While policy makers are still discussing complicated models as to how let employees participate in the profits generated, many companies have already found simpler solutions. About one quarter of German industrial companies and industrial service providers couple certain salary components to the business situation of the company in question. This finding was revealed by a survey conducted by the Institute for the German economy (IW) in Cologne.
In major companies employing at least 2000 people profit sharing is virtually normality and almost half of all businesses with between 100 and 500 employees make use of this salary model. However, in general just in every ninth company more than fifty percent of staff benefit from such models of profit sharing. At the same time it seems to be reasonable to spread such payment models given that about 85 percent of all companies which currently have profit sharing for employees think that commitment and creativity of employees will increase as a consequence. One quarter of those companies interviewed said that profit sharing is instrumental in attracting particularly high-qualified people. 