• Areas of Expertise:
  • Business and society
  • Diversity
  • Employment status
  • Gender
  • Health
  • Human capital
  • Industrial change
  • Industrial relations
  • Labour market
  • Participation at work
  • Population and society
  • Quality of life
  • Quality of work
  • Social cohesion
  • Social protection
  • Time
  • Work-life balance
  • Work organisation

EXECUTIVE STAFF

A separately defined category of members of the workforce who perform (some of) the functions of an employer or entrepreneur (Works Constitution Act & 5(3)). This entails a certain polarization of interests between them and other employees . According to the Act, executive staff are individuals who possess independent authority to engage and dismiss employees within the establishment or one of its departments or have been invested with full power of attorney or commercial power of attorney (which is not confined to purely routine matters). Also included in this category are individuals who regularly perform managerial functions which in terms of their importance and consequence are on a par with the authority and powers mentioned. This is the case if the sphere of activity for which they have responsibility, basically without following directions from others, is important to the existence and development of the company or an establishment. In addition, the classification covers individuals who, although not performing a line management function, exert an important influence on management decisions in a central staff capacity.

If it is uncertain whether a particular individual should be classed as a "Leitender Angestellter" on the basis of these criteria, their annual salary may be used as a yardstick, at a level of around 118,500 Deutschmarks. On the other hand, white-collar workers exempt from collectively agreed terms are not normally also classed as executive staff. The provisions of the works constitution do not apply to executive staff; their interests are represented by separate representative bodies for executive staff . There are also special regulations as regards protection against dismissal and pay for overtime . Executive staff are frequently subject to a restraint on competition .