Finding and developing suitable talent
It is becoming more and more difficult to find and retain talented young employees. We see the recruitment, promotion and retention of young talent as a key strategic task. Equally important is the ongoing training and long-term employment of our experienced staff, for whom we develop special offers as part of our life phase-oriented HR management.
We are regularly publically acknowledged as an attractive employer. In 2014 the target group of under-40s once again voted us among the Top 40 employers in the WirtschaftsWoche ranking. Our HR marketing and recruiting make an important contribution to this positive perception.
The Tchibo University Marketing team talks to potential recruits at company contact fairs and graduate conventions. Young professionals and specialists from Tchibo regularly give practical lectures at universities. We also invite students to come to us so that they can gain an insight into Tchibo’s working environment. For example, as part of the Hamburg Company Tour, in which top companies from the Hamburg area open their doors to students from all over Germany once a year for a day. On the two-day Tchibo Discovery Tour recruiting event a total of 70 participants gained an insight into Tchibo’s working environment. In 2014 it was led by HR Director Jochen Eckhold, among others, who spoke to them about his own career and outlined what he expects from future employees and what future employees can expect from Tchibo.
We involve our own employees in the search for suitable candidates. Tchibo employees are able to propose candidates for advertised positions through our ‘NetWork’ employee referral programme. This not only gives us a higher quality of applications, but also strengthens employee loyalty.
HR Oscar for Tchibo recruiting film
In 2014 our employer branding video ‘Working at Tchibo: A new adventure every week’ won an HR Excellence Award in the ‘Employer Video – Corporation’ category. The film gives an insight into the wide spectrum of jobs in the Non Food division and invites viewers to explore Tchibo as an employer.
Inspiring young professionals
The company offers young professionals who want to start their career at Tchibo various career opportunities – from internships and vocational training to dual-degree and trainee programmes. We also support students writing a thesis on a Tchibo-related topic. Since 2000, Tchibo has also participated in the annual Girls’ and Boys' Day when Year 6-11 pupils can ‘shadow’ Tchibo employees at work for a day.
| Initial experience: Interns and working students |
| Internships and working-student contracts offer prospective interested parties a first glimpse into the Group – and give us the chance to meet potential future employees at an early stage. Tchibo appreciates the commitment and the potential of its interns. As a member of the ‘Fair Company’ initiative we are obliged to assign interns tasks that match their skills and expectations, and they receive fair compensation regardless of the duration and type of internship. It goes without saying that since January 2015, we take German minimum wage requirements into account as well. |
| Training at Tchibo: Learning responsibility |
Tchibo offers a variety of apprenticeships, mainly in commercial and partly in technical professions. The assumption of responsibility is a core value in training at Tchibo. For example, we give retail trainees the independent management of a Tchibo shop for a week. At the same time we accept the responsibility that comes from training young people. All apprentices who score an average grade of 2.0 or better are offered a permanent full-time position at Tchibo. We see awards as validation of the quality and practicality of training at Tchibo. A recent example is our Gallin logistics centre being named ‘Top Training Company 2014’ by the Schwerin Chamber of Industry and Commerce.
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| A flying start to one’s career: The dual-degree programme |
| We offer especially well-qualified junior staff the opportunity to complete a dual degree in Business IT or Business Administration. In this way we retain talent with in-depth knowledge of Tchibo and extensive expertise in the relevant areas of the company. |
| Gaining an overview: Starting as a trainee |
| An individualised training programme prepares ambitious Tchibo graduates for a responsible role in the company in 15 to 18 months. We consider it important to give our trainees an understanding of relevant interfaces and overarching themes at their stations in the Group, especially for on the topic of ‘good conduct’. In 2014 six trainees in the Group started their comprehensive practical training. |
Keeping experience in the company
In 2014, one in three of our employees were already aged between 51 and 66. In 2015, for the first time we are offering them a retirement preparation workshop with the external service provider ‘SeniorInTrainer’. At the same time, we use various partial retirement models to guard against the disproportionate ageing of the workforce and giving people with decreasing physical capacity too much of a workload. Another important issue is the avoidance of conflict when experienced staff members work with much younger executives. We want young executives to learn to appreciate the life and professional experience of older employees and put them to good use in their own work. Part of this is also recognising and using their important role in internal knowledge transfer. In 2015 we will develop further offers to promote life phase-oriented HR work.
Learning and being inspired: Tchibo CAMPUS
The competitiveness of our company is partly based on employees and managers put their talents and skills to the best possible use. Tchibo CAMPUS is our central place of learning, inspiration, and personal development. With Tchibo CAMPUS, we seek to promote mutual learning and inspire our employees and managers to further their professional and personal development. For both target groups, we have programmes oriented to their respective development needs.
At Tchibo, all employees have the opportunity to learn in a variety of ways, strengthen their individual strengths, and utilise their development potential. This includes the provision of technical and methodological training in coffee expertise, foreign languages, IT, project management and intercultural communication, as well as seminars in the field of personal development. For example, the art of being simultaneously engaged and relaxed is practiced under the guidance of a coach. All colleagues can also attend Tchibo Business School lectures to gain fascinating inspiration for their everyday work.
The second essential component of Tchibo CAMPUS is management development. Target group-specific programmes give our managers opportunities to reflect on their role, learn [about] new leadership tools, and develop a common understanding of leadership. In addition, they are supported in practicing appropriate communication and successfully addressing issues from their everyday management. Our executives are also encouraged to acquire current leadership knowledge in compact seminar units as part of the Tchibo Leadership School, to future-proof themselves and their teams.
Another focus is team development: our executives are “helped to help themselves” through individual coaching, and can work on team-related topics in individual workshops with internal and external coaches.
We also launched the Junior Management Programme and the ‘Learn to Lead’ programme specifically for young executives, junior managers, and high-potentials. These programmes help them build personal networks, expand their methodological skills, and practice self-reflection.
Strengthening international exchange
Tchibo is an internationally operating family-owned company whose growth and procurement markets outside Germany are becoming increasingly important. Our staff are crucial for our international success. They contribute significantly to the company-wide transfer of knowledge. Foreign secondments broaden horizons and therefore play an important role in this context. Tchibo therefore offers its employees three different deployment programmes that enable them to experience everyday work far away from their own workplace: one is for a short-term secondment (four to twelve months), usually tied to a specific project or current requirement in the local market; one has the goal of the further developing the employee – specifically for trainees (max. 3 months) and Young Talents (max. 6 months); and one is for long-term secondments of executives, generally over several years. Often these deployments are used for the targeted professional and personal development of Tchibo talents. In 2014, a total of 15 employees were deployed abroad, most of them from the company's headquarters in Hamburg.
Intercultural exchange of experience at Tchibo
Whether in China, Russia, India, Bangladesh or Austria – intercultural competence is an important factor in the success of our international business relations. Tchibo CAMPUS intercultural tutorials provides a good basis for this. In taster classes on ‘Intercultural Day’ at the Hamburg headquarters in spring 2014, more than 100 employees experienced for themselves the benefits of the training.
Employee appraisals
One key management task at Tchibo is to provide employees with transparent feedback about their performance and their prospects in the Group based on this, as well as systematically supporting them in their development. At Tchibo, we use the TRACKS management tool for this. In 2014 its content and processes were adapted to differentiate achievements more clearly and promote talent more purposefully in future.
Employees now have the opportunity to submit a self-assessment of their performance, potential and future development opportunities ahead of their appraisal interview. At the end of 2014, more than 60 percent of employees used this opportunity to become actively involved in the process from the beginning. Managers also prepare for the interviews and are given intensive instruction in using the performance evaluation tools. In the appraisal interview, the employee’s performance is assessed based on a newly introduced 5-point scale. The review provides clear starting points for targeted further development. In a subsequent personal conversation, the employee and manager then agree on measures that will allow them and therefore also the organisation to continue their development as part of the talent management scheme.