one.
How quickly do you think that will change then?
Then we don't need any rules negotiated by the works council for this cultural change.
How do you want to contribute to this change?
I do a video podcast of ten minutes a month because we are currently unable to hold large company meetings due to Corona.
In these podcasts, I clearly state the topic of leadership culture and mobile work and I will repeat that and say it at the next works meeting.
And does that help?
Believe me.
When we say: Measure your managers by how they deal with this topic, it has an internal effect.
But more home office entails many other things. This also applies to staff equipment. How do you feel about considering not only the notebook but also questions such as the possible purchase of a desk and office chair?
For us it is more important that we really have equipped all of our trainees with a notebook this year.
We're not going to ask the company to buy chairs or desks now.
The BMW works council is satisfied when all employees are provided with the technical equipment that they are usually allowed to use privately.
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BMW i4: BMW operations manager Manfred Schoch had campaigned vehemently for the Stromer to be produced in the main plant in Munich.
© Andreas Landwehr / dpa
Home office has many other effects, for example companies need much less office space.
If employees work full-time on two out of five days a week, we have a significant impact on local transport, 40 percent less CO2 emissions from commuting and, of course, an impact on the company's office space and parking garage occupancy.
In the meantime, the topic of home office has spilled over to Berlin. Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil wants to anchor the right to work from home. According to this, full-time employees should be able to work from home 24 days a year. What do you make of it?
There are many companies where there is little or no home office.
Two days a month would certainly help.
At BMW, we want mobile work two days a week and are simply further than Mr Heil's suggestion.
You have been chairman of the general works council at BMW since 1987, making you the longest-serving works council head in the German automotive industry. In other corporations in the past there were often hard arguments and even scandals. At BMW it was always very calm, at least externally. How did you do that?
I try to solve problems with the responsible department heads and board members and not through the public.
That is the more successful way.
And that is also the case with collective bargaining, by the way, when you have been sitting together for the last few nights and looking for solutions at the small round table.
Thank you for the interview.
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen Digital editorial network.
