HRForecast’s Post

I just arrived in Rome after a week of traveling through Europe to meet our clients and leading companies. ✈️✈️ One story, were employees agreed to have less salary but develop futuure skills, really caught me. Not only does it how powerful strategic planning and skill management arewhen combined, but also how forward thinking people are. Here is the story: 4 years ago a company within the packaging industry were negotiating salary raises with the employee representatives. At that time about 1.900 people were working within the company, with a major share in production. Within their main production facility they used machines which were old and needed to be replaced within 2-3 years time. Since one new machine could replace 4 older ones a whole shift (comprising of ~70 people) was not necessary any more. It was also the time to negotiate a new tariff agreement and both parties made an incredible decision. Instead of asking for an increase in salaries, the employee representatives agreed on a "money for skills" agreement. It basically meant that salaries were barely increased under the following condition: 1️⃣ The company had to plan their future workforce demands based on changes within the company 2️⃣ The company had to assess the skills of employees 3️⃣ The company should help employees to develop future skills With this "money for skills" agreement, which was backed up by 91%, they paved the way to sustainable, future employment. 💰 --> 📖📖 They found out that they will not have enough people not only in customer support but also other departments. Based on the skills of the workers in production they identified people who they reskilled and now work in the customer support and other departments. In total they did not need to let go of a single person 👏👏👏 , retained highly motivated employees and could avoid competition on the external labor market since they had to hire less people. This time it is not new machines in production, but A.I. automation which is in focus. I talked to the employee representatives and they said that everyone in the workforce is now eager to understand how they can apply it and how they will once more learn and develop new skills.