If personnel strategy does nothing more than realize the general market cycles, it will be strategically counterproductive. Conscious anti-cyclical action is the preferred approach.

Good personnel strategy is also one of the major pillars of corporate strategy (see Figure 1, Position 1). The sectors innovation and technology have long been affecting strategic corporate orientation (Figure 1, Position 2). Similarly, personnel strategy must also be a source of distinctly new ideas for corporate strategy. Simply accepting and implementing the directives from corporate strategy will not get the job done. (Figure 1, Position 3).

 

 

 

Personnel planning cycles have their own requirements and cannot be coupled directly to the very short corporate planning cycles. Companies think in one-year cycles, politicians in four-year cycles, and foresters in forty-year cycles. Personnel planners belong more to the category “foresters” if they are to produce sustainable results in the sense of creating economic competitive superiority. Demographic development is a decisive fundamental here.

Demographics, shifting values, and the intergenerational contract point the way

In our society with its focus on the free market economy and social aspects, the share of the older population segments is growing and the share of the younger groups is declining. These are the quantitative facts – and they are predictable.

The change of generations is also proceeding in qualitative terms in the form of shifting values, easily discernible in new educational structures. For example, will the new requirements for engineering degrees in Germany – away from the Dipl.-Ing. and to the bachelor’s degree – satisfy the technological, economic, and cultural requirements of our economy? These questions must be answered in domestic as well as in global competition. It is important that German engineering remain an export “hit”. Conversely, the potential of international labor markets is not being given adequate consideration. This is discernible in the restrictive immigration policies. Good, highly motivated engineers from Eastern Europe find it easier to work overseas than here in Germany. HR must take account of both scenarios – the quantitative demographic development and the changes in values of the younger employee generations – in its strategic deliberations, and it must do so in a global context.

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