A trial before the Higher Labor Court in Frankfurt now suggests that there is room for improvement in DWS’ HR work. The case is about a volunteer program with which the fund subsidiary wanted to save jobs at the end of 2019.
An ex-employee complained, accusing DWS of wrongly not considering her when selecting the volunteers and thus depriving her of a farewell package.
In the selection process, according to the “first come, first served” process, only the fastest were chosen. The ex-employee, who eventually resigned herself and left without severance pay, accuses DWS of preferring a colleague who secured the farewell bonus. DWS denies that.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
In the matter, DWS won the labor law process in both the first and second instance, as confirmed by the regional labor court. A revision did not allow it. Regardless of its outcome, however, the process revealed details that do not reflect well on DWS.
An original social plan disappears
One of the curiosities is that the signed original of the social plan under which the downsizing took place has disappeared. The DWS lawyer wrote to the court that “despite extensive investigations, it cannot currently be found either with the employer or with the works council”. The HR manager at the time had left the company a long time ago and is no longer available. The head of the works council at the time stated that “as far as he remembers” the social plan was signed together with the reconciliation of interests.
A long-standing employee representative told the Handelsblatt: “It can happen that older agreements can no longer be found. That is very unusual for a document that is only three years old.”
The implementation of the program also causes trouble: There was a two-stage process for the selection of the volunteers. First, all employees had to report to an external trustee. The trustee had to check whether those willing to leave were on a “white” list of all those employees whom DWS wanted to let go in principle.
Only when the trustee gave the green light were interested parties allowed to contact the HR department. The time the email was received by Human Resources determined the order in which places in the volunteer program were allocated.
More on the subject:
>> DWS boss Hoops makes fintech pioneer Bajorat digital boss
>> These scandals burden DWS
>> Departure from DWS boss Wöhrmann: what the affair means for Deutsche Bank
With such a “first come, first served” approach, employers must treat all employees equally. This is all the more important when only a few farewell packages were available in individual areas. In the case of the plaintiff, there was only one mining site. In such cases, information policy plays an important role. In the case of DWS, the application period for the greyhound race should start on Monday 9 December 2019 at midnight.
The employees were first informed about the volunteer program by the works council, which held an information event on Friday, September 6, 2019 and published a presentation on the intranet. It did not say what time the application period should begin. In addition, the HR department only offered employees information events on December 11 and 12.
“Run unluckily”
The labor judges also saw that this constellation was not ideal. That was “unfortunate,” admitted the judge. It is “not very expedient” to offer information events so late when there are areas in which only a few have had a chance.
In the case of the plaintiff, there was also the fact that, like her successful competitor, she had contacted the trustee too early. The trustee pointed out the error to both of them — the competitor, who had been the first to report too early, earlier than the plaintiff — and both only after ten o’clock on Monday. From the point of view of the plaintiff’s lawyer, Asma Hussain-Hämäläinen, both should have been warned at the same time. The DWS lawyer denies that nothing was agreed with the trustee.
A company from Lower Saxony took a more meticulous approach: they had informed the employees weeks in advance about such a program, including the start time. There was trouble there for other reasons, for example because there were delays under the burden of many inquiries on the electronic registration platform.
Only the reasons for the judgment will show why the lawsuit by the former DWS employee failed. During the hearing, the judges dealt with the fact that, in addition to the employee who received the farewell bonus, two other interested parties should have reported before the plaintiff. Her lawyer wants to review the verdict.
The new CEO Stefan Hoops knows that there are structures in DWS that need to be improved. The fact that he was dissatisfied with the progress that DWS had made in developing its own regulations was also said to have brought the former Deutsche Bank General Counsel, Karen Kuder, onto the DWS board.
He had compliance issues in mind. It is unclear whether he also sees potential in the human resources area. A DWS spokesman declined to comment on “labor disputes”.
More: Deutsche Bank takes subsidiary DWS on a shorter leash