The works council in the course of agile transformation

Recently, at a conference with several agile Coaches, I had an interesting conversation about the body of co-determination in companies, the works council. The colleagues were annoyed about how suspicious the works council was of the agile transformation. One coach even asked, “Can’t the works council be voted out again?” He was of the opinion that agile transformation should be proposed by the works council and not boycotted.

Having been a works councilor and also works council chairperson myself for several years, this attitude hit me harder than I had expected. Admittedly, I know both works councils and employers who argue for the sake of arguing, who have no interest in cooperation, or where employees are generally suspected of constantly taking advantage of employers.

It is worth taking a closer look at the interaction between the two sides in order to recognise and use the opportunities of agile transformation.

The consequences of a lack of cooperation between works council and employer

There are many companies where the interaction between the works council and the employer is very good, or at least good. And there are certainly many companies where cooperation – in general and also in the course of the agile transformation – could be sustainably improved.

For example, I know of a company where the works council wanted to book a two-hour lecture on agile transformation to learn about the topic and possible opportunities and risks. This lecture request was rejected by the employer. Reason: It was not for the works council and the committee did not need it!

Such a decision or justification does something to the relationship between the parties. Not surprisingly, the works council loses faith in the goodwill of the employer. This almost inevitably leads to more disputes and the application of all possible and impossible paragraphs from the Works Constitution Act. Here is a small selection of examples:

• § Sec. 87 para. 1 no. 6 BetrVG – performance and conduct control.
  If tools such as JIRA are used in the implementation of agile transformation to document work progress, set up boards, etc., the works council must be involved, as these tools are suitable for monitoring behaviour and performance.
• § Section 87 (1) no. 13 BetrVG – Group work
  Self-organised teams with end-to-end responsibility may meet the requirements of this section, so the works council must also be involved.
• §Section 111 BetrVG – Organisational change
  If the whole organisation is transformed, there may be a change in operations. This must be reviewed and, if necessary, renegotiated.

I know from my past experience that these and many other paragraphs are NOT pulled by works councils if information is made available early and comprehensively. Communication is and remains an important ingredient for good cooperation. Another ingredient is often: values.

Values for the further development of cooperation

Time and again we see how important values are for successful cooperation between the works council and the employer. When I think of values, Spiral Dynamics¹ comes to mind. If works councillors feel at home on the blue level of consciousness, then courage means something different to them than it does to people who feel very comfortable on the orange level of consciousness. For blue (security and plannability, order and hierarchy), it is courageous to question the rules; for the orange level of consciousness, on the other hand, this is completely normal, the best way is always sought and, in the process, everything previously defined is also questioned.

Let’s take a look at agile values and how they might be interpreted in the course of co-determination:

• Self-commitment: Willingness to commit to a common goal, as can also be inferred from § 2 BetrVG (trusting cooperation between the employer and the works council for the benefit of employees and the company).
• Feedback: Establish a feedback culture in co-determination, e.g. through retrospectives with the participation of the works council and the employer or reviews of works meetings with the employees concerned.
• Focus: Orientation through commitment and concentration on achieving goals, serious attempt to reach agreement and negotiate at eye level in the sense of self-commitment.
• Communication: All parties involved communicate openly and constructively with each other. This sounds easy, but it is one of the most difficult points in practice.
• Courage: Psychological safety in the workplace, which often goes hand in hand with a constructive error culture. It is important to listen to and accept other opinions and not to condemn or brush them away per se.
• Respect: Appreciate diversity and individuality and live this appreciation and take it into account to an appropriate degree in necessary agreements.
• Simplicity: Avoid complexity and do not complicate agreements unnecessarily.
• Openness: Creating a space in which honesty, forbearance and security promote the courage to share information with each other at an early stage.

The path to common descriptions and interpretations of these values will clarify many ambiguities between the employer and the works council. Perhaps new conflicts will also arise, which ideally need to be discussed and clarified immediately. And so the realisation that it is important to communicate with each other also applies in the context of working with values.

The adapted application of the Agile Manifesto for work with the works council

In addition to providing information at an early stage and clarifying the values of cooperation, there is another approach to actively involving the works council in the course of an agile transformation and implementing agile aspects in co-determination as well.

Companies could rewrite the agile manifesto for the work of the works council and the cooperation between the works council and the employer. Practically an agile co-determination manifesto:

• “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. could become “Employee needs over regulations” or “Trust over company agreements”. It would also be nice to have “Individual development over bureaucratic restrictions”.
• “Working software over comprehensive documentation” could become “Human-centred cooperation over legally perfect regulations” or “Common sense over detailed, complete regulations”. Maybe “Satisfied employees over maximum profit”?
• “Cooperation with the customer over contract negotiation” could become “Employee participation over negotiating behind closed doors” or “Employee interests over higher bonuses”. Possibly, “Shared vision over meeting pre-set company goals” could also work.
• And “Responding to change over following a plan” could become “Forward-looking foresight over clinging to the past” or “Change competence over stabilisation activities”. “Foresight over caution” I personally like too.

I think sharing an agile co-determination manifesto can trigger great aha moments as a complement to clarifying agile values. Feel free to give it a try when you get a chance.

Further concrete suggestions for improving co-determination

There are further possibilities to live agile approaches also in co-determination. The first and most important step must be to train both works councils and management in agility. I often observe that there are serious deficits in understanding not only on the works council side, but also on the management side. Both parties must be clear about what is really at stake. This also includes talking openly about what agility means for all those involved in a specific case.

Once this has been clarified, there are some crazy ideas on how to make works council work more agile:

• Surveys on the issues at hand in the workforce,
• reviews of the company agreement drafts by those affected by them,
• transformation circles with the employer and the works council,
• winning the works council as a stakeholder in the transformation,
• works council board with backlog from the workforce, or
• retrospectives with the works council and the employer.

These and similar ideas can stimulate and promote many great developments. Of course, the people involved play an important role in such developments. If, for example, my centre of gravity is on the level of power, I may not want to be deprived of decision-making authority. If I feel comfortable in a very regulated, process-oriented and hierarchical environment, I may find the mere reliance on common sense extremely risky. The agile approaches and measures chosen must therefore be a good fit for the development level of the organisation AND the people in it.

Conclusion

I enjoyed being a works council member and had very different experiences. I have encountered almost everything from blocking attitudes on the part of the employer to the attitude that “the works council is also responsible for the company”. I firmly believe that works councils can recognise the opportunities of an agile transformation, as long as they are given the opportunity to understand the background, contexts and challenges involved. This requires early and comprehensive information. In addition, the joint consideration of values and, if necessary, the development of a co-determination manifesto can further improve the cooperation between the employer and the works council.

If employers treat their employees with respect, fairness and decency, and works councils do not go into confrontation out of frustration and also consider the employer’s perspective, then cooperation usually improves very quickly. Interestingly, this does not even require an agile transformation.

Notes (some in German):

[1] Don Edward Beck, Christopher C. Cowan: Spiral Dynamics – Leadership, Werte und Wandel

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Claudia Simsek-Graf has published another article in the t2informatik Blog:

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