Managing people – our most critical success factor
This year’s annual meeting of DQS group’s managing directors from 47 countries emphasized the importance of the most critical success factor for any service providing organization: people. For an international certification body, that means people in the global offices, both junior managers and young office staff, as well as auditors. How to be an attractive employer for such a wide variety of people and their different expectations?
To provide some insights on this topic the group invited a well-known expert from the ranks of their own customers: Prof. Dr. Gunther Olesch is chief human resources officer at Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co KG, as well as lecturer at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University, among other things. Under his leadership, Phoenix Contact has been listed among “International TOP employers” for the last 16 years running by the “Great Place to Work® initiative. In his presentation, Prof. Olesch shared leadership principles and attitudes for international collaborations, based on respect and acceptance of different values. He predicts that the future will see a competition for good employees, helped along by social media, and shows how to be prepared for this by knowing and meeting the needs of your employees and meeting them. However, good employee relations need to be embedded in an overall company culture, which allows for competence development and personal growth.
Of course the two-day meeting, which was held at the Lindner Congress hotel in Hoechst, a suburb of Frankfurt, also addressed a variety of topics specific to certification business, from its history to its future, and how to apply project management principles to change processes in order to develop business further. Participants discussed how to build awareness and understanding for management’s responsibility for business development, to apply the concept to a current development project or development target, and to build self-confidence in their own ability to manage change and development.
Next year’s meeting will be held in Berlin for the first time, where the DQS shareholder DIN (German Institute for Standardization) has their head office.