Digitalization, networking, big data, machine learning, Industry 4.0 - the developments described by these buzzwords have now fully arrived in the manufacturing industry. Yesterday they were still dreams of the future or buzzwords in presentations, but at important cross-industry trade fairs it is clear that digitalization is now part of everyday life.

For many people, the future of work has long since begun. This is particularly true for human resources. While digitalization and Industry 4.0 are often discussed by the general public as a job risk, many HR departments in German industrial companies - regardless of whether they are corporations or SMEs - have the opposite problem: they are desperately looking for skilled workers - and often in professional and skill areas that are still quite new to their own company. For many HR departments, this means quickly building up skills in areas that are either completely new or that were simply not previously needed.

More and more companies are seeking external support for this, for example from an HR consultancy such as Division One. Such consulting mandates are not just about finding the right applicants for a specific position. The HR experts also see their task as making the company concerned fit for the new world of work. Division One also draws on the experience and findings from its collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) in Stuttgart. As a sponsor of the Fraunhofer IAO's "Production Work 4.0" innovation network, Division One researches and develops change management processes, for example, in order to better prepare companies for the current and upcoming challenges in recruiting.

From traditional HR management to strategic employer branding

Yesterday, HR managers were still looking for mechanics and mechanical engineers; today they have to find mechatronics and application engineers. This is one of the most important challenges of digitalization for HR managers. Digitization is changing job and skills profiles, but above all working styles and demands on the workplace. In some areas, there are job profiles and areas of responsibility that did not even exist three or four years ago.

Who would have known five years ago that programming apps would be a fundamental part of the business of machine and tool manufacturing companies? And who knows what will be in demand in five years' time? Production control via virtual reality goggles? The ability to collaborate with a robotic colleague based on a neural network? In strategy and management literature, there is already an acronym to describe this basic condition of the current situation: VUCA. This stands for "Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity". In other words: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

The central task for HR departments and consultants is to adapt strategically to this extraordinarily dynamic and open situation. For companies, this means that personnel recruitment and retention must become part of the overall strategy and be equipped with the corresponding personnel resources and budgets. Medium-sized companies in particular do not always find it easy to make the mental leap from traditional HR to active recruiting and the associated employer branding.

Challenges from all sides

What this means in concrete terms depends heavily on the situation in the respective company. But all companies have to deal with certain aspects of digitalization, and that in a demand market. Despite many STEM promotion campaigns, there will still not be enough applicants in this field in the coming years who are a perfect fit. This means that promising candidates will choose their employer.

And what makes an attractive employer is increasingly determined by factors other than salary and career opportunities. These include the location of the future workplace as well as the possibilities of balancing work, leisure and family life, the further training on offer, the working atmosphere in the company, the situation on the housing market or the range of nurseries and schools. For traditional medium-sized companies in particular, these are criteria for which they have not really felt responsible in the past.

An attitude that no one can afford today. Being an attractive employer brand means that you have to proactively provide offers and solutions to problems - and this is exactly what needs to be visible in the company's image. Today, every applicant is a digitalization professional in their own right: networks such as LinkedIn and Xing, as well as Facebook, are used in the same way as company rating portals to get an idea of an employer. This means that current and former employees are also key brand ambassadors. Pleasing promises on the website quickly come up against reality online - and anyone can google today.

Positive effects of digitalization on recruitment

In addition to the content-related and strategic changes that digitization brings to companies and their HR departments, it also influences their own processes. Large companies in particular have been taking advantage of the opportunities offered by digital application processes for some time now: For example, the previously time-consuming review of CVs can be automated.

In some companies, on-boarding, the phase of integrating a new employee into the new working environment, is at least partially outsourced to intelligent, automated bots. Like the advisory chatbots on some online stores, they guide the employee through certain phases of the process. Digital tools such as automated personnel searches based on artificial intelligence are already in use at some recruitment consultancies, and Division One is also already using them. Especially for very specific search profiles, AIs open up possibilities that cannot be achieved with traditional tools.

Christoph Stichel, Managing Partner of the personnel consultancy Division One