Roundtable of "Personalwirtschaft": A personal review

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI), Cultural Match, Artificial Intelligence and the Freelance Revolution were the big buzzwords at the "Personalwirtschaft" roundtable "Personalberatung/Executive Search 2024". At regular intervals, "Personalwirtschaft", a specialist publication of F.A.Z. BUSINESS MEDIA (FBM), brings selected experts to the table to discuss current trends, movements on the recruitment market and needs in the HR sector in depth. Deutsche Interim AG was there with me for the first time and took part in the discussions. My personal review shows which topics we discussed, what insights the lively debate revealed and why we as interim management providers were clearly outnumbered.

In March, the time had come: "Personalwirtschaft" invited guests to the F.A.Z. Tower, home to one of Germany's leading business publications, for the "Personnel Consulting/Executive Search 2024" roundtable. It wasn't just the location that was in a class of its own. The warm welcome from Erwin Stickling, publisher of "Personalwirtschaft", also promised an exciting afternoon. And it was indeed going to be exciting: In addition to current developments, such as restructuring at large corporations such as Bayer, Bosch and ZF Friedrichshafen, the topics on the agenda for the participants at the roundtable included diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI), cultural match, artificial intelligence and the platform economy as well as the freelance revolution - and of course always with an eye on the effects in the HR sector.

As an outsider in the midst of executive search firms

Our invited panel of experts was a little less diverse, however. Deutsche Interim AG was the only interim management provider sitting at the table with me. A handful of well-known representatives from executive search firms were also present - among them Caroline Gellrich-van Brakel (PageGroup), Dr. Michael Faller (Baumann Unternehmensberatung AG), Dr. Thomas K. Heiden (Heiden Associates), Dr. Johannes Terhalle (Dr. Terhalle Personalberatung) and Michael Welz (Passions for People GmbH).

Cultural Fit: to match or not to match, that is the question here

The roundtable kicked off with the topics of DE&I and Cultural Match. We all agreed that diversity should be practiced consistently and actively brought into companies. The goal cannot and must not be to simply fulfill a required women's quota. Rather, equality should be strived for long before a position is filled - for example by promoting women in training and degree courses in which they are still underrepresented. In addition to professional suitability, cultural fit is particularly important for companies when recruiting managers - so much so that executive search firms have developed their own models that can be used to calculate cultural fit with pinpoint accuracy. For interim mandates, cultural fit is less important: when our interim managers join a company, they have a mission to fulfill in a very limited amount of time. As a rule, their job is already done before any interpersonal differences even become apparent.

CEO Tilo Ferrari looks back on the "Personalwirtschaft" roundtable. (© Deutsche Interim AG)

KI cannot replace a personal conversation

Which of course was a topic that could not be missed this afternoon: Artificial intelligence. Here, too, we all agreed that AI is becoming increasingly important and will change the HR sector in the long term. The number of recruiting platforms is already becoming more and more differentiated and is increasingly undermining the classical approach to recruiting. At the same time, artificial intelligence is enabling processes to be optimized. HR departments should be aware of the risk of bias and train their AI carefully so that it does not reinforce existing prejudices. But despite all the technological revolutions: HR is and remains a people business. Whether it's executive search or the placement of an interim mandate: the personal conversation is still indispensable and cannot be replaced by any AI in the world - at least not yet.

Freelance revolution and the relevance of a networked workforce

The final topic of the roundtable was the freelance revolution: fewer and fewer people around the world want to work in permanent positions. Accordingly, the number of freelancers is increasing around the globe. Demographic change, changing values and the "war for talent" are already having a major impact on the labor market. In future, the freelance revolution will make it even more difficult for companies to find and retain qualified employees in the usual way. In view of these disruptive changes, new concepts are needed for a transforming world of work. One solution could be the connected workforce, i.e. a networked workforce of permanent employees and freelancers.

📖 READING TIP 1
Find out how companies can optimally develop the potential of all employees with the connected workforce and thus position themselves for the future in our article at "Personalwirtschaft".

Interim managers are also freelancers by definition - and thus become a central part of the connected workforce. The aim of the connected workforce is to fill positions with the best possible specialists. And who could be better suited for this than highly qualified and specialized interim professionals? Their deployment and thus the cooperation with a professional interim management provider - like us - becomes a strategic success factor and a decisive competitive factor compared to the competition.

📖 READING TIP 2
In our brochure Connected Workforce: With Interim Management to a Connected Workforce you can find out more about the causes of the shortage of specialists and managers and why the connected workforce is a promising solution.

Even more exciting insights

I have now been able to give you a first personal impression of the roundtable. But there was much more in-depth discussion that afternoon. For more details and exciting insights, I would therefore like to recommend the official follow-up report from "Personalwirtschaft". You can find the detailed review here.

(Cover photo: © Bernd Roselieb)