Employment and Volkswagen

Explain what is novel and distinctive about the VW model The Volkswagen model is novel and distinctive by 3 concepts which I’ll define below. First, the concept of the « 28,8 hour working week » which basically replaced the former concept «  To save labor costs layoffs are inevitable » Indeed, by keep the same wages while cutting the working hours of their employees innovates. Therefore, they are able to save 20% of the annual costs with this method. That allows the board of volkswagen to meet the requirements of the works council which were among other things to remain with the same wages. Besides, concerning the job ecurity, as far as some workers are concerned by the temporary works, that would be able in that case to transfer from one plant to another. Obviously, the suitability regarding the new plant would be carefully reviewed case by case according to their competencies and experience. As a matter of fact, the workers will not be able to decline an offer for an other job if it fits them. This has been also agreed by the collective bargaining agreement. Moreover, Volkswagen distributed all annual special payments to its workers. The change to the « 28,8 hour working week » also shifted the numbers of the working days.

Indeed, most employees switched to four day working week while regarding the needs of departments some switched from three to five day working week. The second new element is the « contract » between the newcomers in the market, that is to say the young people and the old ones. Indeed while being still at school in apprenticeship, the young generation of future workers would be offered the possibitlity to get into the world of labour step by step until reaching the final stage which would be a full-employment within volkswagen. Nonetheless, they will have the conditions of the part time work.

Whereas, the situation is the reverse for the old generation, hence, as soon they reach 56 they can already reduce their working time and even more when they will get to their 59. So, their schedule can be reduced to 24 hours at 56 and 20 at 59. Even if Volkswagen still got to improve some points to make this measure more attractive, this aims to soflty replace the older generation and give full-employment to the young generation. This also supposed to rise the productivity. That leads us to our third element, the qualification element. Volkswagen wants their workers to e as competitive as possible and meet 4 main characteristics, To be multiskilled and mutli- functional; mobile;creative and human. To reach their goal their They target single employees from 18 to 30 and they train trough programmes to make them fulfill to the The needs of the company which are the flexibility and a « highly-skilled workforce » which result to a win win situation for both as during this time Volkswagen is receiving governmental subsidy while train the future « high manpower standard ». secure the job for the employee and gives Volkswagen a rising productivity