The head of the Tesla-Plant in Grünheide near Berlin has defended home visits to employees because of frequent sick leave. Manager André Thierig does not rule out such an approach in the future. Home visits are nothing unusual. “Many companies do that,” he told the German Press Agency. “We wanted to appeal to the work ethic of the workforce.” The IG Metall On the other hand, he criticized the very high workload in the car factory and called the home visits an “absurd action”.
According to Tesla, the trigger for the unannounced home visits was an above-average level of sickness in the summer months. “At times it reached 15 percent or more,” said Thierig. The “Handelsblatt” had previously reported on home visits to employees who were on sick leave. The newspaper referred to a tape recording it had of a works meeting last week.
Tesla has been producing electric cars in Grünheide in Brandenburg for more than two years. According to the company, almost 12,000 employees work there. But the electric car market is in the doldrums.
Thierig said: “We informed the workforce about the home visits at the works meeting and explained our approach.” There was great approval from the workforce. There had already been feedback that employees were frustrated because of the high level of absenteeism among their colleagues.
“We have identified a good 200 employees who are still receiving wages but who have not yet worked at all this year. They bring new sick reports at least every 6 weeks,” said Thierig. “We picked out two dozen cases.” The production manager and the human resources manager then made unannounced home visits to the employees. “The majority were not found, and some very aggressive behavior was evident.”
Thierig denies working conditions as a reason
From the Tesla manager’s point of view, the reason for the sick leave is not due to the working conditions. “In our analyzes of attendance, phenomena became apparent: on Fridays and late shifts, around 5 percent more employees reported sick than on other days of the week,” said Thierig.
“This is not an indicator of poor working conditions, because working conditions are the same on all working days and in all shifts. It suggests that the German social system is being exploited to some extent.” Tesla has more than 1,500 temporary workers who work under the same conditions. Here the sickness rate is 2 percent.
Thierig emphasized that there was no general suspicion of sick people at Tesla. “We wanted to seek dialogue with employees and find out what was going on with them. A personal visit has a different effect than a phone call.” Sickness rates have also decreased. “We have noticed an improvement effect.” Thierig: “I don’t want to rule out further home visits.”
IG Metall: Tesla puts pressure on sick people
The district manager of IG Metall Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony, Dirk Schulze, criticized the fact that sick people were being put under pressure. “Employees from almost all areas of the plant reported extremely high workloads,” he said. “If there is a lack of staff, the sick are put under pressure and those who are still healthy are overburdened with additional work. If the plant management really wants to reduce sickness rates, they should break this vicious circle.”