Many companies are urgently looking for trainees – and cannot find them. In view of the blatant shortage of staff, they have to work hard. The Rheinmetall armaments group, among others, reveals the strategy they use to try to score points with young people.
where is the staff This is one of the most urgent questions in the German economy. There is a shortage of skilled workers, assistants and trainees everywhere.
The shortage of staff in Germany is forcing companies to lure their young people with better career opportunities right from the start of their training in order to retain them. According to the most recent study “Germany’s best trainers” by the business magazine “Capital”, 97 percent of companies state that they hold talks at an early stage about employment opportunities after training. 91 percent enable further training. And 54 percent offer the trainees the option of rehiring them if they decide to continue studying after the training.
Trainers who were extensively questioned in interviews confirm this trend. In order to get a grip on the particularly great shortage of staff in the catering trade, Anke Maas, Head of Human Resources at Leonardo Hotels, together with the private IU University in Bad Honnef, launched the new dual course of studies in Culinary Management: a combination of specialist training as a chef and business studies. “I very much regretted that this wonderful profession had such a bad image, and I looked for ways to upgrade it and give the graduates even more career options,” says HR expert Maas.
In some sectors, the shortage of personnel is so great that operations have to be shut down or temporarily closed completely. HR managers pull out all the stops to find – and retain – young talent. “Around 30 percent of today’s workforce will retire in the next ten years,” says Anja Fiedler, training manager at Stadtwerke Kiel. It guarantees that all trainees who pass the final exams will be taken on. According to the study, not even half of the companies have done this so far.
According to the study, trainees have the best career opportunities in nursing. 56 percent of the participating companies from the care sector stated that the junior staff can often take on a managerial position without necessarily having to go on to study after the training. This stands out clearly from the statements made by personnel managers in industrial, technical and commercial occupations. Companies in the IT sector bring up the rear here, where a management position without further training is only possible in 40 percent of cases.
The trainers are required to constantly improve their concepts. More and more are also having their performance measured: 751 companies took part in the sixth major “Capital” study on “Germany’s best trainers”. The survey ran from the end of March to the end of May this year. A total of around four million employees, more than 100,000 trainees and almost 24,000 dual students work in the companies that took part. DAX companies, authorities, many medium-sized companies and craft businesses took part. All had to answer a detailed catalog of questions and were evaluated according to the same criteria.
Rheinmetall has worked particularly hard: The armaments group had the study carried out for seven of its training locations. Does a company that builds tanks and other heavy weapons have particular difficulties finding young people?
“We start with the interview. We ask what the moral attitude is, how the family sees it and how someone thinks about armaments,” says Thomas Meyer, head of training at the Unterlüß site in Lower Saxony. In the middle of the idyllic heathland between Hamburg and Hanover, there are modern infantry fighting vehicles of the “Puma” type in the factory buildings, as well as the overhauled “Marder”, which may soon be used in the Ukraine against the aggressor Russia. “The product is more interesting than in other companies,” says 20-year-old Jan Hoppenstedt, who is being trained as an industrial mechanic here.
The trainees praise the variety in the courses, the many departments they get an insight into, the technology that comes to light when you dismantle a 43-ton tank into its individual parts. Rheinmetall’s Unterlüß site received 20 out of a possible 25 points in the trainer study, and 21 out of 25 points for the dual training program.
The study was created in cooperation with the talent platform Bildungs.de and the personnel marketing experts from Territory Embrace. It offers a Germany-wide overview of the “Germany’s best trainers” by region and professional group. Companies that employ at least five trainees or three dual students could take part. Detailed analyzes can be found at capital.de/Beste-Ausschuler.
