2017 is slowly coming to an end. The year of the sun. A year full of changes: The Euler company provided an economic horoscope for this year in December 2016: Eight trends were described in it: weak global trade, China crisis, insolvency trend reversal, geopolitical tensions, Brexit, new elections, monetary policy and protectionism. [Read more…]
Re-orientation
I recently worked for a company with a long-established structure and workforce. The task was to restructure the personnel department in such a way as to keep it running smoothly on the one hand and to prepare the company for the future on the other. The HR department included some staff who preferred taking care of administrative tasks and others who really wanted to change something and were also very well suited to do so. Furthermore, the management had decided that the business model needed to be reconsidered. A corresponding department was thus set up to take on the issue of business model innovation. [Read more…]
Everyone has a talent. You just have to find it!
Who in your company is responsible for spotting talent? And how do you distinguish talent and non-talent? Where does talent begin for you? And how would you feel if you were told: sorry, you’re a non-talent?
Is a winning smile, which you can even notice on the telephone, a super talent? Don’t you think it would be sensible to make use of this smile on the phone and at a desk where important people – be it customers, employees or investors – come by? Isn’t an employee who can inspire people to accept new ideas ideally suited for change projects, even if he cannot contribute anything from a technical point of view? And on the other hand, does the IT expert who keeps your systems up to date, protects you from attacks by hackers, and reduces costs, also have to be a particularly pleasant-natured personality, only because your so-called “global competencies” require that from all employees? Although that person has contact with no one else but you? [Read more…]
Goodbye personnel selection, hello creative potential discovery
The role of the persons responsible for the selection of staff has changed significantly. Previously it was almost always a matter of filtering out the good and getting rid of the bad quickly. The typical German sentence “Wir senden Ihnen Ihre Unterlagen zu unserer Entlastung zurück“ (in discharge of our obligation, we are sending you back your application documents) was often quickly included in the letters. A sentence that, even in the 21st century, in the age of electronic application, has not yet been completely eradicated … [Read more…]
Integrating specialists – One size fits all?
So there he is, the new specialist, and takes up his work. A person with individual knowledge, unique experiences and cultural background, and his very own personality. An employee and person who now has to be integrated into the company. Again and again, it is particularly exciting to observe this process: One has opted for a new employee, because he will bring fresh blood into the company, and the first thing that happens is to teach him how things work in the company. Often he will be faced with negative responses when the new colleague points out that things were done differently in other companies, as if there actually were a right or a wrong in this constellation. And the question of who has to adapt to whom can be answered with the question of whether anyone has to adapt at all? [Read more…]