REFA International

Orientation of REFA

The REFA Association is considered to be Germany’s leading organisation in work design, industrial organisation and company development. The association has transferred know-how since its foundation in 1924: for a long time through further education, for the past few years increasingly also through consulting and coaching. With its continuously further developed core competences REFA contributes to optimising the competitiveness of the economy as well as the working conditions of workers and employees.

Organisation of REFA

In Germany the umbrella organisation, the REFA Federal Association, consists of 10 regional associations which are subdivided into approximately 90 local associations. Worldwide REFA is represented in numerous countries through international cooperation partners.

A great number of experts from research, science, industry, administration, business associations and -institutions also count to the organisation of the association. This extensive network of cooperation partners enables REFA to ensure a fully sustainable know-how transfer.

For decades REFA has also cooperated with Committees of Experts and Branches – at present, there are over 20 different committees in Germany. Being so close to practice enables REFA to respond to customer demands to the point and foreseeing - and to offer customer-oriented methods, training seminars and con-sulting services.

REFA areas of activity: further education and consulting

The two core competences, further education and consulting, deal practically with all issues of the value added chain of a company. They cover all areas of business organisation for industry, administration and health management.

REFA seminars are designed, systemized and further developed in cooperation with practitioners as well as representatives of science and tariff parties. Trainers need to complete a special train-the-trainer programme before they can hold a seminar. The further education offer includes seminars and complete training pro-grammes for skilled personnel and management staff.

REFA consulting is partially used to complement further education measures / coaching to ensure the practi-cal application of the training seminar contents. The actual consulting of REFA focuses on organisation- and process optimising. Depending on the situation the measures are carried out in small and large-scale pro-jects.

With a consultants’ team of approx. 150 experts in Germany, REFA can also take on complex tasks and handle them with success orientation. For extraordinary orders (with regards to topic, complexity and degree of specialisation) the required capacities can also be obtained from our international network on short-notice.

Experience has shown that our further education- and consulting offer appeals to small and medium-sized companies as well as to large companies and multinationals.

REFA Methodology

The REFA Methodology includes the traditional core knowledge of REFA which is continuously updated. The core methods focus on optimising work processes as well as on the determination and evaluation of opera-tional data. The individual methods can be used as separate tool but they also complement each other. When methods and tools according to the REFA Methodology are used, it is possible to look at work proc-esses in a systematic and holistic approach so that the entire value added chain of an organisation can be analysed and optimised.

Noteworthy of the REFA Methodology is its neutrality in tariff politics. Before a method is published, the con-tent is checked by the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations and the German Confederation of Trade Unions.

REFA-International

With REFA-International, the REFA Association also offers further education and consulting worldwide. Activities "without borders" are carried out through certified local partners or directly from the REFA base in Germany. Thanks to its extensive international network REFA is in a position to always consider the respective local conditions comprehensively.

Companies and organisations from virtually all branches and business sectors belong to the international clientele of REFA. Generally their target is to apply the same methods worldwide and to fully benefit from the cross-border exchange of know-how and experience be-tween their international experts as they speak "one common lan-guage".