Petra Lindqvist· Benefits Analyst, Lumen Biosciences
Posted in Berlin Chapter ·
We are eight months into a new job architecture for our German entities, about 3,400 employees across Berlin, Leipzig and Munich, and have reached the point where the works council needs to agree the grading scheme. They were informed at the start, but informed is not the same as involved, and that is now costing us.
Their main objection is that roles were mapped to the new levels by HR and line managers with no employee representatives in the room. They are asking to re-review roughly 600 mappings. For those who have done this: how early did you bring the works council in, and did you give them seats on the mapping panels?
0 reactions · 4 replies · 15 views
Compensation Manager, Pinehurst Foods
We set up a joint commission from the first week: three from the works council, three from the employer. It reviewed every mapping where the manager and HR disagreed, around 9 percent of roles. It added four months. It also meant the works agreement was signed without a single trip to the conciliation board, which I consider cheap at the price.
Victor PereiraCBS, GRS
Sales Compensation Manager, Qasr Holdings
I would not reopen 600 mappings wholesale. Offer a sample. We agreed with ours that they would pick 80 roles of their choosing, and that if more than 10 percent turned out wrongly mapped we would widen the review. Seven were changed. That gave them real control without restarting the project.
Victor PereiraCBS, GRS
Sales Compensation Manager, Qasr Holdings
Check with your labour counsel which parts fall under co-determination and which do not, because in our project that distinction shaped everything. Our understanding was that the principles of the remuneration scheme needed agreement while individual market pricing did not. The council saw it differently, and we spent three sessions on that alone.
Victor PereiraCBS, GRS
Sales Compensation Manager, Qasr Holdings
Tech company, with a young works council first elected in 2023. Their concern was less the mappings and more what the levels would be used for. Once we wrote into the agreement that nobody's pay would be reduced as a result of a mapping, and that pay above the new range would be protected for 24 months, the tone changed.
