3% of German family-run businesses name human resources development as a central area of investment and list this issue as their top priority, even before investment in production, research and development, and sales and marketing. This was discovered as part of a 2010 study carried out by the consulting agency PricewaterhouseCoopers. Small and medium-sized enterprises in particular are often left empty-handed compared to the competition when it comes to finding qualified personnel, with many engineers subsequently choosing larger, better known companies as employers. One reason for this is that smaller businesses tend to invest less in the development of their employees and managers than larger companies. Prof. Dr. Benedikt Hackl, Director of the Steinbeis Consulting Center for Human Capital Management, in cooperation with the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) in the Lake Constance/Upper Swabia region and the agency Peopledynamix, created a human resources development concept to facilitate affordable access to regional, high quality professional development offers and expertise for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The basic idea is simple: to save on overhead costs for human resources development, businesses pool their demands and training content into a single, networked solution. This enables, for example, the creation of management development programs that accommodate multiple companies – programs that can be developed, for example, on the basis of a comprehensive demand analysis. This format would allow individual managers in up to ten participating companies to reduce costs in human resources development by 70-80%. Moreover, cross-company learning and high-powered exchange on valuable topics means quality can also be improved. The companies prevent labor piracy across the network since, should an employee leave the company within 2 years following the human resources development offer, he or she must cover the costs incurred by the company. The regional focus of the participants is also key in eliciting savings in transportation costs. And the preparation and selection of the appropriate experts would be facilitated through external “human resources coordination”.
In order to determine the demands and exact organization for the region, Benedikt Hackl and his project partners surveyed around 50 small and medium-sized enterprises across a broad range of sectors in the region. The team concluded that the networked human resources development approach is considered useful as a motivational instrument and for preparation of the employee for the next level of management responsibility. The surveyed companies saw great potential in the improvement of methodological competence, best-practice exchange, strengthening of social skills and the creation of a knowledge network for human resources development. Project partners and surveyed companies alike shared the opinion that networked human resources development can lead to significant cost savings. In addition, the approach is perceived as a vehicle for raising quality and enhancing the variety offered in in-house human resources development landscapes.
A pilot version of the networked human resources development approach is planned in the Lake Constance/Upper Swabia and Upper Bavaria regions beginning in 2013. It will involve putting together customized human resources development programs for selected employees at 10 to 15 companies across multiple sectors. The development of the program will be based on company-specific demand analyses. The offerings will include 10 optional modules from the areas of business competencies, management, self-marketing, coaching, experience exchange, and learning incentives for experienced managers. The program is supported by the IHK in the Lake Constance/Upper Swabia region, the Baden- Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Ravensburg and the Steinbeis Consulting Center for Human Capital Management in Stuttgart. The participants of all modules will receive certification by the Human Resources Development Association, the DHBW and the IHK.
Prof. Dr. Benedikt Hackl
Steinbeis Consulting Center for Human Capital Management (HCM) (Ravensburg)