Dusseldorf. Tens of thousands of employees of the Munich car manufacturer BMW received an email from the human resources department (Human Resources, HR) on Thursday about the start of the severance pay program - and brought the portal on which the offers can be viewed to a standstill. The Handelsblatt learned this from corporate circles.
The severance payments offered as part of the program launched by the group were activated on the group's own HR platform “HR4Me” (HR for me). As a result, the interest of the group's employees was so high that the portal could not withstand the high level of access.
In the message addressed to the BMW workforce, the company sent a link that was supposed to lead to the corresponding page on HR4Me. However, most people were unable to see the personal offer for a long time. According to reports, the problem has now been resolved. “We are now all back in the portal,” reports a company employee.
BMW did not want to comment on the matter when asked by Handelsblatt.
The offers went to all employees employed by BMW AG in the so-called indirect area. In the automotive industry, this refers to those activities that are not directly involved in the production of cars. Areas such as development are particularly affected.
The AG is the parent company of the group and most of its employees are employed under its umbrella in Germany. In total, the company employed a good 85,800 people at the end of last year.
Given the many crises facing the auto industry, BMW has to save money. The group is suffering, among other things, from the collapsing Chinese business and the trade conflicts between the USA, Europe and China. In mid-June, BMW issued a surprisingly clear profit warning for the current year. A little later it became known that the company and the works council were negotiating a reduction program.
Six weeks later, BMW CEO Milan Nedeljkovic announced the dismantling at a works meeting in the group's Research and Innovation Center (FIZ).
According to company insiders, BMW plans to cut 8,000 jobs worldwide by the end of next year. The program started in October. As the Handelsblatt reported in the summer, BMW wants to save one billion euros annually.
As part of the restructuring, Nedeljkovic wants to make the group significantly leaner. The number of areas and assigned management functions will fall by a fifth by the middle of next year. This initially affects the department manager level, which is located directly below the board of directors.
“We will bring together organizational units at all management levels and place more responsibility in the hands of the value-adding areas,” said the BMW boss at the works meeting at the time.
The job cuts should be made socially acceptable. BMW wants to reduce the number of employees through fluctuation and partial retirement on the one hand and through a severance payment program on the other. The severance pay program will account for the largest part of the reduction and will only apply in Germany.
The agreed employment security remains in force at BMW. It applies as long as the group records a pre-tax profit.
