Participation of employees: democracy in the office

If you get awarded his company the unofficial title of "heroine of the Corona time", then you might make some things right. As Verena Köppel. She is 37 years old and has been working for almost ten years for Haufe-Umantis in the Swiss city of St. Gallen. Umantis personnel software division of the Haufe group, the HR-services and literature threaded. There Köppel takes care of normally to recruitment, cultural work and transformation processes. Now, however, she has taken "the whole of the Corona organization in the Hand," says Hermann Arnold, co-founder and co-CEO of Haufe-Umantis. "You see this crisis as a First come, timely measures taken, and – much earlier than most of the other companies did it – all of the employees into the home office sent." The Unusual: Verena Köppel is neither for health management yet it has a leadership position. It is, as Arnold puts it, a "simple researcher".

Nadine Bös

editor in the business, responsible for the "profession and Chance".

That "simple employee" pop can take on certain leadership tasks, is due to the fact that Haufe-Umantis is a democratically-run companies, at least as far as within the structures of the company as a whole group. "What did Verena Köppel in the Corona-crisis, the cleaning would have can trigger in us force, or an apprentice," says Arnold. This System is called the "Advice process": "Everyone, whether a leader or not, may decide in the company, everything, every topic or occupy," explains Arnold. "He has to abide by only two rules: people ask for advice, familiar with the matter, whether they be internal or external. And all who are concerned in the company of importance of the decision, to listen to.“

the Corona-crisis works perfectly. "I have started a channel with the Microsoft team," says Köppel. "It could give all the employees their opinion: we are closed to the home office, when we have the first case? Or the previous one?“ Has helped you, surely, that Umantis have always been a modern work, very receptive to was. Also in front of the Corona, each could decide whether he wanted to work at home or in the workplace. The office headquarters in a chic renovated building in the St. Gallen city centre beckons with sun-lounger corners, painted walls, table tennis tables and a long Bar to relax over a Cup of coffee.