time-saving accounts

[keannu]

1. What does "accounts" in "time-saving accounts" mean?
2. Is "firm" different from "company"? Is the former smaller than the latter? "Bosch" is not a small company.

14)Like those in the rest of the world, European companies are having a difficult time in the current economy...Consider, the example of the German auto parts giant Bosch. This firm has not laid off a single full-time employee since the economic trouble began. It uses time-saving accounts, which allow employees to work more hours during busy times and fewer when things are slow...

 

[bhaisahab]

1. What does "accounts" in "time-saving accounts" mean?
2. Is "firm" different from "company"? Is the former smaller than the latter? "Bosch" is not a small company.

14)Like those in the rest of the world, European companies are having a difficult time in the current economy...Consider, the example of the German auto parts giant Bosch. This firm has not laid off a single full-time employees since the economic trouble began. It uses time-saving accounts, which allow employees to work more hours during busy times and fewer when things are slow...

1. I have no idea.
2. "firm" and "company" mean the same.

 

[SoothingDave]

Instead of working 40 hours (or whatever is normal for Germany) every week, the workers are allowed to work less when there is less work to be done and work more when there is more work to be done. On average they would average out to a normal work week.

If you work 5 extra hours one week, you have 5 hours in your "account." You can at some later time take 5 hours off. Or vice versa. If you work less than 40 hours in a week you have a negative balance in your account and need to make the time up later.

 

[5jj]

This response has little to do language, but may be of interest.

When I worked with Bosch in the early 1970s, I was very impressed with the company's approach to working hours for its Mitarbeiter (I could at the time translate this into English only as employee; the term coworker was unknown then in BrE.) The company was years ahead of its British counterparts in enabling flexi-time whenever it was at all possible. I was also struck by the fact that all coworkers, from the newest office cleaner to the most senior mangers, clocked in and out. The company was prepared to pay only for for work done when the coworkers registered their presence, but did not expect coworkers to 'give' one minute of unpaid work. The most junior of coworkers knew that their terms and conditions of employment were the same as those of the most senior of managers.

I had no idea what 'time-saving accounts' were until I came across this thread, but I am not at all surprised that Bosch should adopt this creative way of minimising the effects of fluctuations in demand.

Not a Robert Bosch PR spokesperson/spin-doctor.