»work environment«

After all: what is the spirit of Panopa?

Mr. Vieth and Dr. Hucht characterize Panopa's corporate culture as quite open in terms of communication. Critique is usually addressed openly and directly at the person concerned. While in other companies it appears to be quite usual to talk bad behind other people's back, Mr. Vieth and Dr. Hucht claim that they never really experienced any sneaky games at Panopa. They say that their company is simply too small and that positions do not change that fast that it would make sense to play power games. At the same time they believe this open atmosphere to originate from the cultural background of the staff of which most grew up in the Ruhrgebiet. Here communication can often be rather rude but that does not imply that anybody should take it personal. Once things are said and discussed, they are over and done with - no hard feelings. And on the other hand things that are left unspoken, are not to be worried about. And while Mr. Vieth and Dr. Hucht claim this atmosphere to be culturally influenced, they believe it to have been transferred to their Polish stations as well.

("Die Kommunikation hier ist sehr offen. Also, es gibt schon so etwas wie eine Unternehmenskultur, was hebt das Unternehmen von anderen ab. Wobei ich jetzt nicht behaupten möchte, andere machen das nicht so, aber hier wird ein sehr direkter Ton gepflegt. Hier wird auch offen Kritik geübt. Es werden Themen angesprochen, die werden auch zu Ende besprochen, und man guckt sich hinterher auch wieder in die Augen. So Dinge, so hinterum, mit Ellenbogen, Linke rein, Mobbing, das ist hier überhaupt nicht angezeigt. Ich sag's mal ganz platt: hier sagt man sich auch mal auf Augenhöhe mal 'Arschloch', aber hinterher gibt man sich wieder die Hand und sagt: 'Komm. War jetzt auch mal gut, dass wir jetzt mal darüber gesprochen haben, das ist vielleicht auch mal ein bißchen gewittert hat, aber jetzt geht's auch vernünftig wieder weiter.' Und das ist auch so die Mentalität, die da vor Ort aufgebaut wurde. Also, ne offene Kommunikation, die Türen hier sind immer auf, man äußert Kritik, man spricht darüber, vielleicht eher mal ein direktes Wort, aber hinterher arbeitet man auch vernünftig wieder zusammen. Das ist schon auch so ne Besonderheit. Wir sagen auch mal hier und da, das ist so Ruhrgebietsmentalität: sehr direkt und sehr gradlinieg." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 15.53 min.)

("Wir sind hier sehr dezentral organisiert. Die einzelnen Standorte sind weitestgehend autark. [...] Wir sind hier eine Zentralverwaltung für das gesamte Unternehmen, wir haben hier vielleicht 50, 60 Mitarbeiter. [...] Wir sind noch in dem Sinne kein Konzern, wo vielleicht auch eher so Spielchen aufkommen, Machtspielchen und Leutet gegeneinander auszuspielen. Dafür ist die Gruppe hier zu klein. Dafür wird hier dann auch im Kollegenkreis zu viel geredet als dass das einer nicht mitbekommen würde, wenn ein anderer versucht, gegen ihn zu intrigieren." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 17.53 min.)

("Das heißt ja nicht, dass es kein Konkurrenzdenken gibt, aber ich sag mal: es wird wenn dann offen ausgetragen und nicht durch Spielchen und versteckte Nickelichkeiten." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 20:22 min.)
("Wenn man jetzt aus einer anderen Region in Deutschland kommt, ... nicht jeder kommt damit klar ... man muss auch kritikfähig sein. Auch als Vorgesetzter sich der Kritik der Mitarbeiter zu stellen, ist ja nicht einfach. Kann man sicherlich auch nicht jeden Tag gleich gut. Sich überhaupt Kritik zu stellen, ich meine, jeder hört lieber Lob als das ein anderer erzählt, was nicht geklappt hat. Das ist auch nicht einfach. Man muss das vorher wissen, worauf man sich einlässt. Also nicht jeder kommt damit klar." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 20.53 min.)

Alone for economical reasons work is taken very serious in Poland. The gap between the rich and the impecunious is bigger than in Germany without a broad middle class. There are only the very rich, then a rather small middle class and then nothing for a long time. And there is no legal coverage by law like we know it from Germany. ("Die, die keine Arbeit haben, die, die nichts haben, die sind wirklich arm - unterhalb des Existensminimums." Vieth, 25.14 min.) For most families it is taken as a matter of course that both parents work.
For their workplace people are willing to shuffle 80 km every day from home to work and back again. ("Fahrgemeinschaften - 4 Mann in ein Auto und dann 80 km." Vieth, 2nd 04.06 min.) This reflects also how difficult it was for Panopa to find enough workers and it explains the necessity to train them into decent forklift drivers: coming from the countryside most of them will have only driven a tractor before. ("Das war eins der Probleme natürlich auch, dass Sie Leute kriegen; deshalb auch die Staplerschulung. Wenn die vom Land gekommen sind, 40 km weg, die haben - auf Deutsch gesagt: am Tag vorher haben die noch Traktor gefahren. So, und dann Staplerausbildung, sind da teilweise hervorragende Leute dabei. Kann man nicht anders sagen. Und die sind Ihnen auch ewig dankbar, dass sie nen Job haben. Sobald sie da in ländliche Gegenden reinkommen, dann ist auch in Polen noch: Licht aus." Vieth, 2nd 04.20 min.)

Continuing training is seen at the least as absolute necessity. Many understand it as means to learn something for oneself in order to be able to get ahead. And getting ahead offers the possibility to afford a nice appartment or little house. ("Sie werden kaum Familien sehen, wo die Frau zu Hause bleibt. Da pflegt wirklich die Mutter das Kind und die beiden arbeiten - weil sie's müssen, vom Finanziellen her. Sonst könnten sie sich kein Haus leisten, keine vernünftige Wohnung leisten, und so weiter. Da hat Arbeit einen anderen Stellenwert." Vieth, 24.31 min. "Arbeit hat wirklich unter anderem den Stellenwert irgendwo Karriere zu machen. Die sehen die Notwendigkeit, dass sie lernen müssen, um später irgendwann mal gesichert dazustehen." Vieth, 24.13 min.)

At the same time work also has a different social significance. When faced with problems concerning retirement payment for example, Polish employees would definitely turn to their company instead of turning to the official institutions. Mr. Vieth accounts this partly to the complicate bureaucratic system in Poland. ("Das Unternehmen in Polen hat eigentlich einen anderen Stellenwert für den polnischen Mitarbeiter als ein Unternehmen hier. Wenn die ein Problem mit der Rente haben, lösen sie das über die Firma. Hier würde man selbst die LVA oder wen auch immer anschreiben; machen die nicht. Dazu muss man aber auch wissen, dass das System das die da haben wesentlich komplizierter ist." Vieth, 26.15 min.)

While I tried to get an overview over different countries, Christof earned smart points by telling me about Korea. Having studied half a year in Seoul I considered him to be quite an expert. Nevertheless I had asked him about his impressions thus the following should be granted the benefits of subjectivity.

Just like China he sees Korea to be much influenced by the ideas of confucianism. This is not all too surprising considering the geographical neighborhood and the fact that Korea was quite frequently occupied by China.

Most obvious confucianism becomes in terms of education. Universities select their students by a centrally-organized entrance examination. For this occasion even air planes are taken off schedule so that the students are not disturbed. Depending on the score you are qualified to enter different schools. To really enter into a career it is indispensable to visit one of the big universities. There, networks and life-long friendships are being established. If entrance to these universities is refused, students might actually take a whole year off just to study for the qualifying examination.
For parents it is very important that their children obtain an excellent education. This includes learning English at an extremely young age and the expectation to only come home with the best marks.

The Korean society appears to be very hierarchical.
When first meeting somebody new the first question will be which occupation the other one holds? About the marital status and at which university the other one studied. This ceremony is often accompanied by handing over visit cards. In that case it is very important to take the card with both hands and look at it for quite some while. This shows interest and respect. This also helps to figure out how to address the other person. Depending on the status of the other person different forms of address are applicable, in which case verbs are formed differently (honorifics).
In general the younger one owes respect to the older one (which came in quite handy for Christof who never needed to tidy up the volleyball court) while on the other hand the older one is responsible for the younger one.
Traditionally, it is the one holding the higher status who is paying the expenses when going out. Nowadays this is not necessarily true among young people anymore and hardly ever when there are Western people in the group (so Christof was not lucky in this point :-(

In public it is very important to never lose 'face'. Nobody is showing emotions in public and hardly ever is critic articulated openly. Tasks seem to be performed obediently. Christof suggests that that might lead to quite some frustration which is then tackled in evening activities.

A usual Korean evening would start off in a restaurant, then move to a bar and later end with karaoke in a singing-room (noraebang). Drinking is a big part of this happening and usually it is not allowed to turn down drinks offered by some older person.

Back to business: the Korean economy is traditionally run by conglomerates (such as Samsung, Hyundai,....) so-called chaebols, family-controlled corporate groups, which are deeply interlinked with the state.
Professional life is characterized by extremely long working hours. It sometimes seems as if employees are competing in after-hours to demonstrate their loyalty and solidarity with the organization. Meeting in study groups with Koreans it was important to first socialize: eat together and talk. Only when you knew who the other person was, the working process was initialized and then often interrupted by further socializing. While the work still needed to be done, the Koreans effortlessly cut down on sleep. Work is often understood as working out tasks rather than working independently on own projects.

So far.... merci Christof.

My interview partner's company does not especially prepare their expatriates for their mission. Since they preferably hire people coming from a multi-ethnic background or having lived in another culture, they accept them to cope well in any cross-cultural setting. Prior to their employee's departure they conduct a so-called exit-interview. In this they simulate the employee's financial situation before and after his expatriate-mission, they talk about social insurance, the company car, .... and hard facts like that. My interview partner was actually disappointed that I did not show any interest in these facts, while they make up 90% of the future expatriate's concerns. Only by the time that they are on their second or third mission, they will start asking about the soft facts concerning the foreign culture and foreign attitudes.
In the host country a start up team which is assigned by the division manager is renting housing and helps organizing the required documents. If no facilities are available and the projects are planned to take longer, the company puts up its own camp.
The expatriates themselves are expected to learn the apparent cultural gestures of their host country and as said before they are expected to cultivate networks. The company understands itself as guest in the foreign country and it wants to keep that status/reputation. ("Wir sind Gäste in dem Land. Wir wollen auch in fünf Jahren noch willkommen geheißen werden.")

Additionally, it has to be mentioned that working for a big constructing company expatriates are not going to a "Polish" construction site - big construction sites are international by matter of investors and experts joining in. On 80% of their sites English is spoken as common language.
It also has to be remembered that expatriates are not coming to an unknown setting - they have worked on that project already for at least four years and know the relevant people on the other side, plus the colleagues they met in common workshops or trainings before. In addition construction sites offer a huge pool of diverse people thus it should be possible for everyone to find somebody he gets along with well. And, too, my interview partner says that it is still business and not about finding buddies.

They have hardly any problems with the acceptance of expatriates in the host country: On the one hand the expatriates are committed to excellence in their job, they want to show their best talents and thus are dedicated to absolute professionalism. ("Ich hab hier eine Aufgabe und ich zeige euch, dass ich das auch kann.") On the other hand their higher payments are usually accepted by host country nationals if they prove to be experts. ("Nach dem Motto 'ah-ha, der kann was', dann wird das auch akzeptiert.")

Nevertheless, expatriates especially in Eastern Europe hardly ever have problems with socializing. This is due to what my interview partner called "double binding". While it is simply their mentality to be more cordial than Germans, they are also aware that these are high-ranked people who are sent to them and they meet them as welcomed guests. Apparently, the biggest problem for expatriates is how to return this affection. Most of them can easily go along but then experience frustration and disappointment as part of a reversed culture-shock coming back to Germany. Others though perceive the call for socializing as an obligation and have a hard time to escape from it without appearing solitary.

In all cases it is up to the expatriate's personality if he succeeds in diminishing power structures or not. My interview partner argues that they never had any problems. "We are not putting anyone in a role, he couldn't play."
Every now and then they might have to send somebody who does not necessarily suit the expatriate profile but is an expert in a certain technique. In these cases it might happen that expatriate and host country nationals do not find a way to work together at all. But since the company cannot abandon the expert, they send a second expatriate to pour oil on troubled water by involving people in personal conversations, outlining the problem and showing empathy for the difficult situation. ("Ein Mensch kann nicht alle Fähigkeiten haben - in bestimmten Fällen muss man Abstriche machen. Da schickt man dann notfalls einen Gutelaune-Clown hinterher.")

Human Resources Management - Perspectives, Context, Functions, and Outcomes.
by Gerald R. Ferris, M.Ronald Buckley, Donald B. Fedo.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2002. 4th edition

While the book talks about managing human resources it reveals quite a lot about the resources themselves. Bill Leonard, for example, explores what CEOs want from human resource management. He quotes Mike R. Bowlin, then CEO of ARCO: "Our people are what will truly build a sustainable competitive advantage. In the long run, everyone has the same access to capital and technology, so a company's human resources is what makes the difference and makes it successful. It is the key resource." (p.5)

[p.9] Wayne F. Cascio illustrates the changes that took place in the last decades in the world of work in the US.
In general a shift occurred from wartime economies to economies in rather peaceful and stable environments. Societies formerly based on their industries are now transforming into information societies.

[p.10] Based on Kiechel (1993) he characterizes the new forms of organization as follows:

• rather small companies with only a few employees
• networks of specialists instead of integrated hierarchies
• new working elite are technicians
• payment according to the market value of skills not necessarily by position
• providing service instead of producing goods
• [p.11] loose job structure (flex time, job sharing, telecommuting,...) instead of a fixed bundle of tasks. -> constant learning, mixing free and work time

While the manager used to rule from top command, organizations now experience a breaking down of barriers. Information is expected to be shared and problems are supposed to be solved collaboratively. The focus lies on continuous learning and a constant improvement of skills. [p.12] This consequently calls for a transformational leadership as introduced by Bass (1985): leaders possessing a thorough understanding of human behaviors within organization motivate their employees to uttermost creativity and imagination. Cascio suggests that most work today is done in teams. Therefore it is necessary to understand teams as "intact, identifiable social systems (even if small or temporary) whose members have the authority to manage their own task and interpersonal processes as they carry out their work." Apparently, employees have become their own managers and the former managers are becoming mentors. [p.13] On top of that the working environment has become much more diverse: in terms of culture, gender, age, ... Thus work nowadays calls for an "emphasis on empowerment, cross-training, personal flexibility, self-managed work teams, and continuous learning."

[p.17]
Thus, Cascio says, the growth of any company is closely connected to the development of its individual employees. Human Resource Management needs to emphasize the following:

• "assessment of interests, values, and temperament" in order to help employees to find out about who they are and where they might be going
• "assessment and development of technical and functional work skills"
• "assessment and development of work strategies" as for example conflict resolution.

[pp.18-22]
While the anticipated developments can be regarded as eligible in general they might not be easily implemented. Constructs such as adaptability, consistency, or prosocial behavior do not naturally match a rather individualistic society. Furthermore it has to be taken in account that employees even if they are to determine the outcome of profits they do not necessarily feel to have the power to do so.

The Expatriate Business
The expatriates in a construction company are of course working on their projects long before they get to go on the construction site. Additionally, everybody is working on several projects at the same time since normally it is not clear till the end which company will actually get the order to build. From 10 projects planned only two will get ordered. Thus projects normally are kicked off four to five years in advance. For the expatriate business this as several advantages. First of all every project is run by a small fixed team. Other people will join that group during the course of the project but the leading troop will remain together. Thus by the time an expatriate mission is becoming relevant all the parties concerned are already long acquainted to each other. And of course the company tries to install groups that already proved to work well together in order to not face any additional problems. The more tricky a project is the more important the personal binding turns out to be ("bei den Schlüsselfiguren achten wir auf eine feste Bindung").
The company further promotes personal bounds by organizing workshops or training programs in which employees from all over the world join together. ("Damit möglichst viele Menschen im Konzern ein Netzwerk haben.") Thus when expatriates go to work abroad they do not arrive at a completely unknown setting. ("Normalerweise kennt man schon Kollegen aus dem anderen Land; Berührungspunkte gibt es überall.")
This concept of personal bounds also helps to avoid problems of power structures which the host country nationals often face. While it is never easy to admit mistakes or to ask strangers for help, a company is dependent on sharing knowledge. But a Polish employee would never call for help in the head office in Germany even though he might knew that the company has 100 experts sitting there especially trained in solving problems just like his. This is eased up by introducing employees to each other. Then the Polish employee does not have to call some unknown boss but calls Hans or Karl and turns to them for help as a friend.
The company also tries to consider employees personal preferences. This means if somebody often goes on vacation in Greece, he will most likely be assigned to projects taking place in Greece. As an international company they are dependent on being enrooted in the environment. They kind of expect their employees to also deploy their personal contacts and to cultivate networks ("ein Apparat will gepflegt werden").

Networking is further institutionalized by the kind of projects the company is participating in: joint-ventures are the most successful projects where each participating company is responsible for their share. Sometimes this is the only way to get into big building projects. They are often initiated by public institutions and nowadays financed through public-private-partnerships. Consequently it is difficult to give projects such as airports which are of public and national interest to a foreign company.
These professional partnerships on the other hand minimize the risks and allow access to already existing networks in the foreign market. The German company would assign a team of engineers which then would be responsible for assigning appropriate companies. The Joint-Venture-Board itself would meet once a month. And financial matters from all running construction projects are reported to the German head office every monday. While daily communication among all people in charge is absolutely essential, somebody from the German head office will visit the construction site at least every three to four weeks.

While sometimes only one expatriate will be sent abroad, a number between five to 20 is quite usual for a project with a turnover of 170 million ? and 400 employees in peak times.

France from a German perspective: difficult. I have a loose notion about France but nothing tangible. Taking numbers, concepts, systems, structure, ... Germany and France seem to be so much alike but still ... they are different.

Janet tried to establish a deeper understanding asking around in her French community.

Cadre labels a social group of very different professions (but office jobs in general). In order to become a member of cadre you should have attended one of the Grands Ecoles. At the same time Julien with his Bac +5 (having graduated and then studied for 5 years) and now working on his PhD is also considered cadre. Even though he did not study at one of the Grands Ecoles.
To attend one of these Grands Ecoles you have to follow a two year preparatory program which is said to have the highest suicidal rate among students.

(the article Kay quoted allows a glance on the importance of the Grands Ecole)

The bac is differentiated into different fields: science, language, art, social science,... With 15, 16 students decide into which direction they will move and hardly ever change afterwards.

Non-cadre are normally technicians and workers but there are also middle-class-cadres. Thus the sections cannot be separated so clearly anymore.

The non-cadres are tightly organized in unions which like to push their claims with strikes. Which supports Hofstede's statement that each group carries its own pride even though it does not explain the come-abouts.

All in all groups seem to stick to their group members: designers among themselves, programmers among themselves, sociologists among themselves (and Janet among all those groups). I actually think that that is due to the fact that you know most people from your studies. In Germany it often shows to be much the same. (Maybe a Western-European style?) Nevertheless, I found it quite striking that people actually apply terms like bac +5, or cadre and non-cadre. This very much supports Hofstede who said that the individuals are aware of their position in the hierarchy. In Germany I do not necessarily find that to be true. We have terms like the Bildungsbürgertum (I'll write on that later...) but I do not see such fixed groups. But obviously I need to investigate into that.

I had two nice interviews this week.
I'll throw you right into the second one. The text is quite long but I think it's worth reading ;-) And it was a long interview: 1.5 hours. (I add some German quotes I scribbled along since I was not allowed to record the interview. Hope they don't bother the English readers too much but I might want to use them.)

For my second interview I met a guy from the human resource management of a German constructing company. Thus he is one of the big important guys - scary. Lucky me that I did not know that before. Among other things he is responsible for the 380 expatriates his company is sending on mission abroad. He did not tell me so much about Poland in specific but drew a very interesting picture on the expatriate business.

His company first went to Poland in 1990, thus veryvery early. Mostly when they move onto new markets they follow their clients. Let's say they have done constructing for e.g. Volkswagen in Germany. Then Volkswagen decides to put up a factory in Poland - my interview partner's constructing company will for sure accompany them. In Poland they were first cooperating with a Polish company to master a huge construction project. But their expansion plans based on former clients. He said the Eastern European market to be especially interesting because the population is keen on consuming, on investing their money.

While the Polish part of his company is an independently running association, expatriates are send for several reasons:

• they are experts in their field of the construction process.
• for means of human resource development. The mission abroad is often taken as a step up in the business's hierarchy. ("Wenn der demnächst ne ganze Truppe leiten soll, soll der vorher auch mal sehen, wie der Laden im Ausland läuft.")
• they act as guarding dogs in all areas (which my interview partner described as organs, the vital parts of an organization: "Organe der Gesellschaft") but especially when it comes to financing; in this function the expat is responsible to do or see through the processes of planning, calculating, thus watch that everything is running smoothly and that the right numbers are reported, since everything will flow into the overall big balance.
• Every now and then expatriates are also installed in the Board of Executives, sometimes as guarding dogs and sometimes to profit from their experience when it comes to installing a whole new division for example.

They try to run a regular cycle with their expatriates ranging from two till four years. Every now and then they might send somebody on a half-year mission but that only happens in special cases where experts are needed. They normally do not stay longer to prevent fraternization.

Their biggest problem is actually to find enough people who are willing to go on an expatriate mission. ("Es ist nicht viel Auswahl. Wir freuen uns, wenn wir für eine Position drei Kandidaten haben, meistens sind es nur zwei.") They try to meet this problem already in their hiring practice where they especially look for people with international experience or for people with a multi-ethnic background. ("Wir suchen nach Menschen mit zwei Seelen in der Brust; Menschen mit zwei, drei Mentalitäten.") Thus they normal advertise their jobs already in English since on 80% of the construction sites English is the main language. They look for people who are mobile, adroit, open-minded and who already studied or worked in foreign countries. They have to show a certain ambitiousness and joy at other people and other cultures; they have to show a gipsy-mentality.

At the same time they try to work on the Polish side by means of ongoing training. This has several advantages. In the long-term they hope to reduce the need for expatriates. For the moment further training is simply necessary to work with qualified staff and then to draw employees close to the company. My interview partner described Poland as one of the hot markets where it is relatively easy to make a career if you are keen on that. ("Osteuropa - das sind heiße Märkte, da bewegt sich unheimlich viel.") Nobody has the patience to run through a solid three-year apprenticeship while you can make the big bucks so much faster.
In general companies are faced with a much higher fluctuation than in Germany. Qualified staff is rare and competitors are willing to pay higher salaries if they do not have to invest into education. But there is a natural limit to paying employees for staying. My interview partner's company tries to bind people by offering them a future, by cultivating personal relations, and by giving them the outlook to work for a successful, well-positioned company, thus employ their reputation. A profound job marketing and close connections to the universities leads to 30.000-40.000 job applications annually. ("Jung finden und selbst backen." - Find young and bake yourself.) Nevertheless, this procedure implies that only in 10-15 years you will have the staff that you are looking for.

Thus: back to expatriates.
(I split the summary so you'll have to check out the next article linked aboved.)

While I can mostly understand what foreigners stumble about in German culture, I could never put it in words for myself. Thus I'm very happy to have a professor who came from Canada to Germany ten years ago.

He was telling how much he was still astonished by the German rivalry among colleagues. While in other countries at least the staff might stick together under claim "everybody hates the dean", Germans like to fight at their work place. What a silly competition when there are enough enemies out there.

(Maybe that's why I have such a hard time believing in the calls for team work.)

Not relying on expatriates the station in Poznań became a regular company with warehousemen, executives in the warehouse, people for administration, controlling, human resource management, planning, computing, accounting, purchasing, technical administration, ... Thus it is an independently functioning company - set up as a Polish company with its own board of executives.

When establishing the station, Panopa was looking for a closer contact to the technical university and logistic institute. Installing all the cross-divisional supply chain functions it would have been a unique chance to bind junior staff members to the company. Being in the early stage of development it would have been quite easy to integrate students writing their examination paper who in return could have profited from the experiences of the experts responsible to build up the company. Unfortunately, Panopa did not succeed. The only student who was interested was a guy who had Polish roots but had grown up and studied in Germany.

A lose exchange with the German headquarter is established when Polish employees attend programs on how to meet the quality standard of calculating propositions. Therefore they visit the German headquarters and are introduced how propositions are made, which devices are used, how the program works, ... Based on the same idea the Polish man in charge for controlling spends several weeks at a time in Germany to watch and learn when new software was purchased.
Besides the technical aspects this sort of exchange is to get acquainted to the practices of doing things, to the way decisions are made... ("So das nach Möglichkeit die Standards und Entscheidungswege so wie wir sie hier haben nach dorthin übertragen werden." Dr. Hucht, 16.02 min.) This ensures a smooth working flow: a decision on investment in or for Poznań is a decision that has to be backed up by the German parent company as well. This means that the decision making process is initiated and prepared in Poznań, that the plan then is accredited by the board of executives and is afterwards - like all other projects of Panopa - passed to the German board of executives. Therefore it is helpful to work by the same structures and the same forms and preprints.
In the field of qualification management all employees are trained in Germany. Workshops are certified on a pan-European level and employees in all divisions and countries of Panopa can take part in a training run in Duisburg by the German headquarter. The participants then are observed by the responsible German employees of Panopa in an auditing at their respective work setting. Participating successfully employees can acquire a pan-European certificate guaranteeing quality management.

Besides this advanced training, Panopa conducts driving classes for forklift drivers. This is simply due to the fact that the company did not find enough employees in this field. Panopa also faced problems with fake documents ("Sie können in Polen nicht unbedingt glauben, dass wenn Ihnen einer einen Schein vorlegt, dass das nicht der vom Bruder ist." Vieth, 18.07 min.) Consequently every applicant gets to take driving classes to make sure he can actually drive a forklift. This training is completely financed by Panopa even though they are confronted with a high fluctuation rate: potential employees take the benefits of the extra qualification and apply at other companies. Nevertheless, Panopa sees this to be the only way to get qualified forklift drivers. ("Anders hat man keine Chance - sie kriegen keine Staplerfahrer." Vieth, 18.32 min.)

In general the workforce is characterized by a high fluctuation rate. Panopa tries to meet that by appropriate payments and by fair working conditions, thus keeping their staff happy. However, the extreme high fluctuation rate does not come about by employees switching to other companies in the area of Poznań but by the general shift of workforce towards other European countries, especially Ireland and England. Last year 8000 young people from the area of Poznań alone moved to work abroad. Having graduated from university and knowing English well enough they plan on two, three, four years abroad to earn the big bucks and to then return to Poland when the market has grown even more. By then they know perfect English, German already anyway and have a solid education. ("Die sprechen dann Deutsch, sprechen Englisch und haben eine entsprechende Ausbildung." Vieth, 19.29 min.)

Education in general plays an important role. Mr. Vieth says that he experienced the Polish staff to be extremely eager for knowledge. Being offered a training at the weekend Germany employees would ask for extra payment and a substituting day off, while Polish employees would only ask for the training's fee to be paid. ("Die polnischen Mitarbeiter, so wie ich sie da kennengelernt habe, sind unheimlich wissbegierig. Ich bring's mal knapp auf einen Nenner: wenn Sie in Deutschland ein Mitarbeiter fragen, ob er Samstag, Sonntag Zeit hat, dann ist meistens die erste Frage: 'Wie wird das vergütet?', 'Wann krieg ich dafür frei?' [...] In Polen ist die einzige Frage: 'Wer bezahlt den Lehrgang?' [...] Der Mitarbeiter will nichts haben." Vieth, 19.45 min. "Da ist der Wille zu lernen deutlich stärker ausgeprägt als bei uns." Vieth, 20.30 min. "Das ganze Ausbildungsgeschäft läuft Samstag/Sonntag, nicht unter der Woche." Vieth, 20.38 min.)
Meeting this eagerness to learn with additional training offers, Panopa manages to bind employees to the company and profits from the advantages of home-grown staff.

Nevertheless, Panopa has problems to find enough employees. Additional to the high emigration rate there is also a tight competition among companies because they are all looking for the same kind of employee. Even though they are partners Volkswagen and Panopa ran into problems building up their subsidiaries at the same time. While Volkswagen was stocking up their staff from 2000 employees to 5000, Panopa was complementing their staff from 130 to 700 employees nowadays. Consequently it was difficult to alone fill the positions but also to find good people for the managerial levels. To keep the people in the management level proves to be just as difficult for the very same reasons: the competition for good employees is high. But competing in raising the salary is difficult. The budgets are quite reduced since everybody tries to produce as cheap as possible. ("Das heißt, da war der Bedarf für Leute da, gleichzeitig der wachsende Trend ins Ausland zu gehen, gepaart mit anderen Unternehmen, die sich in Polen ansiedeln, das heißt der Wettberwerb um gute Leute ist schon sehr groß. Damit natürlich auch die Schwierigkeit, die dann über finanzielle Möglichkeiten - denn was anderes ist es im Endeffekt erstmal nicht - so zu motivieren, dass sie bei der Stange bleiben. Weil gleichzeitig unser Kunde natürlich nach Polen geht, um günstiger zu werden. Das heißt, es ist auch nicht so ohne weiteres möglich über einen festgelegten Preis pro Fahrzeug, den wir da bekommen für unsere Dienstleistung, jetzt zu sagen, ich halt die Führungskräfte indem ich finanzielle Zugeständnisse mache. Weil der Topf aus dem das bezahlt wird, der ist einfach mal fix. Unser Kunde wird da nicht sagen: 'Na gut, dann zahl ich dir auch wieder mehr, weil du jetzt mehr Geld ausgeben musst, um deine Leute entsprechend zu motivieren." Dr. Hucht, 21.36 min).

Talking so much about education, I wondered if many people take vocational retraining like it happened in Germany after the reunification.
Mr. Vieth says that actually a lot of people understand their German studies and their accordant language skills as a basis to work in a German company. Even though they are not qualified for any specific job. ("Viele, die Germanistik dort unten studieren, nutzen ihre Deutschkenntnisse, um in deutschen Unternehmen zu arbeiten. Das hat nichts damit zu tun, dass die vom Fach sind. Sie werden dort unten niemanden finden, einen Polen, der deutsch spricht und nebenbei perfekt im Buchhaltungswesen ist. Den werden Sie überhaupt nicht treffen. Den müssen Sie ausbilden. Die Bereitschaft muss man mitbringen, wenn man sich dort langfristig etablieren will und auch einen vernünftigen Stamm ausbauen will." Vieth, 22.40 min.)
In general there is no system of apprenticeship like we know it in Germany. While we run through a dual structure of training-on-the-job and additional school, people in Poland get into their jobs by additional training. If somebody might apply for a job in accounting that person would attend a three-week program in accounting. The workshops would of course take place during the weekend while the applicant learns the actual work on the job. ("Das läuft wirklich gezielt: So, sie soll jetzt in die Buchhaltung. Jetzt macht sie drei Wochen an den Wochenenden jeweils den Lehrgang, den Lehrgang, den Lehrgang." Vieth, 23.32 min. "Das läuft also nicht wie bei uns im dualen Ausbildungssystem mit Berufsschule und nebenbei arbeiten." Vieth, 23.53 min.)

At the same time Panopa employs quite some students. Financially limited most students have to work to afford their studies. Thus they work as forklift driver during the week and study at the weekend: up to 18 hours. ("Die müssen einerseits das Geld verdienen, damit sie ihre Wohnung, ihre Familie bezahlen können und das Studium läuft am Wochenende, Samstag, Sonntag: Samstag 10 Stunden und Sonntags acht Stunden. Da machen die jedes Wochenende 18 Stunden." Vieth, 2nd: 02.01 min.)
Thus working at Panopa is not seen as a basis for entering a career in the company - it simply pays money. On the other hand studying - as was mentioned before - serves first of all the purpose to obtain a certificate of higher education. Everything else can be arranged afterwards.
Most of the staff will not stay at Panopa once they finished their studies. The company simply cannot take so many employees considering that there are only around 60 positions in administration while the rest of the 650 jobs are merely operational.