Recruiting the Young Generation Workforce: Innovative HR Management

In many EU countries there is a severe shortage of young skilled workers, especially in SMEs. This has a negative impact on the growth prospects and competitiveness of SMEs. Even countries such as Germany, with its dual vocational training system, which has traditional strengths in attracting young talent, are having increasing difficulties in meeting the shortage of young skilled workers. (Capterra, 2019)

At the same time, many SMEs also have problems integrating the new recruits they have acquired into the company properly and building a relationship based on mutual satisfaction. The fact that this is increasingly not achieved on both sides is shown by both surveys on employee satisfaction and employer surveys. The high prevalence of mental illness, such as burnout and depression among young people, which is the reason for 50% of all dismissals in Millennials and 75% in Generation Z, is also worrying (Mindsharepartners, 2019).

The overall aim of this project is to improve the situation described above, taking into account both the employer and the employee side. Instruments, best practices and digital models for human resource management as well as various training programmes with different measures for SME managers lead to the implementation of a modern human resource management in SMEs. The toolbox to identify competencies, skills and life aspirations will help to ensure that employees’ concerns are recognised and adequately addressed. It will also make it possible to compare personal ideas with company goals.

A train the trainer programme, which is continuously carried out by colleges and universities, ensures that the digital models and the toolbox are used properly and that SMEs receive high-quality training and advice. With a further training programme, SME managers acquire all the necessary skills. While learning on the job, modern human resources management in SMEs is simultaneously realised by using all models and the toolbox. The mentoring programme is particularly intended to work towards better understanding between employees of different age groups. With the project contents compiled in this way, the aim is to achieve a holistic, forward-looking human resources management and to offer SMEs all the instruments, qualifications, advice and support they need to implement the programme from a single source.

The seven partners of this project from Denmark, Germany, Estonia and Poland were selected according to their special skills in developing concepts, designing teaching materials and programmes, individual implementation and dissemination skills and project management knowledge. The result is an experienced, transnational consortium of qualified research and vocational training institutions. The partners are characterised by their broad catalogue of skills, competences and experience. Personnel expertise as well as management capacities are available to a sufficient extent.

A mature project management concept ensures that all objectives are achieved on time. The communication between the partners is supported by a communication concept. The content work is carried out according to the highest academic standards. Sophisticated work is carried out by proven experts. The meticulous development, testing, evaluation and improvement of the project results ensures validated and transferable intellectual outputs. These methodologies ensure a favorable cost-benefit ratio when implementing the project. The composition of the partner structure is important for estimating the potential longer-term benefits. The direct implementation of the project results with individual project partners ensures the emergence of positive implementation examples. These lead to high adaptation rates. From the beginning of the project, 68 associated partners from 13 countries will be involved in all project activities. They receive all project results and comprehensive advice, so that a very large number of SMEs are addressed and the project results can be used on a broad regional basis. Further dissemination of the project and its results, for example on websites, through press releases, social media channels, etc., is also very important and is explicitly addressed in the dissemination concept. International dissemination and use in as many regions and countries as possible plays a major role at the beginning of the project, as all digital models, best practices, toolboxes, concepts and curricula are designed for international use in order to promote transfer and implementation in other countries.