Learning
to integrate

How did your idea come about?

We build highly technically complex buildings. People normally think all of this work needs to be handled by specialized workers. But when I count up employee work hours, formal specialist training is needed for only a small percentage of these. We install around 1.5 million meters of cable in a large clinic construction site, for instance. You don’t need a diploma to do that. You just need to understand what to do, and what rules to follow. Then we install devices, usually with just a handful of screws. You don’t need to be a specialist to do that either. Of course you do need to be a specialist to commission those devices, evaluate measurement results or reprogram the fire alarm system. I had an idea. There are so many unemployed people – there must be individuals with skills perfectly suited for these kinds of tasks. This reduces the workload for specialists, who can concentrate on work for which training is actually needed. 

How many employees have you added in this way?

We added 11 employees. That might not sound like an impressive number.

But they include people who have become essential pillars in their work areas. One example: One of the employees comes from an African country and was unemployed for a time. He handles installation work on the construction site, and it is difficult to tell him apart from an actual electrician. Now he is being trained as a specialist in an adult education program. Another employee was self-employed for a short time, dealt with health problems, and lost his job. Now, he manages construction site logistics in our office.

These people come from a range of different backgrounds. Of the 11, at least 6 or 7 are helping my company move forward. Just try to find 7 people that can do that as a mid-sized business in Munich! I don’t want to romanticize all of it; we have also had setbacks. However, the bottom line is that all of these workers have enhanced the company to a greater or lesser extent.

Was it difficult to convince your employees?

No. I am very proud of the capacity my workforce has for integration. Nationality, religion, cultural background – none of it plays a big role for our company. Overall, it only improved cohesion and identification within the company. People appreciate that we are interested in something besides just making money.

Is the model also suitable for other companies?

My company is a prototype that works very well. I am trying to win over other companies now alongside like-minded people. This is a good, almost risk-free approach that benefits everyone involved. If a company is interested, we describe the duties in the job center and look for unemployed persons interested in doing the work. Selected individuals can then complete a trial run at the company without much bureaucratic red tape involved. If everything works out, they receive a regular employment contract. If there are going to be problems with the unemployed individuals, you can normally tell this in the first day or first week.

But this doesn’t solve the lack of trained professionals?

It’s one tool. We’re still doing everything else of course, like training and continuing education, normal recruiting, etc. We have a total fetish for specialists in Germany. At the end of the day, a lack of trained specialists isn’t the heart of the problem. The underlying problem are undone tasks.

The transformation is going to become faster and more disruptive. How many taxi drivers, radiologists, or attorneys will we need in 10 – 15 years? If a job changes or is eliminated, we can’t train these people to be specialists again. Than I already have too few people and take them for three or four years out of value creation.

We need the ability to retrain, teach, integrate, and qualify employees in a way that adds value in our everyday work. If we as a company are able to give people living with this transformation meaningful work that they enjoy, then this lessens the burden on the social state, gives people a self-determined life, and supports the labor market. Integrating unemployed people is just part of this overarching goal, and it works for other qualification levels as well.

ZURÜCK