#1 Culture
Corporate culture is increasingly one of the most important decision-making criteria in the recruiting process. Our research consisting of hundreds of hours of conversations with candidates over the past few months has made this crystal clear. The “Hiring and Workplace Report 2023” by Glassdoor and Indeed further supports our experience. However, many businesses, especially family-owned and SMEs, have at best a rudimentary understanding of the values, convictions and beliefs that are key aspects of a corporate culture. Uncovering and explicating a corporate culture, internally and externally, is invaluable in creating the “cultural match” that family businesses unanimously agree is a key aspect in hiring and driving desired change. An internally and externally coherent and explicit “culture” can be a real competitive advantage in the personnel market.
#2 New Leadership
Fundamentally new understandings of what “leadership” means is required. Traditional modalities of leadership no longer work. As the Harvard Business Review recently noted, this is especially true for middle-management. They have to embody and be the drivers of a company’s desired corporate culture. Managers who are not proactive in their support and development of employees drain energy, frustrate productivity and progress, and lead to at first a sense of internal resignation leading to the actual loss of talented workers. Recently we have been able to recruit numerous driven, dynamic, and talented men and women in the age range between their early 30s and 40s who are ideally suited to new forms of leadership in management. Get in contact with us to find out how.
#3 Collaborative Hiring
Together we are stronger! This maxim is especially true with regards to the hiring of technical experts (e.g., product managers) and middle-management. The close cooperation between human resources and technical departments has become essential in these hiring processes. When this cooperation is successful, the results speak for themself. Contact us and we will happily put this type of collaboration into practice for you.
However, even in our sector, there remain some large to medium-sized companies that see human resources consultants as only useful when vacancies need filling. Why does this view remain?
#4 Hire for Attitude - Train for Skills
The shelf life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing in a world of rapid change and declining working populations in Germany and elsewhere. Despite these realities, it not uncommon, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises, to insist on academic qualifications. Too often they insist on candidates with specific degrees such as insisting “it has to be a mechanical engineering graduate”, or otherwise those with a narrow field of expert knowledge to convince the more senior shot callers
in the company. More importantly, employers should be focusing on a candidate’s attitude, values, desire and ability to learn, as well as their passion for the field. This opens up new possibilities of candidates and could be beneficial from a diversity perspective as well.