Despite all the discussions about the social responsibility of business: only 11.1 per cent of companies in Germany take non financial key figures such as employee satisfaction, energy consumption or gender quota into account as criteria for business success – this is even 3.6 percentage points lower than the values in the previous year. This is confirmed by the December report of the German Business Panel (GBP) at the University of Mannheim.
At the turn of the year, most managers have to evaluate the past business year. How is the company doing? Were the annual goals achieved? In view of the social and climate policy challenges, there is an increasing demand that companies also set non-financial goals and measure their achievement.
Since July 2021, the GBP has therefore been asking which key figures companies in Germany take into account when setting their targets. And as the data show, securing financial success has again taken precedence over other, non-financial goals this year: Only 11.1 per cent of companies reported using non-financial ratios to measure success, in addition to retained earnings or liquidity. This is even 3.6 percentage points less than in the previous year. “The figures make it clear that apparently many companies still rely on hard financial ratios. Especially in a year of crisis, many companies understandably put securing their own financial basis first. Other social goals take a back seat,” says Prof. Dr. Jannis Bischof, holder of the Chair of ABWL and Corporate Accounting at the University of Mannheim and scientific project manager of the GBP.