Page 135 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

Most employees leave the beE for permanent employment contracts. As
transfer companies at Siemens last two years – an exception compared to other
German transfer companies – the employees usually do not leave for a fixed-
term and short duration contract. As former Siemens employees can sometimes
be ‘spoiled’ in terms of remuneration and permanent contracts, it can be difficult
to find suitable jobs for them on the external labour market. In this respect, the
commitment of the employees is crucial for a successful reintegration into the
labour market.
The comparably long duration of the transfer company is a good way to take
responsibility for redundant employees and to provide socially compatible
personnel adjustments. Still, this long period can sometimes hamper
reintegration in the labour market, when employees dismiss job offers for a fixed-
term contract because it would be shorter than the period of the beE. Another
obstacle to successful placement into new jobs is the low geographical mobility of
employees.

6.8.6. Innovation and effectiveness
Siemens beE is one of the few examples of a company-internal transfer company
in Germany. This has the advantage that beE staff is well prepared for
counselling former Siemens employees and it is specialised in the mostly
technical profiles of employees.
Since Siemens beE started in 2002, it has gained valuable experiences with
transfer companies and continuously adapted its processes. The fact that the
beE department permanently grew, from six consultants to over 90 today, points
to its successful performance. The experiences of the beE team in restructuring
are reflected in high reintegration rates of almost 80%.
The most innovative aspect of Siemens beE is the work of the beE internal job
centre. HR experts match and place the beE candidates to job openings at other
enterprises, sound knowledge of the mostly technical profiles of beE candidates
and the labour market being necessary for successful matching. The job centre
also has connections to over 5 500 enterprises on the German and international
labour market. Siemens beE is recognised as an efficient recruitment tool and is
favoured by many HR partners. Some companies contact the job centre first if
they have vacancies to fill, before publishing them, to match their job
requirements with the profiles of beE candidates.
The company pointed out that work placements have decreased in recent
years. If a company is urgently searching for a new employee, they prefer to fix a
contract, instead of having a test phase of one month. Nevertheless, this

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