The shortage of skilled employees does not stop when it comes to logistics companies - especially when it comes to recruitment, firms compete immensely with competitors to gain new talents. As a result, they have to invest not just a lot of money but also time to fill key positions.
Fr. Meyer's Sohn, a family owned freight forwarder with 800 employees worldwide, is facing same difficulties and has found an answer that tackles the problem at its roots. It begins with the apprenticeship, which the firm recently received an award for from DEUTSCHLAND TEST and the business magazine FOCUS MONEY. Furthermore building a commitment between employee and employer as well as developing internal talents is more important than ever.
'Our goal is to develop talent for management positions out of existing full-time staff. Companies that increasingly rely on external talent are at risk of losing their cultural identity.' (Marc Meier, CEO)
To continuously develop internal talents Fr. Meyer's Sohn has established two programs: The program "Young Professionals" focuses on developing specialists and leaders to fill key positions. This contains three talent forums to promote systematic and social competences of which the last one took place in Europe and Asia. The international talent group works on one strategic project for the management. The individuals of the team are additionally supported by a personal mentor from the management, who supports them within the entire process.
"The talent management program shows our long term vision and care about employees. It is really motivating to work together with such an international group of ambitious people who all have different set of skills & strengths." (Young Professionals Program talent, FMS Rotterdam)
The second program "Go Global" targets high-performing and loyal employees wanting to gain experience aboard. Through this program exchanges between nationalities such as Mexican, German, Spanish, Chinese and American have taken place. Employees can increase their global FMS-Network and learn about new work behaviors and cultures. The stay, which can take place in one of the 50 FMS branches worldwide over a time span of a couple of months, not only evolves the employees, but can improve processes and interaction between branches.
"I did not only experience professional, but also personal improvements from the Go Global Program. It is a great opportunity to get to know other countries and work behaviors. My experience in Mexico City is something I would not want to miss." (Go Global talent, FMS Hamburg)
In the year 2017/2018 eight employees had the chance to support a branch in another country and eight more took part in the "Young Professionals" development program. This way Fr. Meyer's Sohn managed to connect employees from different branches and with different jobs ranging from customer service to sales and IT. First successes of the programs can already be seen- communication between the branches is improving and optimizations for processes have been discovered and implemented, for instance, when it comes to using the same IT-Systems.
The Talent Management Program of FMS is a showcase project in the logistics sector. The DVZ - one of the most important logistic magazines - reported about this future focused program in it's article "recipe against shortage of skilled personnel" (October 30th, no. 44).
