The foreign parent company of a supplier to the aviation industry, which had already been weakened by the coronavirus and aviation crisis as well as short-time working, had decided to reduce costs through socially responsible job cuts. To this end, a voluntary program was to be implemented that the interim manager had developed in a previous mandate.
Convincing the works council of the necessity of the job cuts
At the start of the new mandate, the interim manager agreed the budget and volume of the job cuts with the parent company. On this basis, he further developed the model designed in the previous mandate in close consultation with the works council. This involvement made it possible to overcome the employee representatives' initial resistance to the volunteer program. A key factor was that the employees actually left voluntarily: No one was pressured into a termination agreement. At the same time, the conditions were transparent for everyone on the intranet right from the start.
Confidentiality lowers inhibition threshold for participation in the program
In order to reach as large a group as possible, employees were able to register for the volunteer program confidentially. In the first step, the interim manager conducted a consultation in which, among other things, the potential severance payment was calculated. Only when employees formally requested a draft severance agreement were the managers involved. And only when the manager and management agreed to leave did a termination agreement come into effect (double voluntariness).
Only in a few justified individual cases did the company object to the participation of employees. In order not to lose these skilled workers anyway, they were shown individual prospects and development opportunities. It may seem paradoxical: This approach meant that the volunteering program not only contributed to staff reductions, but also to the retention of individual top performers.
Targeted measures prevent unintentional brain drain
The works council was concerned that top performers and experts could also leave the company. To prevent a "brain drain", the interim manager designed the financial conditions in such a way that the "basic package", which applies to all participating employees, was of medium attractiveness. For employees with special statutory protection against dismissal (e.g. severe disability, works council mandate or collectively agreed protection against ordinary dismissal), particularly long periods of service or maintenance obligations, however, there were corresponding "severance payment boosters" that significantly increased the attractiveness of leaving the company. The interim manager capped the severance payment limits with a maximum amount. In addition, employees close to retirement could not receive more severance pay than they would have been able to earn until they retired.
Personnel costs significantly reduced and staff renewal strengthened
In the nine months of the mandate, five percent of employees accepted the severance offer. The majority of these were employees with above-average salaries. This resulted in a savings effect of 8.5 percent. At the same time, the departures made it possible to fill individual positions from outside and thus bring "new blood" into the company on favorable terms. This would have been impossible in the event of redundancies for operational reasons.
