Tesla has defended visiting the homes of German employees who call in sick as Elon Musk pledges to investigate high rates of absenteeism.
André Thierig, the manager of Tesla’s gigafactory on the outskirts of Berlin, said turning up at the homes of staff was not unusual.
“We wanted to appeal to the work ethic of the workforce,” he told DPA, the German press agency.
It came after German media reported that Tesla bosses had checked in on 30 employees as part of an attempt to fight a spate of absences.
The carmaker has provided bonuses to staff who turn up for work regularly and executives have suggested that staff who frequently call in sick are “dishonourable” and are “exploiting” the system.
Staff calling in sick at the Berlin gigafactory reached 17pc in August, compared to an average rate of sick leave in Germany’s car manufacturing industry of just over 5pc.
Sick leave is also higher on Fridays, executives have said. “That is not an indicator of bad working conditions because the working conditions are the same on all working days and across all shifts,” Mr Thierig said. “It suggests that the German social system is being exploited to some extent.”
In response to a tweet about the high rates of absence, Mr Musk wrote: “This sounds crazy. Looking into it.”
Calling in sick has been a long-running problem at Tesla’s Germany factory, which is the company’s only site in Europe and employs around 12,000 staff.
Last year, Mr Thierig told staff: “We will not tolerate some people bending their backs for others who just don’t feel like coming to work. There is no room in his factory for people who don’t get out of bed in the morning.”
Mr Thierig and HR director Erik Demmler told staff last Thursday that they had been visiting the house of absent employees, according to the German newspaper Handelsblatt. Mr Demmler said they had had doors slammed on them and in some cases told that employees would be calling the police.
In July the company handed out bonuses of €1,000 (£830) to employees who reached “gold status” by turning up to work more than 95pc of the time.
IG Metall, the German carmaking union, claimed the high rate of absences was due to staff being overworked and put in unsafe conditions.
Mr Musk is a vocal critic of unions and Tesla has repeatedly clashed with IG Metall in Germany. Most staff voted against appointing union representatives to the plant’s works council earlier this year.
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