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Category: Human Resources & Corporate Learning

You don‘t live modern personnel management in your company? Are you thinking about how HR Management could look like in the future? THE MAK’ED TEAM makes your human resources work sustainable.

Fabian Reinhardt

Resilience – Management in SMEs: Resilient Companies. Resilient Employees.

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Current economic developments are increasingly unpredictable and times are uncertain for SMEs: This is why resilience as a strategic principle is becoming an important, even decisive factor for the future of companies.

What characterises resilient companies? Resilient companies are economically robust, resilient and have the capacity for continuous change. Resilience can be found at different levels in a company: At the macro level, it is about resilient processes and organisational structures, i.e. organisational resilience. At the micro level, it is about the individual, i.e. the resilience of each individual employee. The levels interact with each other within the company and in the company network. If the company wants to strengthen its resilience, it is important that both the organisation and the employees are strengthened in their resilience.

Resilience: What does it actually mean?

The term resilience comes from physics. In materials science, it refers to the ability of a material to return to its original shape after deformation. Transferred to a company, a resilient company is able to return to its steady state after a disruption, a crisis or a shock. And not only that: resilient companies can use the crisis to their advantage and emerge from it stronger. Resilient companies are able to react quickly to changes and – if necessary – to carry out the transformations that are crucial to success within a crisis. The word resilience thus includes not only the aspects of “standing firm” and “persevering”, but also the ability to adapt and innovate. In resilient companies, stability and flexibility are in a balanced, individually adapted equilibrium. But how does a company become resilient? In order to be able to offer our customers a holistic resilience concept and to ensure resilience at both levels in medium-sized companies, i.e. at the level of the organisation and at the level of the employees, we have agreed on a cooperation with stg, the employee consultants. THE MAK`ED TEAM, as a consulting firm, accompanies companies on their way to strong organisational resilience and stg supports employees in building individual resilience.

A Strong Cooperation: THE MAK`ED TEAM and stg

In the complementary cooperation at the organisational and individual level, medium-sized companies receive a strong overall package: THE MAK’ED TEAM, with its interdisciplinary team, has a lot of experience in building resilient organisations. Resilience plays a role in all areas of a company: digitality and agility are just as important as good resources, a positive corporate culture, transparent organisational structures or stable supply chain management. This cross-section makes it clear that resilient companies are not only better protected against crises – they are also fundamentally more sustainable, efficient and competitive. As a holistic consulting company, we know how medium-sized companies can position themselves resiliently in the relevant business areas. THE MAK`ED TEAM is rooted in medium-sized companies and works in a structured and process-oriented manner. Our way of working is well balanced between strategy development and concrete action. Companies that want to become more resilient with us at their side are not only resilient on paper, but resilience is anchored in the entire company and lived out in everyday corporate life. How far our resilience concept extends varies from company to company and depends on the individual company goals.

Since a company can only be resilient with a strong team, resilient employees are indispensable. This is where our partner stg comes in: The external employee consultancy strengthens employees with a resilience model. Resilient employees have the ability to adapt to new conditions, to grow in the face of challenges and to emerge strengthened from a crisis. For the development and strengthening of individual resilience, the corresponding mindset is developed, mental health is promoted and metaskills are strengthened.

Together, the teams of THE MAK`ED TEAM and stg develop resilience concepts for medium-sized companies that optimally interlock at the organisational and individual levels to ensure resilience at both levels in the company.

Our cooperation partner stg: Externe Mitarbeiterberatung (Employee Assistance Program, EAP)

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Katharina Auer

Driving Change: Managing Talents & High Potentials

High-performing junior staff and high potentials are vital for the survival of any company. They fill key positions and shape transformation processes. Thanks to their outstanding performance, the company can react faster, more creatively and more nimbly to the challenges of the time. Their productivity is particularly high, and their skills are critical to the success of the company. But these special team players are rare on the labour market. The term “war for talents” is well known. It was coined in 1997 by the management consultancy McKinsey and is more topical today than ever. The competition for talent is fierce. Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which must compete with large corporations on the labour market. To find and retain talent and high potentials, to empower and promote them, strategic talent management is a core task. And some even see it as the top issue of the future for companies.

Talent – what is that anyway?

“Talent” is a word that smacks of the elitist. After all, who has talent? Isn’t there hidden potential in every human being? Even if the definition of talent varies among scholars, there is a consensus on one point: a talent excels through special achievements. The Latin “talentum” translates as a special gift or ability. But having the potential is one thing. Using it in such a way that it generates the desired and potentially significant added value for the company is another. This requires a holistic and strategic talent management that is closely interlinked with competence management.

Implementing Talent Management Systematically

Talent management is about filling the most important key positions and thus about the future viability of the company. It is developed from the corporate strategy and is not only the task of HR managers, but also the responsibility of the company’s management. The development of a suitable talent management concept is based on qualitative and quantitative personnel requirements: Which talents does the company need for which key positions? Which retirements in critical positions are due and when? Are expansion plans to be considered? A systematic approach is used to analyse which specific positions and roles need to be filled by high potentials in the short, medium, and long term. The required competences and requirement profiles are defined for the needs. Once a company knows the current and future demand for talent, the search for talent begins: How does the company find the right talent? And which talents does the company already have on board?

Finding, Promoting and Retaining the Right Talent

The search for qualified and suitable talents is about finding the employees and potential future employees who fit the company’s requirements with their special performance and high potential. The goal of talent management is to systematically and in a focused way find the special employees that the company needs to achieve the set company goals. Talent and position in the company must be a good match. To achieve this, the focus is on the achievements, the current performance, and the individual goals for the future. With a clear profile of the requirements and the key position to be filled, the necessary transparency is created to find the right talent for the company. Systematically identifying and integrating high potentials is an important basis for succession planning. Especially for critical roles and positions in the company, it is important to act with the appropriate lead time. If it is foreseeable that a key position will have to be filled in the future, the suitable successor should be identified at an early stage. Sufficient lead time can prevent valuable knowledge from being lost in the succession process.

Challenges in medium-sized Companies

Recruiting new talent is also about the external impact of the company: Does the employer brand have the desired external impact? Is the company attractive for talents? This is where medium-sized companies face challenging competition for talented employees from large corporations, as their brand, product or service is less well known. With a well-thought-out employer branding strategy, they open up the best possible opportunities to attract talent. In addition to the right personnel marketing, suitable personnel planning and development also pave the way.

SMEs have a wide range of instruments at their disposal for developing and retaining the talent they have acquired, such as transparent career paths, regular feedback interviews, specific on-the-job training, targeted management development or suitable further training measures. Development plans tailored to individual requirements and needs, non-material rewards and meaningful tasks are important criteria for long-term talent retention. THE MAK`ED TEAM develops a holistic talent management concept for its medium-sized clients that has proven itself in corporate practice. Our HR experts know how to efficiently design the interfaces of needs-based personnel development processes within personnel management. We implement structures that enable medium-sized companies to identify, optimally promote and retain talent in the long term. Because one thing is clear: talent management is not just a topic for the big players. It is also a decisive competitive factor for medium-sized companies.

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Katharina Auer

Win-Win! This is why transparent development paths are so important

Finding staff, retaining staff: What used to be an everyday routine is now a supreme discipline in management and HR departments. More than ever, staff retention is an important key to corporate success. And in the highly competitive labour market, it is a real challenge, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Attractive and transparent development paths play a key role in employee retention.

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Katharina Auer

Strong Brand, Attractive Employer: Employer Branding in SMEs

What makes an employer a preferred employer? What makes it attractive on the employer market? These and similar questions are currently on the minds of many companies. In view of growing personnel problems, they are looking for tangible solutions. This was also the case for one of our customers. The medium-sized craft business was having increasing difficulties in finding new employees and was facing more and more bottlenecks. That’s why the traditional family business decided to work with us to develop and implement an employer branding concept. The goal: to make the company more visible, more attractive; in short: to make it a preferred employer, an “Employer of Choice”.

Leaving nothing to chance: step by step to a strong employer brand

First of all, we look at where our client stands: How does the company present itself internally and externally? Which social media channels are used and how? How is the recruiting process set up – including job descriptions and portals. With this transparency and the established objectives, THE MAK`ED TEAM develops suitable measures in an individual employer branding concept, which the company can implement to strengthen its own brand and thus position itself convincingly in the competition. No question: Building a successful employer brand is a long and permanent process. But with the right steps, the first visible successes can already be achieved. Since a brand can only ever be as good as the product or service it offers, authenticity, flexibility and the courage to change are important. An employer that is preferred on the labor market is at the cutting edge with its corporate culture, workplace design and benefits for its employees. Especially among millenials and post-millenials, “soft” factors such as professional self-fulfillment, flexible work models or work-life balance play an important role when choosing a job. And this offer is communicated and implemented with an employer branding concept geared to the target group. That’s why a strategically well-positioned employer brand should now be part of a company’s basic equipment.

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Katharina Auer

Advancing the Company – and yourself: The Development of Managers

The corporate world is changing dynamically and with it the challenges for leadership and management. Managers are constantly confronted with new tasks as a result of the permanent changes. In order to successfully cope with change, focused further development is essential. Structured development of executives is best achieved using an individually designed development model. It ensures that leaders are best equipped for current and future business tasks and challenges.

Systematic development of executives in medium-sized companies is currently the exception rather than the rule. Leadership development therefore offers many companies a great, previously untapped opportunity to strengthen their team, find new talent and successfully move the company forward even in phases of major change.

Supervisors play a Key Role in Employee Retention

The structured development of managers is an important basis for the company’s future – and for staff retention. According to a recent Personio study*, 46% of employees in small and medium-sized companies across Europe are planning to change jobs in the near future. One of the most important reasons cited for this is a lack of appreciation. Leadership style, social skills, empathy and corporate culture are key factors in determining how much employees identify with the company and feel comfortable there. This means that supervisors play a particularly important role in the onboarding process.

Success is no coincidence

Reflecting on oneself, deepening one’s own competencies, learning, networking, motivating … In times of such rapid and major changes, a modern manager is characterized above all by the willingness and ability to develop further. This applies to younger managers as well as to experienced ones. The concrete design of the personal development model depends on many individual factors such as the management level, the area of responsibility or the personal experience values. A younger manager who wants to prepare optimally for taking on greater management responsibility will set completely different priorities in his development model than an experienced manager who wants to drive major change processes in the company.  The earlier a development model for leadership and management is implemented at all levels, the more promising the results. After all, developing leaders systematically takes time and is an ongoing process.

Leadership Development with Structure, Empathy and 360° View

How can a manager be developed in a goal-oriented manner? When implementing the development model, it is important to look at the individual framework conditions, corporate culture and goals and link them to the internal guidelines for managers. For this purpose, we develop an agile development model. First, the initial situation is analysed and relevant competencies as well as strengths and weaknesses of the executives are identified. On this basis, development areas and goals are defined, and an individual leadership development model is elaborated. The development model is tailored to the individual starting situation of the executive in order to ensure optimal learning and successful transfer to practice. It will initially be launched as a pilot project and, after the test phase, will be successively implemented as a professional infrastructure in the form of coaching, training, and learning-on-the-job elements. Managers can thus achieve their individual development goals in a targeted and efficient manner. The training effects are permanently evaluated and assessed to ensure the best possible development results.

THE MAK`ED TEAM sees leadership development as an essential part of successful business development. We develop agile leadership development models that are easy to implement and focused. Executives benefit from our high level of expertise in corporate business and our interdisciplinary, experienced team.

More about HR Development.

 

 *Source: Personio study “The Great Value Shift”, 2022

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Katharina Auer

Digitalization in SMEs: Successful Introduction of HR Management Tools

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Every company knows that it is no longer possible without digital tools – especially in HR management. But how do you implement such a digitization step in a medium-sized company? One of our customers, a medium-sized mechanical engineering company with its own production facilities and around 150 employees, decided to take the step forward with us and digitize its HR processes.

The particular challenge was that, at the start of the project, a lot of data and information was still in paper form and very little in Word or Excel. In addition, the company’s resources for this project were very limited. Despite the hurdles, the software was successfully implemented, and the entire company benefited greatly. Many processes have been automated since the system was introduced, which has freed up valuable personnel and financial capacities in the company. Managers, HR managers and employees benefit from greater transparency and 24/7 access to the data they need for their tasks.

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Katharina Auer

Big topics – very exclusive: “Event & Dialogue” 2022

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As the management or HR director of a medium-sized company, do you want to digitize your HR management processes? Then we invite you to our Event & Dialogue “HR: Digitalization in Practice” on July 20, 2022. In cooperation with Deinzerconsult, we will devote this evening to the topics surrounding the digitalization of HR management: How do you set up the requirements for the selection of a tool? How do you select a system? How do you implement it? We will present and discuss trends, tips and tools and address the individual situation of your company with recommendations for action in interactive sessions. In addition to new impulses and exciting discussions, you can expect the following topics:

  • Overview & trends of HR digitalization
  • Selection & implementation of suitable tools
  • Examples & tips from practice
  • Development of solutions & recommendations for action

Finally, we will round off the evening together with culinary delicacies and a beautiful view. We look forward to seeing you – and to a great “Event & Dialogue”!

Save the Date: July 20, 2022, starting at 5:00 p.m. at Äußere Sulzbacher Str. 124, 90491 Nuremberg, Germany.

If you are interested, you can register here …

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Katharina Auer

How much, where, for what: Personnel requirements planning brings clarity

The world of work is changing dramatically and is challenging HR managers. Whether it’s the shortage of skilled workers, succession management or digitalization: there’s a lack of personnel here, a lack of sufficient skills there. These dynamics have led to an increasing professionalization of HR management. State-of-the-art planning of personnel requirements forms an important and valid basis here.

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Katharina Auer

About time: Digitalize HRM

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Does HR management still handle a lot of time-consuming, administrative work? Then it’s high time to change that. Societal changes such as the shortage of skilled workers or digitalization are presenting human resources management (HRM) with a major change process. HR must continue to evolve – just like all other areas of business. And technologies make an important contribution to this development. Digitization makes many of the processes more consistent, transparent and error-free. It is a must for all companies that want to develop positively and ensure future-proof HR management. In the HR area, the right software can take away many administrative, time-consuming processes, so that HR managers can devote more time to their employees. And the employees themselves also benefit in many ways from digitized and individualized processes in their everyday work. But as often as one hears and reads about the need for digitalization, so little has actually happened in many companies.

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Katharina Auer

Focus on People: Human Resources readjusted

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The shortage of skilled workers continues to worsen. New employees are desperately sought across all industries, and it has never been more important for companies to retain their employees. At the same time, many transformation processes are changing the demands on employees, work models and corporate processes.

It is well known how difficult the current framework conditions are for the HR sector.

Those responsible are responding to all these hurdles by rethinking HR management. An appreciative work culture among employees and positive interaction are crucial to success and are top priorities for contemporary HR managers. After all, only companies that stand out from the competition with particularly attractive working conditions and a positive employer image, that successfully implement important transformation processes and establish forward-looking HR models and new ways of working have a chance of attracting good personnel.

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