The Brose Working World

Take a flexible office concept with variable working hours, results-focused remuneration and exemplary social benefits covering fitness, health and canteen food, and what do you get? The Brose Working World.

This is what we call our model for organizing work and working hours, which is designed with transparency, functionality and cost-effectiveness in mind. This innovative work environment offers our employees plenty of creative freedom and acts as an incentive to above-average employee commitment. At the same time, the Brose organizational model helps employees to strongly identify with the family-run business.

Worldwide, more than 4,500 employees in the development and administrative departments work in an environment that fosters a customer and performance-focused way of working, raises the attractiveness of Brose as an employer and offers its people the greatest possible flexibility for organizing their working hours.

 

Since the new organizational model was introduced in 2001, the bottom line has been positive: the flexible office concept, with its principle of desk-sharing, saves Brose 20 per cent of floor space, IT and equipment. Twelve employees share ten desks, as a certain proportion of our staff is always absent, either away on business trip, doing continuing education courses, or on vacation.

The fact that any one employee is not bound to any particular workstation means that the composition of an account team can be adapted to the changing needs of a project. It also allows customers and suppliers to be involved in the project work. For data, voice and video transmission, we use our own independent, global communications network. This simplifies and speeds up collaboration on international, interdisciplinary projects.

We work to a large extent without paper, as all the documents are stored on a central server. This demands self-discipline and organization on the part of our employees, as exemplified by Brose’s "clean desk" principle. This means that when they have finished working, employees clear their desk and put their documents and objects in their own mobile cabinet.

Thanks to this flexible furniture system, an anonymous workstation can be turned into a personal one in no time at all. Also located in the offices are combined informal chat/break areas featuring a coffee bar, mobile tables and TV sets where employees can meet.

The flexible office concept also extends to work time. The aim of variable working hours is to help employees work more efficiently, as well as to give them the flexibility to reconcile their professional and private interests.

In agreement with their line managers and fellow team members, the employees decide at what time they start and finish work, as well as how many breaks they take and how long they last.

Accordingly, we do not record working hours with a view to remuneration: This depends on the task in hand and the international, time zone-dependent project work. This means that our “Brose Working World” also offers sufficient leeway to reconcile family and professional life.

At Brose’s production facilities, pay had for quite some time been indexed to performance, whereas salaries in the administrative departments still depended on presence. This was neither logical nor fair to the employees in production. In consequence, we transformed the time-related pay system in the development and administrative departments into one based on results.


This has acted as an incentive for performance on the part of our employees.

In early 2001, we stopped recording and remunerating overtime for all our white-collar staff – a unique move for a metalworking company in Germany. Instead of negotiated performance bonuses, we introduced a higher, company bonus. Since then, the amount of time per day worked by our employees has risen.

The amount of the bonus is fixed once a year and depends on the employee’s results, which are calculated in terms of attainment of objectives, as well as qualitative and quantitative criteria. The objectives are set by the line managers and employees on a yearly basis and discussed at regular intervals over the year before being appraised in an in-depth, one-to-one dialog.

This context places much greater emphasis on the management qualities of our line managers than previously. Managers now have to deal much more closely with the work content and results of their employees. The process of agreeing objectives and defining common objectives for the fiscal year ahead has led to much closer coordination between the two sides than was previously the case.

To reward this greater flexibility and commitment on the part of our employees, we have put in place a comprehensive range of social benefits covering fitness, health and food. Our health and keep-fit amenities encompass weight and cardio machines, a program of adult learning classes, a sauna, a steam bath and massage. Our occupational physicians and physiotherapists are on hand to advise employees. These facilities have met with an extremely favorable response – in Coburg and Hallstadt alone, around 1,600 employees use the gym facilities regularly.

We also encourage our employees to get involved in company sports. Every year, Brose holds numerous events, such as tennis, football or basketball tournaments, sometimes with the participation of employees from international locations.

The canteen opening hours are designed to suit the variable working hours, including shift work. The food served is of high quality, varied, prepared with health and nutritional value in mind and is very reasonably priced.

In addition to this, our company also offers a car leasing scheme under which all of our employees at German locations can take advantage of Brose's advantageous purchase terms.