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Working Group of Protestant Entrepreneurs: Personnel consultant Hans Ulrich with expert lecture

Finding and retaining the best employees. This was the topic of the expert lecture by personnel consultant Hans Ulrich Gruber, which he gave for the Arbeitskreis Evangelischer Unternehmer, or AEU for short.

Good specialists and managers are in demand. They are behind the success of every company and are increasingly difficult to find in times of a shortage of skilled workers. During his lecture to the interested members of the AEU, personnel consultant Hans Ulrich Gruber spoke about how companies succeed in attracting the best employees, winning them for their own company and retaining them in the long term.

“Companies that manage to convince employees of their merits over the years are doing many things right,” said Hans Ulrich Gruber. A good recruiting process, an attractive employer brand and a positive corporate culture that is lived out: these are some of the aspects, if not the most important, that make up a successful personnel policy. Hans Ulrich Gruber knows only too well from his own experience that such a personnel policy requires constant further development in many areas of the company. Before he started finding specialists and managers for companies in 2015, he held responsibility as CFO in international companies for many years. “The best employees think carefully about which company they choose,” says Gruber. How companies can manage to belong to the selected top employers, he explained to the attendees vividly with examples.

Personal recommendations and one’s own website are particularly valuable

Finding potential employees: This can only be done in a targeted manner if one knows how to reach them. That is why Gruber presented a current evaluation of recruiting channels. “While print media are increasingly losing importance, personal recommendations, job search engines and a company’s own website are becoming more and more important for recruiting employees,” he reported based on the latest surveys. Trends that he can only confirm through his own work as a personnel consultant. Based in Kulmbach and Nuremberg, he is on the road and searches for personnel for medium-sized companies throughout Germany and internationally. His focus is on the construction industry, mechanical and plant engineering as well as the IT and automotive sectors.

Consciously shaping the employer brand: Convincing specialists and managers

“Design the way the company is perceived in the labour market,” Gruber therefore advises all responsible entrepreneurs. With a combination of different employer branding measures. First of all, the uniqueness of the company has to be worked out and thus the employer value proposition optimised. Subsequently, the unique corporate culture must be communicated. “It is a great advantage if the employees can be won over as ambassadors,” says Hans Ulrich Gruber. Other important points for a strong employer brand are positive candidate experiences as well as regular controlling of the processes in human resources work.

Good leadership is necessary

However, all marketing measures remain fruitless if they do not match reality. Already on the job rating portals on the internet, such as Kununu, applicants can quickly see if there is a discrepancy between claim and reality. That is why it is so important to develop the corporate culture in a targeted way. “Good leadership is necessary for this.” The former top manager presented various leadership models. One of them was transformative leadership. “By acting as a role model, inspiring motivation, mental stimulation and individual attention, a positive leadership culture succeeds here,” Gruber said.

“If you keep your employees in the flow, you will never get rid of them”.

“Keeping employees in the flow channel is what leadership is all about. Because then they remain loyal to the company and cannot be so easily poached,” Gruber reports. The flow channel represents the healthy middle ground between excessive and insufficient demands. He quoted the expert Professor Felix von Cube: “As an employer, you can’t get rid of an employee who experiences flow, who also receives recognition and experiences bonding within the team.”