Case study: Airbus Deutschland
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Hamburg-based Airbus Deutschland runs an innovative scheme funding pensions for its 18,000 employees in return for overtime credits.
The aircraft maker developed the concept with Invesco, which manages the investment and admin of the scheme, as a response to discussions about raising the retirement age.
A portion of employees' overtime will not be paid as salary, but credited to an account set up for their working life. Once an employee's account achieves a certain balance, they can stop working and effectively retire early. However, they remain employed by the company until they fully retire. The scheme helps them to secure flexible work. Banked overtime from periods of high demand offsets periods of lower demand or early retirement.
Some 2,347 employees initially joined the scheme and the number has steadily grown to 7,162 members, 40% of those who are eligible.
With a continuous increase in participants, the firm expects a participation rate of over 50% at the end of this year. This unexpected success has been supported by strong performance during the last two years. For example, 20-30 year-old staff received a return of 27.70%.
