In a joint declaration published on 08 December the Siemens works council (WC) and the IG Metall union announced they had concluded an agreement with management at the German industrial giant that aims to encourage employees’ ‘bright ideas and creativity’. To this end the company will put €100 million towards an ‘innovation fund’ over a period of three years. Ten million euros are already penciled in for some of the company’s German locations during 2016. The fund’s goal is to enable support for the development of innovative ideas that are likely to be put into operation within three years. For IG Metall this is an historic initiative for Siemens and probably for all the other large German businesses because it gives a key role to the group’s works councils. All the potential ‘bright ideas’ will be put to a selection committee comprising equal numbers of management and employee representatives. Those selected will then receive financial support from the new fund.
A central works council initiative. According to Hagen Reimer, deputy spokesperson for IG Metall Bavaria, the idea to set up an innovation fund came from the company’s works council. “Even before management had developed its ‘Siemens 2020’ vision, we had developed our own version of a ‘Siemens 2020’ vision.” Our vision consisted of creating new open spaces outside of the current structures that would be conducive to creativity,” he explained. For according to Hagen Reimer, Siemens already has a
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