Employee Suggestions

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Certificate of thanks from the Deutsche Bundespost

The company suggestion scheme (BVW), also known as the "improvement proposal scheme" (abbreviated: VV-Wesen), is a participatory (employee-including) optimization system with the aim of utilizing the potential of ideas from all employees (not just that of managers and experts) in an organization. It is part of the idea management . As part of the company's suggestion system, employees can submit suggestions for improvement and, under certain conditions, receive part of the savings achieved as a bonus.

history

In Germany, the company suggestion system was first mentioned in 1872 in the so-called general regulatory by Alfred Krupp . The general regulatory with its 72 paragraphs described the principles of management and company organization. In § 13, the management indicated that suggestions for improvement from the workforce should always be gratefully received.

"Suggestions and suggestions for improvements, innovations, extensions, ideas about and concerns about the expediency of the arrangements made are gratefully received from all circles of the employees and conveyed to the Procura through the mediation of the next superior so that they can initiate their examination . A rejection of the suggestions made without a prior examination of the same should not take place, whereas it must also be expected that a rejection that has been made will be sufficient for the person concerned, even if, as an exception, he cannot be given all the reasons for this, and does not give him any reason to be sensitive or to complain . The resumption of a proposal that has already been rejected under changed actual circumstances or in an improved form is of course not only permissible, but recommended. "

- § 13

Next, u. a. Heinrich Lanz (before 1895), AEG (before 1901), Borsig (1902), Heinrich Freese (1903), Carl Zeiss (1904), Bayer (1909), Siemens-Schuckert (before 1910) and Günther Wagner (before 1914) Suggestion scheme. The aviation pioneer Ernst Heinkel founded a BVW in his aircraft factory in Warnemünde in 1930 . While the suggestions originally, as in the General Directive of Krupp , reached via the normal channels for management described bürgerten at the latest since Borsig BVW-mail boxes and a BVW Commission special.

In the Third Reich , after the beginning of the Second World War , the BVW was strongly promoted by the Office for Performance Enhancement, Vocational Education and Management of the German Labor Front (DAF) in order to save manpower, material and energy and thus use every conceivable chance to win the war. The number of companies that had a BVW rose from around 50 in 1939 to over 30,000 in 1943. The DAF provided teaching aids, forms and advertising material, enabled the exchange of experience in working groups at the Reich and Gau levels and organized the war-important ones Operated the inter-company exchange of suggestions for improvement. Despite the wage freeze in force in the war economy, bonuses of up to RM 500 (based on the hourly wage of Rpf 80 at that time, would be well over EUR 10,000 today ) could be paid out without the approval of the Reich and special trustees of the work . In 1943, suggestions for improvement saved 80 million working hours, which corresponded to 40,000 workers. The procedure for processing suggestions for improvement was not specified by the DAF. The only recommended processes were almost completely identical to those that are still used in some cases today with mailboxes and commission.

After the Second World War, the number of companies with BVW in the Federal Republic of Germany decreased again. In 1962 only 99 companies took part in a statistical survey. In the GDR, on the other hand, the BVW was propagated under state control as an innovator with a similar zeal as before in the Third Reich, but combined with detailed implementation guidelines and targets.

The BVW has so far proven to be immune to the call to replace it with an improvement system with moderated brainstorming ( CIP ) or to abolish it entirely. Reinhard Sprenger in particular has been campaigning for the latter since 1993 in vain.

Objectives of the company suggestion system

The goals of the BVW can be divided into

  • Economic goals
    • Product optimization
    • Process optimization
  • Non-economic goals
    • Strengthening the motivation and development of employees
    • Increased identification with the company
    • Increase in social skills

Individual aspects of the company suggestion system

A number of individual aspects determine the success of a BVW:

  • Corporate culture : A prerequisite for a successful BVW is a corporate culture that demands and allows improvements.
  • Mutual supplementation with knowledge management and quality management .
  • Quick and unbureaucratic implementation of the suggestions.
  • High transparency and fair pricing.

Improvements do not have to have a calculable benefit in order to be implemented and awarded. When awarding a prize to proposals without a calculable benefit, the benefit is usually estimated using evaluation tables that try to determine, for example, the frequency of applicability or the degree of improvement.

In practice, both non-cash rewards (sometimes also called incentives ) and cash rewards are used.

The performance of a BVW is measured using the following benchmarking indicators:

  • Submitted suggestions for improvement per employee and year in pieces
  • (Submit proportion of employees, improvement proposals) stake in percent
  • Economic benefit per suggestion for improvement in EUR
  • Economic benefit per employee in EUR
  • Acceptance rate (proportion of the suggestions for improvement that have been used) in percent
  • Lead time (time from receipt of improvement proposal to completion) in days

Economic significance of the company suggestion system

For 2005, the then German Institute for Business Administration carried out a nationwide survey in which 306 companies and public bodies from 18 industries took part. Of the 2.04 million employees in these companies, 1,294,580 suggestions for improvement were submitted. They received awards of € 159 million for their suggestions. The average bonus for each improvement suggestion awarded was € 199. The level of participation was 63.5 suggestions for improvement per 100 employees. The highest participation was in the auto parts industry (243%), the lowest in hospitals (4%).

The calculable benefit from suggestions for improvement was 1.4 billion euros. A large part (70%) of the benefits came from industry (€ 998,067,402) and 30% from non-industry (€ 425,384,506). In addition to the calculable benefit, these statistics also show an estimated, non-calculable benefit of € 170 million. a. contributed to this

  • To avoid accidents
  • Minimize risks
  • To increase functional reliability
  • To improve safety for people and property
  • Activate and improve environmental protection
  • Streamline administrative work

The total benefit of the suggestions for improvement in the 306 companies and public bodies that participated in these statistics for 2005 was € 1.589 billion, or € 1,227 per suggestion submitted and € 779 per employee.

Legal Aspects

Legal entitlement to a premium

According to a ruling by the Federal Labor Court , the employer must reward suggestions for improvement that are used by the employer , provided the employee has performed a special service. According to this judgment, a special benefit is given if the proposal goes beyond the work owed under the employment contract and already paid for with the wages . Whether there is a special service in a specific case can be decided on the basis of relatively simple criteria.

How the amount of the bonus is determined usually results from the company agreement or the service agreement of the respective company. In the case of suggestions for improvement, the benefit of which can be calculated using business processes, the premium is usually a certain percentage of the calculated first-year benefit, which in most companies is between 15 and 25%. For the other proposals, the benefit is usually estimated, with company-specific decision tables (e.g. according to the degree of improvement, frequency of use) being used.

Co-determination by the works council and staff council

The principles of the company suggestion system are subject to co-determination by the works council in the private sector . In the public service , the participation of the staff council in the Federal Staff Representation Act and in the staff representation laws of most federal states is limited to the principles of the evaluation of recognized proposals within the framework of the company suggestion scheme. Only in the staff representation laws of two federal states is co-determination regulated to the same extent as in the Works Constitution Act.

The legally stipulated co-determination always relates only to the principles in the sense of the rules of the game, but not to the decision on a single suggestion for improvement.

Suggestions for improvement in accordance with the Employee Invention Act

In the Employee Invention Act you will find the term technical improvement proposal ( Section 3 ArbnErfG). If a technical improvement proposal grants the employer a preferential position similar to that of an industrial property right , this should be remunerated like an invention according to the provisions of the Employee Invention Act ( Section 20 ArbnErfG). On the one hand, such a qualified technical improvement proposal must be something that cannot be patented or used as a utility model . On the other hand, it must be inimitable and grant the employing employer a monopoly position similar to that of a patent or utility model. This is a legal mind game that has almost no practical significance in operational reality.

Income tax and social security contributions

Bonuses for suggestions for improvement that an employee receives from their employment are part of the income from non-self-employed work ( Section 19 of the Income Tax Act). Contributions to health, pension and unemployment insurance must also be paid for the premiums.

Newer regulation of the GDR

In the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the suggestion system under the name of innovators enjoyed a high priority and was last regulated in the innovator ordinance from 1971.

literature

  • A. Brem: The Boundaries of Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Conceptual Background and Essays on Selected Theoretical and Empirical Aspects . Gabler, Wiesbaden, 2008.
  • E. Brinkmann: The company suggestion scheme - guidelines for employers and employees . Freiburg / Berlin 1992.
  • E. Brinkmann, C. Heidack: Company security through idea management . Vol. 1: More innovations through suggestions for improvement. 2nd edition, Freiburg i. Br. 1987.
  • F. Ederer: The company suggestion scheme . In: Betrieb und Wirtschaft , Issue 23 u. 24/1997, p. 887.
  • KFHagenmüller: The company suggestion scheme as a management tool . In: Company suggestion scheme , 6th year, 1980, pp. 3–10.
  • R. Schüler: The company suggestion scheme. Planning - implementation - control . Munich 1972.
  • M. Steih, F. Müller: Obstacles to the company suggestion system in small and medium-sized enterprises . In: Personal , Heft 8/1993, S. 364ff.
  • N. Thom, A. Piening: From suggestion system to idea and improvement management. Bern / Berlin / Bruxelles / Frankfurt am Main / New York / Oxford / Vienna 2009
  • N. Thom: Company suggestion scheme. 6th edition, 2003

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Print version of § 13 of the general regulatory. In: 125 Years of the Company Suggestion Scheme . Fried. Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, Essen 1997,
  2. ^ A b Paul Michligk : New practice of the company suggestion system and the simplification of work . Stuttgart 1953, pp. 31-38.
  3. ↑ Ernst Heinkel : My experience as a manager with the company suggestion scheme . Berlin 1943, 36 pages. Complete facsimile (PDF; 2.8 MB).
  4. ↑ One author whose BVW specialist books were published by the DAF's Lehrmittelzentrale in large numbers was the organization and advertising specialist Paul Michligk , who after the war with his new practice of the company suggestion system and the simplification of work cited above for many years wrote the most comprehensive work on BVW.
  5. ↑ Peter Koblank: The BVW in the Third Reich. Statistics, strategies and case studies from the time of National Socialism . In: EUREKA impulse , 1/2013, Best of Koblank .
  6. ↑ Peter Koblank: Brief History of Idea Management. From the 19th century through the Third Reich and the GDR to the present . In: EUREKA impulse , 6/2014, Best of Koblank .
  7. ^ Peter Koblank: BVW benchmarking. With a few, simple indicators to meaningful results . In: EUREKA impulse , 12/2002, extended version 2012. Best of Koblank .
  8. ^ Annual report 2005 of the German Institute for Business Administration (dib) Frankfurt am Main . In: Idea Management . Journal for suggestion schemes and improvement processes, Volume 32, 2006, p. 88 ff.
  9. ^ Federal Labor Court: judgment of April 30, 1965, file number 3 AZR 291/63. See also: Peter Koblank: Legal Entitlement to VV Premium? BAG basic judgment and its practical consequences. In: EUREKA impulse , 5/2003, DNB 1027082920 .
  10. ↑ Peter Koblank: The special performance principle. Simple KO criteria to prevent double payment / practical examples . In: EUREKA impulse , 10/2006, Best of Koblank .
  11. ^ A b c Peter Koblank: The legal basis of the company suggestion system. Computer based training. 7th edition. 2011, ISBN 978-3-00-002550-1 .
  12. ↑ Works Constitution Act, Section 87, Paragraph 1, No. 12
  13. ↑ Federal Personnel Representation Act, Section 75, Paragraph 3, No. 12.
  14. ↑ Lower Saxony Personnel Representation Act, Section 16, Paragraph 15 and State Personnel Representation Act, Rhineland-Palatinate, Section 80, Paragraph 1, No. 10.
  15. ↑ Federal Social Court: Judgment of March 26, 1998, file number: B 12 KR 17/97 R.
  16. ^ Ordinance on the promotion of the activities of innovators and rationalizers in the innovator movement - innovator ordinance - of December 22, 1971 . In: Law Gazette of the German Democratic Republic , January 14, 1972, Part II No. 1, pp. 1–11.