Finding and retaining qualified employees is a complex undertaking for companies – also for the shift-work-oriented company BURG DESIGN, which was looking for student ideas for production employees.
If you think back to the beginning of industrialization, production halls were full of people doing heavy, manual work in noisy surroundings. Today, these places have become quieter, sometimes sterile with more machines instead of people. Nevertheless, exactly these fewer employees need to be retained.
So how can we succeed in retaining production employees? BURG DESIGN addressed this exciting and highly topical issue to the Bachelor students of the 4th semester of Human Resources Management at FHWien der WKW. For one semester, they conducted interviews with a wide variety of target groups – from managers and experts to the main target group: the industrial employees.
The result was not a single true path, but a colorful mix of individually selectable measures – from health-promoting activities to flexibilization, mobility and further education offers. Above all, it is about making appreciation and meaning for one’s own work visible. Communication, regular exchange within the team or with managers and the possibility of participation offer potential for a shift into the right direction. Ultimately, emotions – for example through motivating words and celebrating successes – promote a positive perception of the employer.
“The fact that you can complete something so practical, as part of a study program, is a great thing,” was the summary of one student at the final presentations on June 17, 2022. Thank you to BURG DESIGN for providing the exciting question!