Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe
Germany and the crisis year 2009. The turnover was breaking down everywhere. The downward trend did not stop at the semiconductor industry, either. Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe (FSEU) management was trying to control the crisis. However, despite all the measures taken by the directorate, after a few months the dismissal of employees appeared inevitable. As management informed their personnel in a staff meeting about the pending dismissals, something extraordinary happened. Forty-eight hours after the emergency meeting, all employees of FSEU assured the European chief of management that they would renounce their salaries as long as no colleagues were made redundant.
This is not the only example demonstrating that Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe has, over the years, established a very special corporate culture. The degree of connectedness which the employees evinced in the crisis year of 2009 is just one more indication of the well-customized HR measurements—an independent, widely accepted management and working culture within the company.
In fact, it is rather the exception that a large international company like Fujitsu allowed one of its branches to work out its own complete human resources processes and to develop and implement a unique management culture. The Japanese Fujitsu Limited has been very successful with this approach. The Asian managers understood that the cultural differences between Europe and Japan, particularly in the work area, are exceptionally significant. As a matter of fact, the differences are so big that paternalism from the island nation would not reach the other side of the world. As a consequence, the Japanese headquarters decided to give the European subsidiary free reign. The president is European. The headquarters in Tokyo took back its last Japanese bosses several years ago.
FSEU uses its freedom successfully. The subsidiary with a team of 400 employees achieved, in some market segments, a global market share of 80 percent. Whether you get into a car or use your phone, chances are you are using a chip developed by FSEU in Frankfurt.
This chip ensures that all the technical applications of our daily lives run smoothly. With success stories like this, as well as with many HR industry awards, the European subsidiary would like to thank its parent company for giving it the freedom to create this positive work culture.
CO-CREATION AND COMMUNICATION
Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe (FSEU) provides a variety of methods for a close integration of its workforce. One of these methods is employee surveys, which are carried out by the company annually. Unlike in many other companies, after the interviews FSEU follows up with workshops consisting of selected teams. This happens whenever the personnel department, after evaluation of the survey, gets the impression that it needs to act on some implementations.
In the beginning, the employees of FSEU were astonished that their feedback to management had a direct impact, even down to their daily work. In the meantime, the employees realized and also internalized the idea that they had the opportunity to make a difference in their everyday business just by participating in the annual surveys and workshops. For years now, management has encouraged this approach as a real opportunity. “The company is not just made up of the management team. It’s all of us which makes this enterprise.” This is the mantra of the executive suite. Ever since staff realized that active participation is encouraged, the company has received more feedback from its employees without prompting or surveys.
Another opportunity for feedback is the so-called “Management Talks.” FSEU established these meetings after it received frequent feedback from staff saying, “Everything is so fast tracked. It’s hard to catch up with what is happening.” Management understood this feedback as a need for the management level to communicate more intensely back to “its own” company, particularly in terms of changes and business developments. “We were looking for a direct and uncomplicated way to meet this need,” said Dr. Gerhard Roos, Vice President of the Business Unit Embedded Solution. The board then developed the idea of Management Talks. It is really very simple, but precisely because of its simplicity it is unusual and efficient. The Executive Board invites the entire staff regularly to a joint meeting in the company’s cafeteria. In 2007, the general manager, Shimpei Hirata, presented for the first time in front of his entire team and announced, “From today on we will meet every two months, here in this place. At those meetings, I will tell you about the latest developments within the company. We want to answer your questions and likewise accept suggestions you have. There is no agenda for those meetings.”
Initially staff was a little irritated by this open concept. At the first Management Talks, this irritation was almost physically tangible to everyone involved. Staff was not familiar with this kind of feedback, and there was little response. In individual interviews, management asked the question, “Do you really want that?” The answer was yes, throughout almost all employees. They thought those Management Talks were excellent. After a little start-up phase, staff quickly warmed to this format of teamwork. Ever since, the Management Talks became an active place for exchange. This is the place where many issues can be brought to management’s attention. There was simply no previous framework for this directness and immediacy.
The advantage of this format at the management level is that management gets a good understanding of the mood of its workforce, can take in suggestions and at the same time learn to handle criticism. Every employee can get things like criticism, praise and ideas off his or her chest and discuss these issues face to face with management. This creates trust and connectedness.
To further improve the communication culture, FSEU has developed another method—a unique employee magazine. The highlight: The editorial team of the quarterly magazine will be completely replaced after each edition. This guarantees that different points of view are made visible. On a regular basis, everyone can get involved and choose topics of interest. With this implementation, FSEU creates another strong sign that broad and open communication within the company is highly appreciated.
A NEW WAY OF SAYING “THANK YOU”
FSEU is actively project-oriented. These projects frequently change. This means that employees come together relatively often on various projects and finish them after a short time only to move on to different projects.
With all this change, it did happen in the past that management lost count of everyone who could give feedback on the various projects they were completing. After a project ended, feedback wasn’t obtained about simple things such as “How was my work?” and “Were the results actually implemented?” In addition, according to the employee survey, many workers just missed a modest “thank you” for a job well done.
At the same time, the supervisor had no process to check on employees and projects meticulously. This would not correspond with the corporate culture of granting the employee more freedom.
How was a manager to convey appreciation when the employee often worked outside the manager’s area, while at the same time granting him or her as much freedom as possible? In 2005 the head of personnel, Axel Tripkewitz, had a brilliant idea. ‘The momentum needs to come from somewhere other than the superiors,’ he thought. His idea was an “E-Thank-You Card.” The idea of this card was simple, but the implementation was a bit more complicated. Every employee has the opportunity to send an “E-Thank-You Card” through an available program on the intranet to another employee in the company. For example, if Schulze has worked on the project team of Meier’s employees and Meier thinks that Schulze has done a good job, Meier would use an “E-Thank-You Card” to say thank you.
At first glance, you might think, ‘Why does he not tell him personally?’ Of course, he could do that as well. However, every time Meier sends his colleague a personal E-card, Schulze’s supervisor receives a copy in his mailbox. Therefore, whenever someone does a good job somewhere within the company, his or her boss learns of it. Now, it takes only one mouse click to forward this E-card to the worker and congratulate him or her for excellent performance. With another click of the mouse, the giver can attach a payment of 200, 400 or 800 Euros, which will be credited to the employee’s next paycheck. This, too, is done automatically by linking the E-Thank-You card to the Org management in the SAP system, where the information is automatically processed with the next payroll.
In the beginning, before implementation of this idea, the hiring manager had some doubts. ”How do we budget for that?” Tripkewitz was asked by his colleagues from the Executive Committee during the presentation of his idea. ”This will get out of hand because everyone will continuously send everyone else an E-Thank-You Card,” was only one of the concerns. However, the hiring manager knew his people and was convinced that they would deal conscientiously with the new incentive. After all, he had been in the personnel department of the company for over 25 years. Tripkewitz placed confidence in his colleagues in management, who have also been with the company for ten to 25 years.
“We do not budget for that,” he suggested. ”We just finish our watering-can principle of the existing to-date discretionary bonus payments. At the end of the year, we let our staff suggest who will receive a bonus. Then we pay this immediately.”
The board agreed. Nonetheless, in the first few months after the introduction of this system, the head of personnel paid close attention. However, all fears were unfounded. He had to send a reminder of proportionality to only one department at the beginning of the program. Ever since then, the system has run smoothly.
Everybody is happy with the result. Employees receive more appreciation for their work, and supervisors receive a regular update when their team has delivered an unusually good performance. At the end of the year, management doesn’t have to worry anymore about how the “bonus-pot” is paid out. On a daily basis, staff is now helping management with this task. As it turns out, with this method the annual investment is less than management had budgeted for the conventional bonus payments.
COMPANY FACTS
Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe (FSEU) is one of six regional subsidiaries of the Japanese parent company Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited (7,000 employees), which in turn belongs entirely to Fujitsu Limited (173,000 employees).
Its primary customers include automobile manufacturers and suppliers, as well as vendors in the telecommunications industry.
In the early 80s, FSEU was founded in Frankfurt/Langen and employs around 400 employees to date—30 percent more than just four years ago, 70 percent of whom are engineers. So far, the company has never had work council.
The team has now developed technologies that ensure that the individual company divisions in the global market reap a share of 80 percent. FSEU has been repeatedly noticed as one of the most attractive employers in Germany (Top Automotive, Top Employer Engineers, TOP JOB, and Great Place to Work).
