Status: 17.08.2022 00:12
The top management of rbb has insisted since the resignation of artistic director Schlesinger that the broadcaster does not pay any bonuses. Internal documents now show that this representation is not tenable.
The salaries of rbb-Intendant and the directors are significantly higher than previously known. The one from the transmitter on the rbbThe figures published so far on the website do not correspond to actual income.
Of the rbb states on his website that he paid 21,750 euros gross per month to Patricia Schlesinger in 2020. Of the rbb refers to this as “base pay”. The following year Schlesinger’s salary was increased by 16 percent – to more than 25,000 euros per month. This results in the 303,000 euros that are stated on ARD pages as the salary of the rbb director and have been repeatedly quoted in the press for several weeks.
Apparently, this is only the so-called “basic salary”. It therefore does not contain any bonus payments, nor does it correspond to the full salary, as one might assume.
New documents now show that such bonus payments exist. The online portal “Business Insider” first reported on this. According to information from rbb research teams paid the rbb even paid a five-digit sum to a consulting firm to develop a sophisticated bonus system.
Base Salary or Base Salary?
Internally, the rbb for the members of the management (director plus four directors) between a “basic salary” (100 percent according to the contract) and a “basic salary”. This “base salary” is 8.33 percent below the “base salary” and is paid monthly.
The shortfall of 8.33 percent is initially withheld and is linked to the fulfillment of personalized goals by the respective employees. If they fail to meet these targets, the – incomplete – base salary remains. Those concerned are “punished” for non-compliance. This is a so-called malus system.
But whether this case has ever occurred in recent years, he wants rbb do not answer when asked.
On the other hand, if the members of the management team have achieved their goals, they receive a bonus of 20 percent. Those who have “significantly exceeded” their goals can even count on 25 percent. The reduced “basic salary” is used as the basis for calculation.
Complicated but profitable
An example should explain this complicated construct better: A “basic salary” (100 percent) of 200,000 euros is agreed with a member of the management board. In addition, certain goals are defined that are to be achieved in the area of the person concerned. Until these goals are reviewed, a reduced “base salary” (base salary minus 8.33 percent) will be paid.
In this case, that would be 183,340 euros per year. If the review establishes that all agreed targets have been met, there is a “success-related” payment of 20 percent (EUR 36,668) and an additional payment of the withheld 8.33 percent (EUR 16,660). In the end, the total of fixed and variable salary components would be 236,668 euros gross.
Even if the agreed goals are only “approximately achieved”, a surcharge of 15 percent beckons. The reduced basic salary would therefore be increased. And that would be above the contractually agreed base salary. If, however, it is determined during the review that the agreed targets are “significantly exceeded”, a surcharge of 25 percent beckons – again based on the reduced “basic salary”.
System change under Schlesinger
Previously, only a few senior employees – known internally as main department heads – had the option of being awarded additional performance-related salary components.
This salary system was expanded under Patricia Schlesinger. The management consultancy Kienbaum had seen a need for correction here, as it noted in a presentation in December 2017. Of the rbb commissioned the consultants to expand the existing variable remuneration system for the “main department heads to the director and the level of the directors”.
In the concept proposal “Reorientation of the target agreement system of the management and AT executives”, the management consultants describe two new approaches. The one described above for the top floor and a second one for middle management: the main department heads mentioned.
According to the management consultants, the financial incentives did not have a particularly motivating effect up until 2017: “The bonus amounts are sometimes considered to have an incentive effect, but tend to be too low (‘Higher amounts would trigger stronger incentives’)”. The Kienbaum company has that rbb billed almost 56,000 euros for her advice at the time.
Variable, performance-related salary components or simply: bonuses?
In mid-January 2018, the revised salary model for senior staff was approved by the director and her directors. What was determined at this meeting basically corresponds to what was recommended by the management consultancy Kienbaum.
At the same time, it was discussed that the salaries for main department heads – i.e. middle management – would be increased by up to 7.5 percent. Finally, one must take into account the “interim tariff increases,” it says in the explanation. In addition, the model made an increase of 10 or 15 percent per year possible, depending on the grouping.
A few days after this meeting, the new system was presented to the Board of Directors. The body that is supposed to control the management and was led by Wolf-Dieter Wolf until recently.
Since then he has rbb between at least around 450,000 euros per year additionally paid to directors, artistic directors and main department heads. Of the rbb does not want to confirm these amounts when asked.
Variable special payment with five letters
What the rbbmanagement decided, corresponds in principle to what was previously proposed by the Kienbaum company. There are only differences in details. While the management consultants use the term “bonuses”, the draft resolution for the directors uses the term “performance-based remuneration component”.
So also said rbb– Editor-in-Chief David Biesinger on August 10th in the rbb24 evening show: “I don’t get any bonuses.” This is a big misunderstanding in reporting, Biesinger continued. “There are performance-related salary components at rbb for executives above a certain level of management responsibility. That means […], part of my salary and that of other management colleagues is guaranteed to be paid out. Another part only if goals […] also be achieved. And that’s different than any random bonuses.”
Hagen Brandstätter, former deputy director and current managing successor to Schlesinger, said on Tuesday in the Brandenburg state parliament that within the rbb no bonus system given.
Another executive who is paid under this system but wishes to remain anonymous spoke to the rbb research team made it clear: “That was a bonus.”
For employment lawyers, it is irrelevant whether additional salary components are designated as bonuses, commissions, special payments, performance-related remuneration or bonuses. All of these terms basically mean the same thing: payments, in addition to a base salary and tied to agreed terms.
What goals had to be achieved for bonuses?
The bonus goals for the beneficiaries were created individually. Usually together with their superiors, they say. What this means in the case of the director remains unclear. Who defined your personal goals? Who checked whether these were achieved? How was this handled with the four directors? Of the rbb is silent, for labor law reasons, as they say.
On the other hand, it seems clear that there were definitely differences in middle management when it came to the attainability of individual goals. Some bonuses could apparently only be achieved with an extremely large amount of work. “I should have won the gold medal in the 100-meter sprint and high jump at the same time,” says another manager who also does not want to be named.
On the other hand, some target agreements appear to be congruent with parts of the normal scope of duties of the persons concerned.
Unique within the ARD
No other ARD station has a similar remuneration model. WDR director Tom Buhrow recently announced that a query among all ARD stations had shown that only the rbb promised his top executives such payments.
Until recently, this practice was largely unknown among the workforce. During a digital works meeting on the day after Schlesinger’s resignation, program director Jan Schulte-Kellinghaus was asked by employees about relevant press reports. After he had confirmed that the station management would be paid accordingly, there was a hail of angry speeches.
A few hours later, program director Schulte-Kellinghaus was in the rbb24 evening show asked if there were bonuses for meeting savings targets, such as staff cuts. “Yes, of course,” said the program director. “Even for budget requirements.”