Promotion

The New Quality of Work Initiative (INQA)

Competent and committed employees are the key to entrepreneurial success - today this applies more than ever. If you want to be competitive and successful even in times of digitization and work 4.0, you have to motivate your employees, retain them and maintain their performance. To achieve these goals, companies need a modern work culture and good, safe and healthy working conditions. In this way, they create the conditions for a successful retention of skilled workers.

This is precisely what the New Quality of Work initiative launched by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is committed to. The Federal Government and the Länder, employers' associations and trade unions, chambers of commerce, companies and the Federal Employment Agency, as well as social insurance institutions and foundations - they are all on board to jointly develop ideas, tools and instruments to strengthen the quality of work in Germany. The partners consistently focus on their employees - because they are what matters. And the better the quality of work, the more innovative and competitive the companies are.

What does the initiative offer, how does it specifically support companies and their employees? As an independent network, it creates opportunities for practical exchange and constructive cooperation. Employers, employees and works or personnel councils can discuss current developments, trends and new approaches in personnel and employment policy here and learn from each other. If you want to shape the present and future of work in Germany, you have come to the right place with the New Quality of Work initiative.

The range of offers of the initiative extends from expert knowledge and descriptive practical examples to information material and checklists to helpful analysis and control instruments for company management. With competent advisors, the initiative supports companies locally and promotes projects that initiate new personnel and employment policy approaches. The unternehmensWert:Mensch programme, funded by the European Social Fund, advises small and medium-sized enterprises on how to deal, for example, with problems with young talent, an ageing workforce and sickness-related bottlenecks. The INQA Audit Sustainable Corporate Culture provides companies and administrations with an overview of how well they are positioned in terms of personnel policy. Deficits are identified and remedied jointly by employers and employees in a professionally supervised process. At the end of the successful process, the company receives an award. The goal always remains the same: to promote a new quality of work. Also anchored under the umbrella of the initiative is the funding guideline "Zukunftsfähige Unternehmen und Verwaltungen im digitalen Wandel" ("Sustainable Companies and Administrations in Digital Change") initiated by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Against the background of digitalization, it supports companies in actively dealing with the challenges and opportunities of the changing world of work and in initiating new personnel and employment policy approaches.

All activities focus on four areas of personnel policy: modern personnel management, ensuring equal opportunities and diversity, promoting the mental and physical health of employees, and the continuous development and transfer of knowledge and competence within the company's own organization.

Small and medium-sized enterprises in particular benefit from these offers, but not only them. Large companies and public administrations can also access the services offered by the New Quality of Work initiative. After all, good work with a future-proof organisational culture that focuses on employees is also a decisive success factor for public authorities. 

Further information on the New Quality of Work initiative can be found at  www.inqa.de.