We continued to enhance our compensation system with a view to improving its attractiveness, transparency and comparability. At the same time we organized our range of voluntary benefits in a more efficient way. A major step in this direction in 2003 was the successful introduction of new electronic and cost-effective tools. “HR Online”, for example, is an intranet application giving employees direct access to their own personal data, e.g. on compensation. It also assists managers with administrative activities relating to their personnel responsibility. By now, roughly 65,500 employees in 41 countries are linked to the system. “HRdirect” is our global service hotline providing all staff throughout the world with answers to standard questions on HR issues. The replies are given by call centers in Berlin, London, New York and Bangalore. A shared knowledge database ensures that employees and pensioners receive qualified responses all over the world.
In 2003, we fundamentally changed our company retirement pension scheme in Germany. We converted the pension arrangements that were still based on old pension plans dependent on final salary into a modern defined-contribution plan. About 23,000 members of staff throughout the bank’s German organization received individual offers for transition to the new defined-contribution scheme. These offers, which were beneficial to both sides, were accepted by roughly 94% of staff concerned. We thus made our company pensions more transparent and the resulting burden more calculable for Deutsche Bank.
The target bonus system introduced in Germany in 1997 for non-tariff staff was replaced in the reporting year by a system that matches international standards. It is based on bonus pools established globally for each Corporate Division according to the results in each financial year and allocated to individual divisions and regions according to clearly defined criteria. The decisive factors for the determination of individual bonuses by managers are the achievement of individual objectives, personal performance compared to the previous year, the individual’s contribution to the team’s results and the bonus levels for comparable positions in the market. The new model increases the transparence of bonus determination both for members of staff and for Deutsche Bank. In addition it improves comparability across national borders, especially with our international competitors.
