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Sozialplan in sechs Wochen – Redundancy program in six weeks
In this article, Peter Gutmann (at the time Director of Human Resources Southern EMEA for Gardner Denver), Dr. Steffen Scheuer (Labor Law Specialist for Baker & McKenzie) and Thomas Bittruf (Managing Director of GeDisS) take a detailed look at the situation at Gardner Denver when, back in September 2008, the Lehman Brothers went into insolvency. The effect was a 25% drop in production, a situation that worsened with each passing week until the decision was finally made to cut 20% of the workforce at the company’s site in Schopfheim, South Germany.
Together with legal counsel provided by Baker & McKenzie and support on issues of redundancy schemes from personnel development and services experts GeDiS, a representative from Gardner Denver’s European HR department set to work trying to establish a social compensation program for those workers facing redundancy.
In spite of numerous challenges, not least of which were maintaining the trust of the workforce and negotiating with the works council, progress was made at an astonishing pace. Not only was a transfer company set up within a few weeks, but care was also taken to ensure that staff received adequate advice on applying for new jobs as well as further skills training, all the while earning 85% of their original salaries.
The project was completed on time, within budget and to the quality standards required. Not only that: trust in the company was restored and business began to pick up. All those involved in the decision to set up the redundancy program agreed that if they had to do the same again, that’s exactly how they would do it.
Druck gehört zum Geschäft – Pressure is part of our business
In this article, Peter Gutmann (at the time Director of Human Resources Southern Europe for Gardner Denver) and Jörg Breiski (Director Key Accounts for Mercuri Urval) describe the decision taken by Gardner Denver in 2008 to outsource its European recruitment program.
A model of lean management, Gardner Denver demands speed, efficiency and precision from all its staff, including HR. By handing over responsibility of recruiting talents to Mercuri Urval, the HR organization was able to rid itself of a number of administrative tasks and focus more on strategic issues such as talent management, succession planning and M&A processes.
Thanks to the effective cooperation so far, Mercuri Urval consultants are treated as internal business partners at Gardner Denver, which also allows them to learn first-hand of any internal administrative or technical changes, such as new EDP systems. The result: Gardner Denver has continued to grow, bringing in new talents faster and more smoothly – a classic example for best practice.
