Koehler rewards employee suggestions and innovations

Koehler employees like contributing their ideas and thoughts. To encourage this, Koehler has im-plemented a company suggestion system (BVW) that aims to support and motivate employees in independently and creatively taking the initiative where they see opportunities for improvement.

“Through the use of a modern ideas management approach, at Koehler we can work continuously on the optimization of business processes and procedures. The driving force behind our ongoing improvement is the creativity of our employees, who provide the company with numerous ideas from the company suggestion system (own search for ideas) and the continuous improvement process (guided search for ideas).” Bernhard Bonath, Head of Occupational Health and Safety, adds: “We will constantly promote such creativity and take an interest in what could be done better in the company. To this end, we are delighted to engage with our employees and ask for their views, as nobody is more familiar with operational processes than they are.”

Commitment and dedication to the company

In 2019 alone, 765 suggestions for improvement were submitted; together with several suggestions from previous years, a total of 936 suggestions were reviewed in 2019. 

39 percent of all ideas from 2019 relate to the categories procedures/workflows, plant safe-ty/energy and occupational safety/health protection. These include ideas that make it possible, for example, to reduce electricity consumption, increase production or optimize production time and improve occupational safety in the company. 

A total of 69,656 euros was paid out in bonuses to the employees who submitted ideas. This was reason enough to hold a special prize draw again this year and to pay out an additional 10,000 euros. A total of 25 employees of the Koehler Paper Group were honored. The three main prize winners received 2,000 euros (1st place), 1,500 euros (2nd place) and 1,000 euros (3rd place). The other 22 winners each received 250 euros.