Improve th e Attractiveness of Swisslog AG to become an Employer of C hoice 13 January 2012 International Management Hanna Kuzmenkova Sabrina Fedeli… [623480]
Projec t Work
Employer Branding
Improve th e Attractiveness of Swisslog AG
to become an Employer of C hoice
13 January 2012
International Management
Hanna Kuzmenkova
Sabrina Fedeli
Tatiana Dickmann
Zhang Yingjiao
Rhea Senn
Client
Swisslog AG
Nicole Bigler, Head of HR
Supervisor
Dr. Steffen Dörhöfer
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Statement of authenticity
We the undersigned declare that all materi al presented in this paper is our own work or fully and
specifically acknowledged wherever adapted from other sources.
We understand that if at any time it is shown that we have significantly misrepresented material
presented here, any degree or credits awarded to us on the basis of that material may be revok ed.
We declare that all statements and information contained herein are true, correct and accurate to
the best of our knowledge and belief.
Olten, 13.01.2012
……………………………………………..
Hanna Kuzmenkova
……………………………………………..
Sabrina Fedeli
……………………………………………..
Tatiana Dickmann
……………………………………………..
Zhang Yingjiao
……………………………………………..
Rhea Senn
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Executive Summary
Project
The shortage of the skilled workers on the labor market and high turnover rates within companies
raise the need to use employer branding in order to attract and retain qualified people. Employer
branding can lead to a competitive advantage for a company by providing great value to its
employees through their employment with the firm, called employer value proposition (EVP). This
report outlines on how to investigate employer brand in the logistic service provider Swisslog AG and
how employer brand can affec t the processes of employee attraction and retention. Swisslog is
looking for ways to improve its EVP and therefore become an employer of choice. Besides, this
report shows the importance of the employer brand, employer branding’s elements and relationship
between them.
Methods
This report involves quantitative and qualitative research in order to provide an in -depth analysis and
recommendations for the client. The quantitative research is based only on secondary data, namely
already published literature a nd an employee survey conducted company -wide within Swisslog AG.
Although the company is operating in other countries, this report is narrowed to Switzerland due to
limited resources. The qualitative interviews were conducted after analyzing the employee s urvey.
Due to time constraints the interviews were held with a limited number of people. Even though the
participants do not represent th e whole workforce, it gave insights into the company’s culture,
working environment and more.
Main results
Out of the quantitative research, the main weaknesses of the company judged by its employees are
job satisfaction , development opportunities as well as collaboration, exchange of know -how
between departments and corporate culture as a part of EVP . The inte rviews were based on those
issues in order to gain a better understanding of the problems. The main contradiction in the
interviews was when some employees negatively rated development opportunities, others perceived
those opportunities more than favorable . Furthermore job satisfaction and financial, non – financial
rewards system also prevailed not to be a major issue for the workforce. Other than that, the
interviews supported the outcome of the survey. The principal focus was made on communication
and cul ture. Literature and benchmarking was used for better understanding of the firm’s
weaknesses and providing recommendations for Swisslog AG. The analysis discovered that the
communication, collaboration and culture within the company fail due to historical reasons. Past
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mergers and acquisitions led to a silo thinking, that nowadays negatively affects the culture itself,
created subcultures and becomes an obstacle on the way of internal communication. Furthermore,
the lack of role model and missing initiative s in the top management is a major source of a negatively
or not perceived culture. Since non -financial rewards are missing, this does not support a favorable
culture or employee engagement.
Recommendations
Out of the Swisslog employer brand analysis and with the support of secondary data,
recommendations in order to improve the main issues are provided.
Culture: In order to create a common favorable culture, Swisslog should identify the current culture,
define the desired culture and change the behavio r of the current and future employees for the
desired behavior.
Internal communication: For the internal communication to be improved, the silo thinking needs to
be dissolved . Approaches such as system thinking, matrix management and trained leaders are
suggested for that purpose.
External communication: In order to strengthen and increase external communication, after
improving internal communication, the publicity of Swisslog needs to be enhanced. Hence, in order
to improve the external image, Swisslog A G can follow three strategic steps: (1) finding the right
positioning and aligning recruitment practices accordingly, (2) ensure active public performance at
universities events, and (3) ensuring an active participation at social media.
The suggested actions in order to improve the communication and culture can lead back to the EVP.
Through the execution of the recommendations, Swisslog AG can improve their EVP, as defined
earlier; the value employees get from the employment with the company. As these values improve,
the beneficial internal image will be transmitted outside and therefore improve the external image of
the company.
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Table of contents
1. Introduction ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …. 7
1.1. The project ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………….. 7
1.2. Methodology ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………….. 8
1.3. Definition of the terms ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 11
2. Literature Review ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………….. 14
2.1. Employer branding ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………… 14
2.1.1. Definitions ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 14
2.1.2. Employer brand attributes ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………….. 15
2.1.3. Employer value proposition (EVP) ………………………….. ………………………….. …………… 17
2.1.4. Employer branding process ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………. 19
2.2. Research Model ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 23
3. Main part ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …… 25
3.1. The Company Swisslog AG ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. … 25
3.2. Quantitative survey ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………….. 25
3.3. Qualitative Interviews ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 26
3.4. Qualitative Interview Findings ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………….. 27
3.5. Financial and Non -Financial Rewards Analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. …. 32
3.6. Culture Analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………….. 37
3.7. Internal Communication Analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………… 41
3.8. External Communication Analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………… 45
4. Recommendations ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………… 50
4.1. An Approach to Culture Change ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………….. 50
4.2. Breaking Silos in Internal Communication ………………………….. ………………………….. ……….. 54
4.3. Boost External Communication ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 58
4.4. Summary ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………… 65
5. Bibliography ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. .. 67
6. Appendices ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. … 76
6.1. Interviews at Swisslog ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 76
6.2. Interviews to experts ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 133
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Index of Tables and Figures
Figure 1: Contribution of product/company brand to employer brand ………………………….. …………… 15
Figure 2: Employer branding components ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………. 16
Figure 3: Benefits of employer value proposition (EVP) ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 18
Figure 4: Areas within your organization responsible for developing internal branding strategies ….. 20
Figure 5: Stages of employer branding development ………………………….. ………………………….. ……….. 21
Figure 6: Modified Employer Branding Model ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 23
Table 1: Overview interview findings ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …. 31
Figure 7: Social media prism ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 47
Figure 8: Ernst&Young Facebook profile ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………………. 49
Figure 9: Swisslog's current external communication ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 58
Figure 10: Internet usage development in Switzerland from 1997 -2011 ………………………….. …………. 59
Figure 11: Internet usage de velopment according to the age in Switzerland from 1997 -2011 ……….. 59
Table 2: Importance of social media in Switzerland ………………………….. ………………………….. …………. 62
Figure 12: Swisslog's slogan ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………… 63
Figure 13: Johnson&Johnson career site ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………………. 64
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1. Introduction
1.1. The project
Many industry professionals use metaphors to retain employees and attract the best talent to their
companies. One method in use today is employer branding. Employer branding describes the process
of building an image of the organization as a great place to work in the minds of current employees
and the exte rnal market (Employer branding institute, 2009).
This project , a semester assignment for the course project work , was created in cooperation with the
company Swisslog AG . The authors are five International Management students in their fifth
semester of st udies at the University of Applied Science Northweste rn Switzerland in Olten. The
purpose of this project is , on the one hand to give students the opportunity to apply the ski lls
acquired during the ir studies to a practical exampl e and on the other hand to give companies the
possibility to w ork with prospective employees.
This project investigates on the current employer brand ing situation at Swisslog, as well as the
attractiveness and usefulness of different communication c hannels. The retention of curren t
employees and attraction of prospective employees are evaluated with the goal of providing
recommendations to Swisslog on how they can build their reputation as an employer of choice. The
project examine s the current state at Swisslog by using an em ploye e survey conducted by the
external company Empiricon AG . Mor eover the group investigate s on the reasons for high turnover
rates and the low level of acquiring skilled employees. Further insights were gained through
interviews.
First the methodology and th e definitions of terms is given, followed by a literature review about
employer branding . An examination of quantitative and qualitative research , which con tributes to
the research model , as well as an analysis of the current situation at Swisslog is provi ded.
Recommendations and outcomes are outlined at the end.
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1.2. Methodology
Quantitative and Qualitative Data
Quantitative Data
Boswell and Cannon (2011, p. 172) define quantitative research as follows:
Quantitative research is often identified with the traditional scientific method that gathers data
objectively in an organized, systematic, controlled manner so that the findings can be
generalized to other situations/populations.
O’Neill (2008) summarized the reasons for using quantitative data. First of all, it can provide an
extensive study that covers a great number of subject matters and strength ens the overview of the
outcomes. Secondly, i t is possible to get a superior objectivity and accurateness of results. In general,
quantitative data analysis o ffers a summary of information in favor of the generalization about a
topic studied. For achieving this, quantitative research typically relate s to a small amount of variables
but many instances . In order to guarantee validity and dependability , prearrange d procedures are in
use. Thirdly, the application of standards allows the replication of the study and comp arison with
similar researches.
In this project a quantitative survey was conducted by the external firm Empiricon AG and provided
the basis for ana lyzing the current situation of the workforce at Swisslog.
Qualitative Data
Trochim (2006) describes qualitative data as “… extremely varied in nature. It includes virtually any
information that can be captured t hat is not numerical in nature.“
The major types of qualitative research are in -depth interviews, direct observation and written
documents.
According to O’Neill (200 8) qualitative research can provide the information to the following matters.
Firstly, it offers details by recording attitudes, emo tions and behaviors. Moreover, it encourages
people to enlarge their responses, which can stimulate new subject areas. Additionally , a
comprehensive picture of why personalities take action in a certain manner and what they feel about
the accomplishment ca n be formed. Finally, when using qualitative data combined with quantitative
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research, the potential to identify the reason for responses is provided and therefore pre-judgments
can be avoided.
In the project at hand interviews were used to understand and to interpret the employees’
responses of the quantitative survey. The inputs of the interviewees completed the picture of the
status -quo analysis by clarifying the issues of the survey and therefore provided the researchers with
more detailed information. Both quantitative and qualitative data offered a detailed analysis in order
to present recommendations to the client.
Secondary and Primary Data
Secondary Data
Kotler and Armstrong (2009, p. 96) define secondary data as “… information that already exi sts
somewhere, having been collected for another purpose. ”
A great variety of secondary data exists and researchers often make use of this accessible
information (Kotler and Keller, 2006, pp. 104 -111) . Database services such as ProQuest allow access
to th e secondary research (Kotler and Armstrong, 2009, p. 9 7). Additionally, search engines provide
help in finding relevant literature. The reason for using secondary data is that it can usually be
collected more quickly than primary data. The information is r eadily available and inexpe nsive to
access . Moreover a single company might not be able to collect certain data on its own and therefore
secondary sources are used. Nevertheless, data to a topic of interest might not exist and prim ary
data needs to be collected.
The literature reviews in this paper are based on secondary data, as well as the quantitative survey
was made available through the research done by Empiricon AG. Furthermore to analyze the
outcome of this survey and to understand the interview res ults, existing literature was used.
Primary Data
The definition used to describe primary data by Kotler and Armstrong (2009, p. 96) is that it is “…
information collected for the specific purpose at hand.” Among others , this kind of data can be
collected through observational research, experiments , surveys and focus groups (Kotler and Keller,
2006, pp. 104 -111) . The tools used for data collection are questionnaires, qualitative measures and
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mechanical devices. The flexib ility of questionnaires makes it the most common research tool in
primary data collection. For example, questionnaires answer how people think rather then how
many think the same way. Qualitative measures include observing people, tracking people’s
interac tions and similar. The creativity of the researcher defines how this research is executed.
Mechanical devices include tools such as brain wave scanners.
The primary data of this paper was collected through a questionnaire, conducted with sixteen line
mana gers respectively employees at Swisslog. The purpose of the interviews was to get a better
understanding of the situation within the company. Experts of the University of Applied Sciences
Northwestern Switzerland were interviewed to receive insights into b est practices and therefore
improvement potential.
Limitations
One of the limitat ions of the project is that though Swisslog is active worldwide, the gathered
quantitative and qualitative data is based on employees working at Swisslog headquarter in
Switz erland. Due to time constraints only part of the workforce was interviewed and this may not be
representative for the whole company. Nevertheless, through the analysis of the employee survey
and the interview results, the principal weaknesses and strengths of the company could be
identified. Finally, secondary literature and interviews to experts support the findings about the
employer branding of the company.
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1.3. Definition of the terms
Employer branding
The most well known definition of employer branding, given by Brett Minchinton (2009) says:
Employer branding is the image of the organization as a great place to work in the minds of
current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates,
clients, customers and other key stakeholders).
According to the concept of employer branding, besides a number of attributes of employer
branding, the central element of this process is considered to be employer value proposition.
Employer value proposition ( EVP)
The definition gi ven by t he Corporate Leadership Council (1999) states that an employer value
proposition (EVP) is the value or benefit an employee obtains through employment – a term that
simply shows the value of an organization’s employment experience.
Positive cultur e, efficient communication and satisfying working conditions are significant benefits
provided by EVP.
Culture
The definition provided by Schein, Schneider as well as Kotter and Heskett gives an appropriate
interpretation of culture (Wilson, 1997, p. 1):
A pattern of basic assumptions, invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns
to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration – that has worked well
enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way
to perceive, thin k and relate to those problems.
According to Wilson (1997) , the definition emphasizes that culture is a shared phenomenon with in
the company and it is learned through the experience of its members. Those me mbers have a
common history and multiple cultures can exist within a company, namely subcultures.
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Subculture
Defined by Van Maanen and Barley (Palthe and Ernst, 2003, p. 295):
… a subset of an organization’s members who interact with one another, identify themselves as a
distinct group within the organization, share a set of problems, and routinely take action on the
basis of collective unde rstandings unique to the group.
Internal communication
Internal communication can be defined as the communication that exists within a company, between
and among employees (Business training, 2009) .
The barriers arising between teams and departments on the way of information flow can make a
crucial negative impact on organizational performance.
Silo th inking
Cohen and Cohen (2008, p p.12-13) define silo thinking that “each department in an organization
chart is a silo and that it stands alone, not interacting with any of the other departmental silos .”
Restructuring the workflow within the organization, forming tighter cooperation between people
and departments can complement the process of breaking those organizational silos.
Matrix organization
The organizational structure , which is characterized by cross functional and cross geographical
cooperation through organizing the virtual teams and implementation of not more than two
reporting lines (Atkinson, 2011).
The essential outcome of this approach in internal organizations becomes building of cross –
functional teams. Cross -functional teams are a part o f the system thinking approach for tackling the
organizational silos.
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Cross -functional teams
According to Zimdars (2003, p. 6), a cross -functional team is defined as
… a group of people with a clear purpose representing a variety of functions or disciplines in the
organization whose combined efforts are necessary f or achieving the team’s purpose .
Improving the free information flow within organization, company creates a stable base for planning
and implementing effective communication of its message externally.
External communication
Fill (2009, pp. 11 -20) explains that every kind of communication is about transmitting a message of a
product or service to a target audience through an appropriate channel. However , external
communication in employer branding is about transmitting the values and culture as the message of
the organization to its main stakeholders.
Among others web 2.0 is one of the most used external communication tools.
Web 2.0
According to Hass et al. (2008, p. 25) web 2.0 are all the new online media tools . Thes e can be used
by the company for different purposes when communicating externally and are divided in to three
main groups : 1) Communities such as Facebook and MySpace; 2) Enter tainment such as YouTube and
Flickr; and 3) Information such as Blogger and Wikipedia.
As well for the recruiting process online tools are available, namely e -cruitment.
E-cruitment
E-cruitment is the new term used to define the process of recruitment done online (Young & Foot,
2006, p. 44) .
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2. Literature Review
2.1. Employer branding
The progress of the modern economy is largely based on the competition between rivalry firms and
industries , which make the main market players search for a comparative advantage. The primary
source for competitive advantage for businesses and industries is its human resources. In order to
achieve and sustain a comparative advantage in the long run, companies are developing talent po ols
(Corporate eye, 2008). The gap between demand and supply is constantly widening due to
experiential learning and lack of awareness among potential employees. Hence, it is important for
employer s not only to attract a workforce that possess the required skills and knowledge , but also
one that fits the corporate culture of the company. With economic fluctuation as well as social and
demographic changes such as an aging population, changes that technology has made to the way
people communicate as well as the fast learn ing people t hat firms can access (Taylor, 2005, p. 50), i t
is critical that the organization is recog nized as a great place to work. A ttracting and retaining top
talents is vital to a company ’s success. The most effective strategy that acts as a differentiating factor
for the employer who uses it effectively is considered to be employer branding.
2.1.1. Definitions
The most commonly used definition of employer branding is the definition given by Brett
Minchinton’s from The Employer Brand Institute. Minchinton (2009) states:
Employer branding is the image of the organization as a great place to work in the minds of
current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates,
clients, customers and other key stakeholders ).
In his blog, Barrow (2010) defines effective employer branding as the process of building the overall
image of the organization, externally and internally. Continuous improvement in the org anization
requires employees ’ involvement and their opinions. Barrow (2010) i s conside red to be the first to
define the term employer brand ing. According to his studies, a strong employment brand is one of
the best tools a company possesses to compete in the highly competitive labor market. Canadian
market leader for staffing, recruitment a nd HR Services, Randstad Group (2006) states that a great
way for an employer to differentiate itself in today ’s competitive job market is to enhance its
employer brand. According to Randstad Group (2006, p.3):
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Employer brand is the impression that people have over the company as a place to work. It is
about whether the employees want to continue working there and it is about whether job
seekers want to join the organization.
Barrow and Mosley (2005, p. 162) argued that e mployer brand denotes an organiz ation’s reputat ion
as an employer. Accordingly , the process of employer branding was analyz ed externally and
internally. Internal aspects contain the practice of communicating of employer brand within the
company by creating and maintaining brand identity. Open and transparent internal communication
build s the positive working and cultural environment, promoting employee commitment and
behavior change based on brand trust and brand consistency.
Communication shapes people ’s understanding and perception of the employer brand. Barrow and
Mosley (2005, p. 164) suggest establishing both a strong rational and emotional appeal to employees
in order to promote the internal commitment. Another issue analyz ed was the maint enance of the
link between external promises to candidates and keeping those promises once candidates are in the
company.
2.1.2. Employer brand attributes
According to Corp orate Leadership C ouncil (1999) employer brand is made up of the following vital
elements: compensation and benefits, work environment, work -life balance, the company’s culture
and environment as well as product and com pany brand strength. Corporate Leadership C ouncil
(1999) sees a strong correlation bet ween employer brand and p roduct respectively company brand
strength. The company with a weak product brand should not be surprised if its employer brand is
perceived in a similar way as its product. In this case, a weak product brand must be compensated
for by other components – work-life balance or the company’s culture and environment.
Figure 1: Contribution of product/company brand to employer brand
Source: Corporate Leadership C ouncil (1999)
Chapter 2 Branding and consumer buyer behaviour
Figure 9: The connection between a company’s ’Product Brand’ and ’Employer Brand’
(Corporate Leadership Council, 1999)
Compensation
and Benifits Work
Environment
Product/
Company
Brand
Strength
Company
Culture and
Environment Work-Life
Balance Quality and
Performance
Value and
Price
Innovation
and Design Prouduc t
Features
Image and
Prestige Product Brand and Its
Component s Employment Brand and Its
Component s
Employees
Much like a product,
the employment brand
has multiple
components; each
contributes to the
strength of the brand
with current and
potential employees The employment brand attracts the
type of employees necessary to build
and support the company’s products; it
also helps to retain talent, reducing the
cost of turnover. Product and Employment Brands Are Mutually Reinforcing
The strength of a company’s brand in
the product market can play an
important role in determining the
company’s employment brand
Employees play a critical role
in building and supporting the
product brand its image;
attracting and retaining
appropriate talent is important
to product development, quality
and customer service
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On the other hand, the strong produc t brand of the company can have a favorable impact on the
perception of the corporate employer brand by employees and potential external candidates .
Studies conducted in C anada and USA (PrintLink, 2009) have shown that the following element s of a
company's employer brand are ranked highest by job s eekers (in no particular order):
Progressive work environment
Industry leadership
High ethical standards
Encouragement of innovation
Open organizational communication
Strong corporate culture
Social responsibility
Environmental responsibility
Commitment to continuously improving the company and its profits.
PrintLink (2009) also found that a company’s financial strength is o nly marginally considered by job
seekers if many of the above elements are in place. According to Newell and Dopson (1996, p p. 4-20)
and H edry and Jenkins (1997, p p. 38-44), the foundation of the employer brand is considered to b e
the employment experience, which includes tangible features, namely salary, rewards and benefits,
but also intangibles , such as an organization’s culture, values, management style and opportunities
for employee learning, development and recognition.
Figure 2 : Employer branding components
Source: Newell and Dopson (1996)
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The building of an employer branding concept is done by understanding the company’s brand , its
strengths and opportunities and what assoc iations this brand brings to mind for employees. The
next process the company goes through is building or improving the organiza tion iden tity, which is
developed through consistent message s that are transmitted through the whole organization using a
top-down approach . According to Pu usa and Tolvanen (2006, p. 31) , organization identity has an
effect on how strongly individuals withi n the or ganization identify with the organization. Therefore, it
is based on trust and commitment to t he organization and its goals.
Employer branding is mainly determined by organizational culture (Puusa and Tolvanen , 2006, p. 34) .
Corporate culture describes the philosophy, attitude, experience, and values of an organization . It
helps organizations strengthen the employer brand loyalty. Employer image as a logical outcome of
employer brand associations is the perception of the employer by employees that create s the
internal image of the organization . This internal image goes outside of the company and builds the
external employer image. One communicates the information about the company in o rder to attract
the best talent . On the other hand, strong employer bra nd loyalty can be achieved only through
distinct organization al culture and identity. Employer brand p lays one of the most important roles in
attracting potential employee s and motivating of the current employees.
2.1.3. Employer value proposition (EVP)
The C orporate Leadership Council (1999) states that an employer value proposition (EVP) is the value
or benefit an employee obtains through employment – a term that simply shows the value of an
organization’s empl oyment experience. Developing EVP is key to success in acquiring talent. In fact,
employer branding is the method by which organizations develop and promote an EVP considering
applicant and employee preferences. The Corporate Leadership Council (1999) estimates that the
results of communicating the value of employment can resul t in an estimated 29 percent increase in
access to passive candidates for a job . Minchington (2010) defines EVP as a set of associations and
offerings provided b y an organiz ation in return for the skills, capabilities and e xperiences a n
employee brings to the organiz ation.
The employer value proposition needs to contain associations and values specific to the
company’s role as an employer in order to fulfill its purpose among potential and current
employees. In addition, it should be very specific in order to differentiate t he company from
other companies (Duraturo, 2009).
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Corporate Leadership C ouncil (1999) argues that each of the elements of employer brand play s a
crucial role in employee attraction, motivation and retent ion. The cat egories of benefit created by
those elements form EVP.
Figure 3 : Benefits of employer value proposition (EVP)
Source: Corporate Leadership C ouncil (1999) in Savignano (2007)
Nel (2009, p p. 44-51), in his book Puppets or People: People and organizational developm ent,
describes the People and Organizational Development Integrated Approach Model to Employer value
proposition . This model simplifies the concepts, processes and procedures of putting an integrated
people and organizational development strategy together. It also highlights the need to attract,
develop and retain specific talent segment s. Accord ing to Renè Nel (2009 ) employee satisfaction and
retention are driven by four main factors, namely a great company that is respected and recognized,
personal growth and career development, exciting and challenging work as well as wealth and
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reward s linked to performance. Renè Nel (2009 ) argues that the most successful EVPs provide a
VOICE .
Vision stands for a clear future, which demons trates to the employee the short -, medium -, long -term
goals of the organization and shows the place and function of the employee within the organization.
Opportunity of personal and professional growth set s the scope for attracting and retaining
particular people. Incentive or compensation package s motivate and measure the employee ’s
performance. Fair and adequate compensation stimulate s for greater performance and higher
achievement of overall organization al goals (Nel, 2009, p p. 44-51). Employees face their w orking
conditions every day, which i mpact s their psych ological and physical wellbeing . Routine and
monotonous work can lead to fatigue, increase d production errors, tiredness, lack of concentration
and decrease in the performanc e. Two -way effective communication and positive social environment
(Nel, 2009, p. 56) create a friendly and open atmosphere within the organization while flexible
working hours, dress code and overall openness and experimentation help to promote a healthy
work -life balance of its employees. Nel (2009, p. 57) suggests a few exa mples of work -life programs ,
such as flex time, work at home options, telecommuting, child and elder care, employee assistance
programs (EAP), family leave above required leave, compressed workweek s and ti me management
training.
Armstrong (2009, p p. 497 -500) views an EVP as benefits that an organization offer s, that prospective
and existing employees would value and which would help to persuade them to join or r emain with
the firm . In this view, EVP consis ts of remuneration (financial and non -financial), respect, work -life
balance and opportunities for per sonal and professional growth.
2.1.4. Employer branding process
Employer of choice is a popular device to attract the best talents. Employer branding is a concept
where the recruitment process has to be managed in the same way that customers are. It involves
employees and customers, human resource and marketing p rofessionals. In 2005, t he Canadian
Mark eting Association (CMA) surveyed global organizations about their employer branding activities.
Branding was described as “promoting the company brand values a mongst employees and
externally ”. The branding research survey confirmed that the responsibility for the branding
strategies tend s to be shared by the marketing group and executive team . The survey showed that
more than one -quarter is a marketing responsibility and 72 percent of responsibilit ies are held by the
executive team.
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Internal Branding Best Practices Study
4 © Canadian Marketing Associat ion 2 007 AREAS WITHIN YOUR ORGANIZATION RESPONSIBLE
FOR DEVELOPING INTERNAL BRANDING STRATEGIES
77
72
41
28
21
11
02 0 40 60 80 100Marketing
Executive team
Human Resources
Public relations
External agency
Other
percentage
When asked if these wer e the same groups resp onsible for e xternal branding strategies,
almost six in ten companies (59%) su ggested that the same groups build internal and
external branding strate gies.
Even if internal branding is nominally anchored in the marketing function, it is clear th at both
human resources and th e executive team need to be intimately involved with internal
branding init iatives.
Notwithstanding the fact that the lea dership for internal bran ding might be anchored in one
functional u nit, it is vital to note the importance of the role of all management to "walk the
talk" and the apparent la ck of them actually doing so. Only 22% of respo ndents in th e CMA
survey strongly agree with the state ment "mana gement walks the talk with respect t o brand
values." Clearly there is a need for senior exec utives to demonstrate that it is “they who are
in charge,” i. e. Leadership. In fact, th is desired senior management behaviour is inclu ded
with the list of internal communications best pra ctices in Se ction 6: Implementation. The
Implementat ion Table de monstrates that this critical component of senior managemen t
should be fo rmalized and rewarded in best practice organizat ions.
Overall, as a best practi ce, responsi bility fo r stra tegic develo pment and implementati on for
internal bran ding should be vested clearly with one senior le vel individual or group of
individuals who have wi de reach an d access across funct ions. They also should b e
measured and rewarded for their success in this key area of brand management.
Figure 4: Areas within your organization responsible for developing internal branding strategies
Source: Canadian Marketing Association (2007)
Although the process of branding is clearly anchored in the marketing function, it is vitally that both
human resources and the executive team are involved with employer branding activities (CMA, 2007,
pp. 3-4). The success of employer branding depends on the prevailing culture in the organization. The
employer brand image impacts the brand image of the product and services. Randstad Group (2006 ,
p. 4) identified four main stages that every company should go throu gh for developing emplo yer
brand in order to succeed in the labor market. The stages are similar to those described by Brett
Minchington and Ryan Estis (ere.net, 2009) in the article 6 steps to an employer brand strategy , and
the employer branding framewor k outlined by The Right Group (2011). In addition to the f our stages,
the authors emphasiz e the importance of involving top management in the employer branding
process. Thus, Minchington and Estis ( 2009) suggest further topics for discussion with CEO and m ain
stakeholders:
How will a stronger employer brand support our business strategy — M&A’s, growth,
consolidation?
What kind of culture do we have? How consistent is it across geographical and divisional
boundaries? percentage
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What behaviors are felt to be most characteristic of the organization? What are the moments
of truth when your organization is at its best (and worse?)
What is the most useful way of segmenting the employee population in terms of their cultural
characteristics and disti nctive needs?
How consistent are the messages we are communicating internally and externally about our
organization as a place to work? How do we inform our vendors?
What are the most effective channels of employee communication, both top -down and
bottom -up?
Which positions are most critical to our success and what are we currently doing/need to do
to attract, engage, and retain them? (Minchington and Estis , 2009)
Figure 5 : Stages of employer branding development
Source: Randstad Group (2006)
2 1
4How to
create a strong
and compelling
employer brand
Internal:
Focus groups
Interviews with executives
Needs analysis
Complete employee profiles, workforce distribution
(Gen Y, baby boomers, etc.)
External:
Who are you looking to attract?
What do they want?
What are your competitors doing?Based on your research, develop your Employer Value
Proposition (EVP).
Your EVP is the promise you make to your current
and future employees.
Craft your statement using no more than a dozen
words, as it needs to be concise and clear: ‘’At XYZ
company, growth is what drives us. We constantly
invest in the improvement of our products, and
the development of our people.’’
Ensure you have clear and factual proof points
supporting your message.
Make sure it is in line with your overall corporate brand. Research Develop
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The first stage in developing an employer brand is conducting internal and external research. Internal
research includes focus groups, asking the employees about why do they want to work in a particular
company or why do they continue work here as well as what they do no t like about the organization
(Randstad, 2006 , p. 6 ). With respect to external research , this involves gaining a very good
understanding of what candidates want in their pl ace of work.
The second stage is developing the employer strategy. The crucial question here is what is the
company ’s EVP? Leandra Har ris, specialist in HR and EVP at Randstad Group (2006, p. 4) , argue s that
the EVP is the commitment that a company makes to its employees and future candidates. Another
crucial element in developing the branding strategy is top management participation.
The third stage of employer branding, acc ording to Randstad Group (2006) , is communication. After
deciding on what a company need s to say and what makes it a great place to work, Harris (Randstad
Group, 2006), suggests answering the question: “How do you want to share that with your
employees and with the people outside of your organization? ” ”There are two options, external and
internal communication . External communication includ es using websites and social media to get an
employer brand outside the organization. Internal employer brand also requires promotion because
there is a need to keep current employees engaged. That can be done via a n on-boarding process as
well as the intranet.
Stage four consists of measuring the success of an organization ’s employer brand. Brand awareness
and loyalty, employee retention rates, cost per hire, flow of applications as well as employee
satisfaction survey s can all be used to measure success (Randstad, 2006) . Neve rtheless,
measurement of the results is one of the challenges for employer branding efforts. In the research on
brand measurement conducted by CMA (2004) , there was a consensus that an external
measurement of a brand impact on the m arket was the easiest method to measure the outcomes of
the employer branding process . The appropriate internal measures were more difficult and at the
same time more desirable than external measures.
In relation to Swisslog ’s employer brand image the group has developed a research model of
employer branding and employer value proposition of Swisslog that emphasizes the main areas
analysed, problems occurred and potential fields for further research.
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2.2. Research Model
Figure 6 : Modified Employer Branding Model
Source: Author s (2011)
The model was created to give an overview of the aspects included in employer branding. As
outlined by the Corporate Leadership Council (1999) , employer brand consists of workers’
compensation and benefits, work en vironment, corporate culture, and the company ’s brand. All
those elements together build the company’s EVP.
Similarly, in the employee survey conducted at Swisslog, employees were asked about the above
mentioned aspects of employer branding. They together build the internal image of a company,
which is lived inside and then transmitted outside the company. These internal aspects are part of
employer branding or more specifically the EVP, the unique features about a company. In the
outcome s of the p roject , options how to improve this value or b enefit will be defined through
recommendations of the aspects affecting the EVP. On the other hand , an analysis of the external
communication is given, which is responsible for the attraction of employees and t ogether with the
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internal image contributes to the reputation. The external communication channels, namely the
website, blog and recruitment advertising are evaluated. The internal and external images create
together a reputation of the company.
The resea rch model is the outcome of the literature review and the analysis of the employee survey.
Later on the model was used to design the interview questionnaires with the purpose of gaining
deeper insight into the aspects included in EVP, in specific areas, in cluding engagement, culture ,
working conditions and external image .
Finally, these outcomes are evaluated to provide suggestions on how to increase the EVP, achieve
distinction and become an employer of choice.
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3. Main part
3.1. The Company Swisslog AG
Swisslog AG is an international company with its headqua rter in Buchs AG (Swisslog, 2011b ). The
company provides logistics solutions and is divided into two main divisions: Warehouse and
Distribution Solutions (WDS) and Healthcare Solutions (HCS). Swissl og currently employs 300 people
in Buchs AG and 40 employees in Nidau BE, Switzerland.
Swisslog was founded in 1989 as Sprecher & Schuh AG in Aarau Switzerland (Swisslog, 2011 b).
Through several mergers and acquisitions Swisslog has grown to a global suppli er of integrated
logistics solutions with an outstanding portfolio of services. Swisslog’s focus is on the food and
beverage, retail, pharmace uticals and healthcare industries.
Today , Swisslog suffers from high turnover rates and shows difficulties in att racting new qualified
candidates . Therefore , Swisslog desired an analysis of their HR strategy and personnel m arketing.
Moreover , Swisslog needed to know more about the effectiveness of different communication
chan nels such as social media, blogs, online p resence and commercial videos .
With the aim of retain ing employees and creating a common culture , Swisslog has currently has four
core values in place: competence , collaboration, commitment, and c larity , also known as the four C’s.
The new tool Learning Organization (LO) was recently introduced in order to preserve know -how and
improve collaboration between departments. The approach LO was introduced to the employees by
a workshop and is kept alive with the acting of c ertain employees as role models ( LO activists).
An examination of the quantitative survey done by an external company serves as a basis for further
analysis. A more detailed investigation on the weaknesses is done by qualitative interviews.
3.2. Quantitative survey
The survey was conducted by an external company Empiricon (2011) among all worldwide Swisslo g
employees. In the first stage the quantitative data was analyzed in order to investigate on the
strengths and the weaknesses within the Swisslog working environment.
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Strengths
The follow ing strengths were identified; e mplo yees feel committed to the work and appreciate self –
responsibility and the task variety. Supportive direct supervisor and a respectful environment
contribute to a pleasant working climate. Swisslog is seen as an attracti ve employer, although the
image of the company could be improved within and outside the industry.
Weaknesses
Weaknesses we re found in the following areas; the workforce is only little satisfied with their
employment and cannot voice their ideas. Furtherm ore, employees are unhappy with the
development opportunities at Swisslog. The structure of the organization as well as t he strategy and
vision are poorly communicated within the company. The overall analysis points out that
communication is one of the maj or weaknesses at Swisslog. Also the collaboration between
departments is seen as insufficient, which has an impact on the corporate culture. This issue
contributes to poor know -how exchange; people do not share their knowledge beyond the
departments.
Limitations
The following strengths and weaknesses were not further analyzed . Employees identified low
customer orientation. This would be interesting to analyze , however, it goes beyond the scope of this
project and was not considered. Additionally, Swisslog employees are dissatisfied with their salaries
and would like the ma nagement to provide more jobs. Since these two aspects involve the financial
situation at Swisslog, they are not considered in the project.
3.3. Qualitative Interviews
Interviews amongst sixteen Swisslog employees provided the basis for a qualitative data analysis. Six
line managers and ten employees were interviewed. The interview focused on five broad areas ,
which were grouped together according to the issues fou nd in the quantitative surv ey; e mployee
engagement, working cond itions, rewards and recognition, culture and vision as well as external
image.
Employee engagement
The analysis of the area employee engagement provided information about the leadership style of
the direct supervisors , and the interaction between supervisor and employee. Further investigation
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was conducted on how employees perceive a positive working environment and how employees can
voice their ideas in order to improve working processes.
Working Conditions
Working conditions refer to development and further education opportunities as well as the
recruitment process at Swisslog. The aim of this analysis was to find out if employees are satisfied
with the develop ment opportunities at Swisslog and how the workf orce exp erienced the recruiting
process.
Rewards and Recognition
This subtopic illustrate d the employees’ opinion s about the rewards system at Swisslog. Not only
financial rewards , but also non -financial rewards , such as recognition and feedba ck were exam ined
in this area. E mployees needed to identify their expectations regarding the rewards system at the
company.
Culture and Vision
In order to examine the perception of culture at Swisslog, the employees were asked to interpre t the
core values of Swisslo g -competence, collaboration, c ommitment, and clarity . Moreover experiences
with the Learning Organization approach were ident ified. Besides that, employees were asked to
describe communication at Swisslog in general.
External image
With the purpose of f inding out the perception of the external image, the employees should describe
Swisslog’s image. Additionally , external communication options were identified and ideas how
Swisslog could attract future employees and build up a sustainable image were given.
3.4. Qualitative Interview Findings
The findings are summarized and statements of the interviewees to support the results are given.
Employee engagement
The results in the area of employee engagement show that the employees judge the leadership style
of the ir direct supervisors and the interaction with them positively. Problems occur by voicing ideas.
Ideas can be expressed to direct supervisors but as they are carried to the top management, the
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ideas do not seem to be taken serious . Employees have the feeli ng that the top managemen t is not
interested in the work of its employees; moreover executives are not reachable for employees.
I know just that we can go to staff manager bu t the problem is mostly we do not have time
and money to implement those ideas and they s tay at the level of discussions (Interviewee 3 ,
2011).
I do not really know. Maybe to reduce the big management that Swisslog has, however I
cannot judge it (Interviewee 11, 2011) .
Working Condition s
Interview results showed that collaboration between departments is lacking and the departments’
interests’ conflict . Employees feel c omfortable in their own departments but collaboration across
boundaries is challenging . There is bad communication of nee ds and interests; the impression comes
across that the employees do not work well together beyond departments.
There is no problem with interaction between employees within the team or department but
not with the outside. The main problem is the understanding of the message between the
employees from different departments (Interviewee 16, 2011) .
On the other hand, development opportunities are highly appreciated by employees. They admit
that the employees must show initiative, but that Swisslog i s willing to support training and
development opportunities.
I was just from university and I did not know anything about Swisslog. But they showed me
they really care about me as soon as I was hired. After two week s of employment I was sent
for two week s product development training to Sweden. They showed m e trust from the
very beginning (Interviewee 2, 2011) .
It depends on the employee’s own initiative. S wisslog will support everybody (Interviewee 5,
2011) .
Rewards and Recognition
The reward system is based on a salary function grid and within the function they use a range. It was
mentioned, that this range or band width should be communicated to the employees. In general , the
salary is seen as fair. Supervisors recognize their employees’ work at meeti ngs and on a constant
basis. In one depart ment a support er of the month award is used to recognize outstanding
performance. Employees suggested that some rewards could be used for exceptional efforts.
Regarding non -financial rewards , employees did not show any experience w ith such a system at
Swisslog.
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I think the salary is not transparent and you have no idea in your department whether you
are at the up per level or at the lower level (Interviewee 3, 2011).
We are more focused on financial rewards . (…) Non -financial rewards are mos tly about
courses available, apé ro, three apples in winter, three bottles of wine, flue injections for free.
But not all people participate in that (Interviewee 4, 2011).
Culture and Vision
Culture and core values are perceive d differently by different employees. Most employees agree that
the core values are common sense; however, few employees work according to the se values or
integrate them in their work. Other employees do not see an effect of those values, while some
believ e the core values exist only to make customers believe that Swisslog cares about its employees.
The core values are clear, yet they are not communicated well nor does the management lead by
example.
Good values, but they are not lived in the company. Not even from management not only in
one department also in all regions. At Swisslog are great boundaries betwee n departments
and subsidiaries (Interviewee 7, 2011) .
I personally don’t identify with that. I see it more as an intern marketing mechanism. In
general I would say this is not recognized. For example the pyramid was just a goodie but we
weren’t really introduced to it. The four C’s should inspire the employees but I think Swisslog
failed with that approach, it was hardly introduced. (Interviewee 5, 2 011) .
Most employees agree that Swisslog has a lot of subcultures due to mergers and that this results in
inefficient collaboration between the departments. Every department developed its own culture.
Additionally, employees perceive that Swisslog fears change and has a federalist culture. Although
Swisslog is trying to improve the collaboration between the departments, this needs more time and
resources to be successful. Some employees are faced with a lot of changes from the management,
there are a lot of new investigations all the time and employees cannot react quickly enough .
Employees would like to have a more stable environment and they also say sometimes it is be tter to
stick to the old ways. Moreover the approach Learning O rganization was also per ceived in different
ways . Some employees see it as a great opportunity to improve the culture and develop education
opportunities, while others see it as a waste of money and resources, which was poorly
communicated and introduced.
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Corporate culture developed in negative direction. Negative thinking, f ear to make mistakes,
fear to confess mistakes, fear from something new, new technologies.
In my opinion: everybody should be happy to learn new things so you are at the pulse of
technology. 30 year old knowledge in this industry is nothing worth any more.
Culture is formed by blaming, fear for mistakes and new things (Interviewee 6, 2011) .
Someone needs to do something so let’s give it a name Learning Organization . In my team I
don’t need it but there are certainly people who need to be reminded about that
(Interviewee 2, 2011) .
Communication is an issue that employees do not feel positive about . Frequently people are blame d
instead of giving objective feedback to be able to learn from mistakes. It is not a solution -oriented
communication approach. Additionally, employees mentioned that Swisslog is over structured and
communication does not cascade down through the whole company .
Managers are just in their offices. We don’t see them a lot. The y don’t even come to say
hello (Interviewee 7, 2011) .
Management needs to be a role model, create and live acceptance and respect. However,
this is difficult since management does not communicate properly. With that I mean there
should not be more newsletters etc. but face -to-face communicating (Interviewee 13 , 2011 ).
External image
The analysis of the externa l image showed that employees do not have a clear view about the
external image of the company. Swisslog is known within the industry as a competent , inno vative
company, b ut employees could not confirm that. Swisslog is not known to people outside the
industry. Employees suggest that in order to attract new employees, Swisslog could increase its
presence at u niversities and host open hours at the company to celebrate its anniversary or similar
events.
I do not know. Image is not appropriate (Interviewee 13, 2011) .
Most people I know they do not know Swisslog. Swisslog is unknown to people from other
industries (Interviewee 14, 2011) .
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Contradictions
During the interviews several contradictions arose. Although the employees mentioned various
negative aspects of the company , all interviewees would recommend Swisslog as an employer.
Furthermore , even though most employees do not see the effect of the cor e values, they believe
that they are lived within their departments. Another contradicti on appeared in terms of culture. I t
was said that Swisslog fears the future and being innovative, yet at the same time , employees
believed that the company should bette r stick to the old.
Summary
The table below provides an overview of the positive and negative opinions expressed during the
interviews. For the purposes of this investigation, only the negative aspects will be further
considered.
Table 1: Overview interview findings
Positive Negative
Job variety
Interesting tasks
Self-responsibility
Training and development opportunities
Direct supervisors
Working climate within the department Top management
Collaboration with other departments
Culture
Learning Org anization
Image
Core values
Communication
Rewards
Source: Authors
Findings
Referring to the table above, the findings of the interviews w ere grouped together and serve as the
basis for the next section.
As Swisslog does not have any non -financial rewards system s in place, the following chapter explain s
the possible benefits and outcomes of a maintaining non-financial rewards system.
As mentioned earlier , Swisslog has many subcultures among its different departments, however ,
there is no common culture. An investigation of the creation and implementation of a favorable
culture follows.
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Two main issues identified throu gh the qualitative surveys were inefficient internal communication
and poor collaboration between the departments identified as Silo-Thinking . For that reason these
two subjects will be discussed.
The final part examine s the external communication and how it could be improved. It was found
that, a positive external communication can only be de livered if a common culture and a good
internal communication are in place.
3.5. Financial and Non -Financial R ewards Analysis
Robbins and Judge (2009, pp. 268 -270) define finan cial rewards as extrinsic and non -financial as
intrinsic. Intrinsic rewards can range from individual and spontaneous thank you to formalized
recognition programs, such as employee of the month . The authors argue that financial rewards have
greater effect in the short run , while intrinsic rewards show a greater e ffect on employees’
motivat ion in the long term. Robbins and Judge (2009 ) point out that recognition programs have
beco me widely popular within the last few years because of their low cost. However, intrinsic
rewards systems can be subject to abuses as man agers may recognize their favorite employees more
than others , which may result in decreased motivation and jealousy among employees.
Extrinsic Rewards
Reif (1986) is a supporter of extrinsic rewards systems . He identified thirty -three items that
represen t a reward system. These were then divided into four intrinsic reward categories and three
extrinsic reward categ ories. Following an extraction of the thirty -three items is given:
Intrinsic:
Social needs
Opportunity to help people
Opportunity for friendsh ip
Esteem needs
Feeling of self -esteem
Prestige inside company
Prestige outside company
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Autonomy needs
Opportunity for independent thought and action
Authority in position
Opportunity to participate in goal setting
Self-actualization needs
Opportunity for growth and development
Feeling of self -fulfillment
Feeling of worthwhile accomplishment
Extrinsic
Compensation
Direct pay
Fringe benefits
Working conditions
Working conditions associated with the job
Security needs
Security of job
Mitchell Fein (Reif, 1986, pp. 2 -4) is a proponent of extrinsic rewards . In his opinion
… the solution of dissatisfied workers is simple; management must provide the basic condition
which will motivate workers to raise productivity; job security, good wo rking conditions, good
pay and financial rewards .
Fein believes that only a small amount of the total workforce appeals to intrinsic rewards. According
to this statement , Reif (1986) further investigated the impact of intrinsi c and extrinsic rewards. He
conducted a survey among six different companies working in various industries.
The survey revealed (Reif, 1986 pp. 5 -8) that extrinsic rewards are more important than intrinsic
rewards. The most importa nt categories are; working conditions, security and compensation. The
only important intrinsic factor for em ployees was self -actualization. In conclusion , he stated that
more highly educated respondents viewed intrinsic factors as more important than extrinsic factors.
Older and less educated wo rkers with relatively low salaries and job status es are more concerned
with extrinsic rewards , such as compensation and fringe benefits.
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During the interviews conducted at Swisslog, employees mentioned mostly financial rewards. The
bonus system is appreciated however; it does not seem to drive motivation. Moreover the salary grid
system is also positively perceived but the communication of the band width should be more
transparent.
Intrinsic Rewards
Thomas Kenneth (2009 , p. 1) has a different view of extrinsi c and intrinsic rewards. H e believes that
intrinsic rewards can be used to build a high en gagement culture . He defines extrinsic rewards as:
“external factors to the work itself and other people can control their size and whether or not they
are granted” ( Kenneth, 2009, p. 2). Intrinsic rewards are defined as: “psychological rewards that
employees get from doing meaningful work and performing well.” In Kenneth’s opinion (2009, p. 2)
extrinsic rewards remain significant, however , motivation is driven more by intrinsic rewards .
Kenneth (2009, pp. 2 -4) defines four core intrinsic rewards:
Sense of meaningfulness involves the significance or status of the task you are trying to complete.
You feel that you will achieve something with high importance. You feel that you are using your
energy and time in the right way.
Sense of choice makes y ou feel free to c hoose how to complete a task, to select those actions that
make sense to you and to perform them in ways that seem suitable. You feel you are the owner of
your work, you believe in the method and you feel the responsibility.
Sense of competence makes y ou feel that your performance meets or exceeds your personal
standards and that you are doing efficient and effective work. You sense satisfaction and pride.
Sense of progress comes from working in an atmosphere where you know that you are on the right
track. You are satisfied and confident with the choices you have made and feel confident about those
that will arise in the future.
Kenneth (2009, p p. 4-6) states that the intrinsic rewards de scribed above are indicators of retention
and also a source of motivation. This type of motivation creates a win -win situation for employees
and the organization, because it focuses on shared goals that employees make a n effecti ve effort to
a reasonable task.
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If these four intrinsic rewards are compared with our results, it can be conclude d that all four core
rewards are met to a certain degree at Swisslog ; however, employees miss feedback (sense of
progress). Furtherm ore, during the interview it was not fe lt that the employees were proud of their
work and feel s atisfied. Kenneth (2009 ) also indicates that in order to make people aware of their
intrinsic rewards, direct supervisors need to communicate them.
According t o Kenneth (2009 ), managers often underestimate the impact of in trinsic rewards.
Research shows that people recognize the impact of intrinsic rewards on their own behavior;
however, they assume that other people are only motivated by financial rewards. In reference to the
research model, commitment, recognition (part of intrinsic rewards) and participation are grouped
together to the sub -element engagement. This means that those three factors support building
employee engagement. Kenneth (2009) sees also a p ositive linkage between intrinsic rewards and
engagement therefore he developed seven guidelines for bui lding a high engagement culture, which
is described below.
Being with a meaningful purpose : You cannot ask the HR department to build an intrinsic rewa rds
system. HR can support the approach and investigate intrinsic rewards packages, but those rewards
must be communicated via top -down approach. Building an intrinsic reward system is the
responsibility of the line managers, and it starts with bringing up a significant reason for the
company. Thus, it sh ould involve more than profit – it should involve something of value t hat drives
self-responsibility.
Build intrinsic motivation and engagement into management t raining and executive coaching:
Managers ne ed to learn about intrinsic rewards and how to communicat e them. This is the only way
for managers to effectively promote the value of engagement.
Focus on conversations on meaningfulness, choice and progress : Leaders need to express consistent
message s throughout the company, and exhibit the competence to do tasks well and
conscientiously . In order to focus on the importance of a task or project , leaders should ask the
following basic questions :
What can we do here that is meaningful?
What creative choices can we think of to accomplish this?
How can we make sure we’re doing this work completely?
How can we make sure we’re accomplishing the purpos e?
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These questions bring employee involvement to the front and focus on intrinsic rewards (Kenneth,
2009, pp. 5 -6).
Engage the middle : Special co nsideration needs to be drawn to the middle range of the workforce,
which is usually made up of the greatest s hare of employees . However, these employees are
generally only fairly engaged.
Measure intrinsic reward levels : It is possible to measure intrinsic rewards levels through experience
and everyday c onversations with the employees.
Provide missing building blocks for intrinsic rewards : Rewards are made up of unique building blocks
and need to be assessed individually. Therefore , it is essential to allocate and treat intrinsic rewards
differently. Some building blocks may need "hard" elements, such as job des igns, informati on
systems, and formal authorities . Others involve "softer" aspects of organizational culture and
managerial style, such as a non -cynical climate, celebrations, trust, and skill recognition.
Adopt a change and implementation process that is engaging : Workers need to have the chance of
voicing their ideas, recommend solutions that make sense, apply their competencies experience and
know -how.
Based on the interviews it can be conclude d that most employees of Swisslog do not know what non –
financial o r intrinsic rewards are. When employees were asked about recognition or non -financial
benefits, the majority answered that they are not directly recognized. While the direct supervisors
sometimes give feedback, they do not do so on a regular basis. Therefore, employees do not seem to
be upset about not be ing recognized. Some mentioned it would be helpful to get more feedback.
However, m ost employees are satisfied with their challenging tasks and self -responsibility in the
workplace. These can be considered intrinsic factors.
Summary
Extrinsic and intrinsi c rewards were described . Extrinsic rewards are more powerful than non –
financial rewards. Nevertheless , the more educated employees are , the more likely they will be in
higher positions with more responsibility. Consequently, financial rewards become less important. In
line with this, Kenneth ’s theory (2009, pp. 1-8) proposes that intrinsic rewards have a greater i mpact
on the workforce and can contribute to an engagi ng culture at a company. Kenneth defines four core
intrinsic rewards , which contribute to an employee’s self -responsibility and development
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opportunities. He also presents suggestions on how a company can build a highly engaging culture
and points out that employee engagement and intrinsic rewards are not the sole responsibility of the
HR depart ment. Even though opinions regarding financial and non -financial rewards vary, it is seen
as evident that intrinsic rewards have to be treated individually and there is more than one solution
to build ing or distributing intrinsic rewards.
Kenneth outline d the im portance of an engaging culture. In the next chapter other views are stated
and used to analy ze the culture of Swisslog.
3.6. Culture Analysis
Culture
“All humans have personalities. All organizations have corporate cultures” (Atchison, 2002, p. 11).
The most essential intangible value for prosperity of an organization it its culture. However, as
personalities of individual, corporate culture cannot really be seen but we know a culture exists
through the behavior of members of the culture. Referring t o the research model, culture is
contributing to the internal image and therefore the EVP.
At Swisslog t he core values are not shared among all employees and the subcultures existing at the
company do not seem to be aligned with the overall culture. The c ollaboration within departments
works well, however, i f there is cooperation necessary among departments, difficulties arise. T he
communication with in the departments is favorable but the communication to top management
fails. Employees are able to voice t heir ideas to their supervisors, though they do not always feel
understood by the top management. Additionally, there exists inconsistency in management
behavior. The top management does not seem to be acting as a role model and communicating
values clear and open. In order to understand these issues and provide recommendations, the asset
called culture needs to be explained and the current situation at Swisslog has to be analyzed.
One common way to describe culture is often the “way we do things around he re” (Schein, 1999, p.
15). According to Schein this picture of culture is true; however , culture is more than that . To point
out the depth, broadness, and stability of culture, Schein uses the illustration of the three levels of
culture.
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The three levels of culture according to Schein (1999, pp. 14-27) are artifacts, espoused values and
underlying assumptions. Artifacts are the surface, the visible part of culture, for example architecture
of the company building, the working climate and dress code. Espous ed values are elements the
company values such as teamwork or customer orientation. These two levels might be or might not
be consistent, depending on the historically underlying thoughts. Those underlying assumptions are
everything perceived or believed i nside the company and is taken for granted. These values evolved
during a firms’ history are jointly learned perceptions and assumptions, which makes them the
fundamental ingredient of culture. Therefore c ulture is deep, bro ad and stable (Schein, 1999) and a
powerful force, which determines how actors in a company behave and perceive things and what
indivi duals and groups value .
At Swisslog the underlying assumptions developed during the company’s history can be tracked back
to the different mergers and ac quisitions causing discrepancies in values and perception. Different
groups of people view different values as important. Even though the subcultures of the different
departments are favorable, they do not seem to be aligned with the overall culture. Sadri and Lees
(2001) emphasize that even in a company with a strong culture there exist subcultures. Thus the
dominant culture must be aligned to all subcultures and strong enough for members to id entify with
the overall culture . According to McCune (1996, p. 56) there is no assurance of success through a
unified culture, however, a lack of an overall culture can lessen a company’s ability to be a major
player in the industry. Referring to the research model, a favorable culture can strengthen a
company’s image. Furthermore , Mgbere (2009, p. 194) emphasizes that high performance is related
to a strong culture. The three conditions to be satis fied for strong culture and therefore having a
positive impact on success are: 1) the cult ure is widely spread and viewed as a form to achieve goals,
2) the existence of a somewhat unique culture not shared by other industry players, and 3) the
culture cannot simply be copied by the competitors. Since Swisslog lacks an overall strong culture,
the communication and collaboration between the depar tments does not function well.
Additionally, for a culture to work well, it needs to be aligned with the strategy and environment of
the company (Schein, 1999). If culture is aligned to its market envir onment it indicates successful
performance (Mgbere, 2009, pp. 196 -197). Principal challenge for managers is to determine the
appropriate and most effective culture for an organization in order to align with its environment and
organizational objectives . In regard to this aspect , it was seen that Swisslog could improve the
alignment of culture and strategy. For example not all employees agree that Swisslog is as customer
oriented as it is saying to be. As Mgbere (2009) emphasizes, long -term success is depend ing on the
ability of a company to change and adapt culture to the changing environment. Culture has a
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powerful influence for differentiating one company from another. Overall culture supports
employees in daily activities to achieve certain goals .
Top ma nagement involvement
Another finding is that the top management is not acting as a role model for the employees.
However, according to Mgbere (2009 , p. 193 ) leadership is important in c ulture creation and
management . Executives need to create visions and missions, which then have to be aligned across
the company (Atchison, 2002). In other words, the acting of the executive management determines
how the values are lived by the employees. Inconsistency in management behavior can lead to
subgroup culture, whi ch than leads to performance of individual groups being more important than
the ones for the whole organization , as it is the case at Swi sslog. Intergroup conflicts occur. For
example at Swisslog the top management does not communicate openly rather execut ives are
blaming employees for malfunctioning , therefore employees do not feel obliged to clear and honest
communication and this then causes conflicts in communication respectively collaboration among
departments. The lack of role models is also seen in the appro ach Learning Organization. The
executives need to be committed to the actions planned and communicate clear and unique
messages as emphasized by Flanagan (1995) in order to be successful in implementing such a
project. The lack of information and understanding cause most problems in a company (Nadler,
1994, p.76). This is also seen at Swisslog because the employees lack of trust in the top management
due to missing open and honest communication. The communication of vision, strategy and values is
very important and therefore the top management communication must be enforced since
employees need to know where the company is heading (Warren, 1992, p. 74).
The key to a strong corporate culture, as the example of American Express shows, is that the to p
management is acting in the way as they expect their employees to be acting (4imprint, 2011).
Culture is not only a competitive advantage but also a precondition for success and therefore
attracting and retaining employees. Firms should form their organi zational culture in favor of
employee’s work experience and the company’s profitability (Sadri and Lees, 2001, p. 858).
Employee engagement
Due to the lack of commitment of the top management and the missing communication, employee
engagement seems to be low at Swisslog. Seijts and Crim (2006 , p. 1) identify engaged employees as
“committed and fascinated” . Engaged employees are emotionally attached to a company and are
conscious about the future of an organization. Seijts and Crim (2006) are positive about that
engagement of employees will also increase a company’s performance. Since the authors mentioned
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that engaged people care more about the organization’s future , employees will feel more confident
about their work and themselves. They believe t hat they can make a difference.
Employee engagement can be outlined with the carrot principle. Gostick and Chester (2009)
investigated a 10 -year study to research on the reasons for job dissatisfaction and disloyalty. Gostick
and Chester define a carrot as “ … some thing used to inspire and motivate employees. It is something
to be desired” (p. 9). Most probably people think the most effective carrot will be money. However,
Gostick and Chester (2009, pp. 9 -26) argue that money has only a temporarily effect. Large bon uses
are reserved for the top management, incentives and benefits for employees will make them hope
for a frequency, and after a few benefits in a row they will take them for granted. Therefore , the
researchers identify the most effective carrot as “the re cognition of employee’s talents and
contr ibutions in a purposeful manner ” (p. 11). Gost ick and Chester (2009 ) clarify that recognition
helps to build up trust and job satisfaction, however, if managers misunderstand the use of
recognition employees will mo st probably not accept it. Therefore , managers must have the four
fundamental basis of leadership, namely; goal setting, communication, trust and accountability.
Gost ick and Chester (2009, p.27 -38) note that managers are unable to change tasks of the
organization, however , what can be changed are the employees attitudes toward their work by
defining clear goals. Moreover the authors denote that managers need to link the employee’s work
with a distin ct sense of purpose. It is more effective to explain how the company’s mission applies to
goals of the work team, rather than describing the company’s overall mission in terms of satisfying
customers and having the greatest revenue within the industry. Emp loyees need distinctiveness of
goals, distinctiveness of progress and distinctivene ss of success. Communication within an
organization can happen with or without the influence of leaders, as Gostick and Chester (2009) say:
“Communication is happening ev ery day among employees” . However, the authors make aware that
communication without leaders can lead away from a company’s culture, goals and priorities. Open
communication will also “open the door to success of a leader, of the employees and the company”
(Gostick and Chester, 2009, p. 31 ). Trust is an interpersonal attitude, rather than a leadership skill. A
high degree of trust can lead to higher motivation of employees and creates commitment to the
company. Trust is lived in a reciprocal manner, people res pond to trust the way they are treated. If a
leader does not trust its employees, is not listening to them, or does not respect them, the
employees will regard their leader with suspicion. A trusting leader will create a more transparent
and honest environ men t. Gostick and Chester (2009, pp. 37-38) denote that employees should feel
safe in a company even though they did a mistake. Some companies even celebrate failures because
they want people making mistakes to show them that they account their trial and t heir innovative
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ability. Accountability will hold a company’s culture in equilibrium, which in reverse will increase
employee’s moral a nd attitude towards their work.
Beside weak collaboration among departments and lack of communication of the top managem ent,
at Swisslog there exists a silo -thinking within departments, which prohibits a well – functioning
internal communicati on. The following analysis focus es on this communication issue among
departments .
3.7. Internal Communication A nalysis
Internal c ommunication
The research model refers to the aspect of internal communication as an issue for investigation.
Internal communication includes all types of communication within an organization. Communication
may be oral or written, face -to-face or virtual, one-on-one or in groups. Effective interna l
communication is a vital mean of addressing organizational concerns. Internal communication can be
defined as the communication that exists within a company, between and among employees. It can
take many forms, such as casual conversations, formal meetings, phone calls, emails, memora ndums,
and internal wikis (Business training, 2009). Communication within an organization is key to success.
An organization’s adaptability to external changes relies on efficient communication internally.
Effective internal communications in every company has certain common aspects (Business training,
2009).
Internal communication should be:
Transparent and timely. After confirming and approving all the details, messages should be
presented to employees before any external public
Clear
Concise
Informative
Independent
Relevant
Compelling
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Internal communications practitioners should possess certain values, such as (Business training,
2009):
Openness: This is similar to the ideal transparency public relations practitioners should strive
for
Honesty: Essenti al for any organization
Two-way symmetrical communication: This entails sending and receiving information,
feedback, and engaging in a two -way conversation
Internal Communication : Enables change and allows transfer of meaning
One might believe that intern al communication is the sole responsibility of HR. Nevertheless it is a
shared responsibility of marketing, public relation s, corporate affairs and others involved in the
process. Based on conducted studies, internal communication in Swisslog is initiated, performed and
stays jus t on the level of HR department. The experience of many companies has shown that the
internal communication process can be successful only if it is built as an integrative and interactive
process between all the departments a nd laye rs of the organization. CEO and the management team
are the top of the whole communication within the company. They determine the message, direction
and target. Marketing and HR specialist are in charge of tools, methods and organization of the
overall com munication process (Best communication results, 2006) .
According to Lee Hopkins (Best communication results, 2006), a large number of studies by both
professional management groups and professional communications bodies find consistently that
‘communicating with employees’ is a useful and powerful way of engendering greater
‘engagement’ – the propensity of the employee to want to come to work and want to contribute
to the success of the company. Gauri Deshmukh (Express computer, 2005), h ead of HR at SAS
India, lists the following reasons why internal communication is so important for an organization :
• It provides information and encourages sharing by driving and supporting the organization’s
short -term and long -term goals and objectives.
• It ensures that these initiatives are implemented and followed at a local level.
• knowledge -sharing and communication processes are part o f the daily workflow across all
functions of the busi ness.
It helps driving ownership and shared engagement (Express computer, 2005).
Formal and in formal internal communication at Swisslog takes place on different levels of the
organization: interpersonal, group level, organizational and inter -organizational due to its
international characteristics. The t ype of internal communication at Swisslog can be described as
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vertical, horizontal and diagonal. Vertical communication is communication between those people
who are on different levels of authority within the company. Examples are: manager to employee,
general m anager to managers, foreman to machine operator, head of the department to cashiers,
etc. (Debasish and Das, 2009, p. 11) . On the other hand, horizontal communication is communication
between people on the same level of authority. Diagonal communication is the sharing of
information across different funct ions and levels of organization (Debasish and Das, 2009, p. 12).
Particularly, the diagonal type of communication bring s to the organization knowledge and
experience sharing, speed up the process of communi cation and information sharing across the
borders of departments and div isions and promotes common goal reaching.
Silo thinking
Out of the interviews conducted it was concluded that the internal communication of Swisslog,
namely diagonal communication, i s poorly functioning due to certain obstacles. The main one is silo
thinking. The issue was not reflected in the main model of employer branding, it was discovered after
the in-depth intervi ews analysis. T he findings on this problem are described in the re commendation
part. The term of silo thinking suggests that each department i n an organization chart is a silo and
that it stands alone, not interacting with any of the other departmental silos (Cohen and Cohen,
2008, p p. 12-13). Why is this critical f or Swisslog and the process of e mployer branding? Gary
Comerford (Process café, 2011) suggests that first of all, internal communication is crucial for
building employer brand internally in order to communicate it later outside of the organization. Free
infor mation flow within the organization has a positive impact of the perception of the company by
employees and speed s up all the decision -making and implementation processes. Silo thinki ng
departments and teams become the barrier to overcome knowledge, inform ation and experience
transfer. Secondly, silo thinking is a hurdle on the way of implementation projects such as Learning
Organization due to inability and unwillingness of people working in Swisslog to share and learn .
Comerford (Process café, 2011) empha sizes that lack of motivation, blaming, feeling of under –
communication and decline in collective effectiveness are all the outcomes of silo thinking. Thirdly,
silo thinking has a negative impact on innovation, culture, understanding and cooperation between
people within the organization as well as employee retention in general.
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What can be the reasons for s ilo thinking? (Process café, 2011)
Poor communication between departments or team members
Spending more time on planning than working with people
Training delegated to those with poor training skills
Management confusing talks with influence
No plan f or long -term people development
Merges and acquisitions
As for the situation at Swisslog, silo thinking could appear as an essential outcome of mergers and
acquisitions. The structure of an organization and culture play a role in the development of silo
thinking. Ultimately it becomes reflected in the individual behavior . An individu al willingness to see
the realities of the corporate situation as a whole, beyond their own influence, will reduce the effects
of silo thinking in the organization. Many influential people in the industry have pointed out the
symptoms of silo thinking and the ways in which organizations can eliminate them. Three different
approaches could be identified in order to recognize, dealing and eli minating silo thinking; namely
system thinking approach, matrix management approach and leaders who think across the si los –
approach, those methods will be further described in the recommendations section.
Internal communications events allow all constituents to experience and embrace the brand
internally, and it gives employees the morale and fire to deliver it externally. No matter how brilliant
the company ’s external brand communicat ions are, if the brand promise is not validated through its
internal efforts then it could all be in vain. By creating, implementing and maintaining consistency,
mainly, aligning in ternal and external communication of the organization, the company will build a
stronger brand and, in the process, install greater trust and loyalty (Marketing and branding, 2008) .
Therefore the following chapter elaborates on external communication.
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3.8. External C ommunication Analysis
Van Riel and Frombrun (2010, p. 13) define organizations as :
Organizations are networks of people who are linked internally and externally through a flow of
communication. This flow c an vary dependin g on who is the target audience.
External communication at Swisslog is used to keep and make contact with their current and
potential customers, and also to transmit its brand to the external audience. Swisslog communicates
with its audien ce through its website, printed media, job fairs and uses some social networks.
Nevertheless those tools are not enough in order to convey its brand outside the industry, this issue
is reflected in the employer brand model .
Additionally in order to transm it a good brand to the outside, it is very important that the internal
structure of the company has to be solid so the company can reflect that to the external audience
and create confidence (Fill, 2009, p. 13) . Unfortunatel y the employer branding model shows that the
company is struggling with the internal structure and communication which turns out to be the main
problem at the moment to reflect a good brand and the EVP to the outside.
Importance of external communication
It is important to have a good external communication be cause the company can amplify the
corporate brand, reduce dissimilarities between a company’s current and ideal identity , create s
effective communication to their important audiences (Van Riel & Fombrun, 2010, p. 23) .
Additionally , the company can maintain their positions in the marketplace and use external
communication as a protection in case of a crisis that could harm their reputation (Boone & Kurtz,
2011, p. 304) .
At Swisslog the importance of communic ating externally is to make their brand known outside the
company as well as through a better external communication, which makes Swiss log an employer of
choice and therefore will increase the number of persons, interested in work ing for the company.
Moreover Swisslog ’s external communication purpose is to catch the attention of their external
audience . As Reid (2010) also suggests this purpose should be obtained by offering a wide variety of
methods which match to their audience characteristics (Reid, 2010) ; Swisslog offers a w ebsite,
printed media and uses interactive external communication tools, such as blogs, permitting to their
audience to communicate directly with them, which is also recommended by Reid (2010) . However
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there are more interactive tools which can be used such as social media, but Swisslog is not act ively
using it yet.
Communication is abou t transmitting a message to a t arget audience by using an a ppropriate
channel or tool (Fill, 2009, p. 11) . In external communication the message is the cult ure and values of
the company. Fo r Swisslog this includes their core values competence, collabo ration, commitment
and clarity. T he target audience depends on the company, which can be everybody who is outside
the company such as consumers, suppliers, and in th e recruitment proc ess of those potential future
employees; and the channel s can be th e company’s website telephone, e -mails, press releases , job
fairs, or nowadays using w eb 2.0 (Fill, 2009, pp. 11 -20).
In order to communicate externally the company has a wide range of tools which can be used.
However , this should be chosen by considering on ly tools that reach all the target audienc e, if the
speed for transmitting the message is adequate, if the company has the control of the content of th e
message and if it creates personal quality with the external audience should also be taken into
account (Adler & Elmhorst, 2010, p. 23) .
Tools of external communication
According to Reid (2010) external communication tools are:
A common tool which is nowadays used by almost all companies are websites. The content of the
website is very important, it should maintain the audience up to date, it should be professionally
designed in order to make a good impression of the company and it should provide relevant
information such as contact information or orga nization al structure in order that the interested
person is well informed about the company (Reid, 2010) .
Press releases present in a written form remarkable information regarding the company. The
company uses a third party for the distribution of their press releases such as newspapers or radio
stations (Reid, 2010) .
Emai ls and newsletters belong to m ass communication. It means that a company can release one for
a group of persons such as consumers or share holders and will be delivered on a regular basis (Reid,
2010) .
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Telephone calls are commonly used when a company would like to offer sales information and
opportunities to its external audience (Reid, 2010) .
Pres s conferences and media interview s are kind of face -to-face communication with the company’s
target audiences. On the one hand the co mpany and the attendants can have a direct contact with
the company however on the other hand if the person who is representing the company is not well
prepared, it can put at risk the organization ’s credibility, reputation and image (Reid, 2010) .
Another external communication tool which is used nowadays by every company is web 2.0.
Web 2.0 means all the new media tools that are available online (Hass, Walsh, & Kilian, 2008, p. 25) .
According to Hass et al. (2008, p. 26) Web 2.0 can be used for different purposes of the company and
is divided into 3 main groups:
Communities such as Facebook, hi5, and MySpace
Entertainment such as YouTube and Flic kr
Information such as Blogger and Wikipedia
Figure 7 : Social media prism
Source: (Pankin, 2009)
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Web 2.0 contributes to the corporate communication by taking into account the multimedia nature
and different channels offered, which the company will later use in order to be active and able to
exchange information with its target audience (Beck, 2008, p. 47) . According to Beck (2008, p. 59)
web 2.0 can be used in different areas of a company such as employer branding, candidate
relationship management, personnel marketing, in the recr uitment process, cooperation and
development.
A company that uses web 2.0 tools in employer branding can awake sympathy and awareness in the
labor market, as well as it ca n achieve positioning and sha ping a company’s profile. Therefore the
company can fin d the right candidate (Beck, 2008, p. 59) . In candidate relationship management,
web 2.0 is useful since the company can build and maintain the relationsh ip with their current
employees, which helps to make image makers out of them (Beck, 2008, p. 59) . Furthermore , when a
company is looking for improvements in their personnel marketing, they can implement a web 2.0
tool in order to gain and call the attention of current and potential employ ees as well as it increases
the number of matching applications to concrete areas of the company (Beck, 2008, p. 59) . During
the recruitment process web 2.0 offers to the company the possibility to accompany candidates
through the process and to gain information about candidates . This will increase their efficiency and
effectiveness in the monitoring and in the selection process of the whole recruitment (Beck, 2008, p.
59). Additionally , Beck (2008, p. 59) said that when a company is trying to encourage cooperation
and development, it might apply a tool of web 2.0, which will inspire and retain employees, promote
networking and pool knowledge.
Choice of external communication tool
Adler & Elmhorst (2010, p. 29) suggest that in order to select an external communication tool,
several considerations should be taken into account such as time required for feedback, richness,
sender’s control over the content of the message, control over receiver’s attention and effectiveness
for detailed messages. For example if a company would like to have immediate feedback, high
richness of target mark et, high control over receiver’s attention than it should apply face -to-face
communication such as media interviews, press conferences, or presenting the company at job fairs.
However this tool has some disadvantages like: it implies high costs; it is time -consuming and it is
difficult to arrange (Adler & Elmhorst 2010, p. 29). Therefore if a company would like to reduce those
disadvantages , a firm could use blogs, social media, or any other tool of web 2.0 and it would have
the same effect as face -to-face tool in terms of feedback and richness. With this tool, instead of
having control over receiver’s attention, the company will have control over sender’s message (Adler
& Elmhorst 2010, p. 29).
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A clear example of how useful web 2.0 is in order to have more contact with future employees,
improving the company’s profile, immediate feedback, effectiveness in the monitoring and in the
selection process as Beck (2008) and Adler & Elmhorst (2010, p. 29) suggested is the Facebook pro file
of Ernst&Young.
Figure 8 : Ernst&Young Facebook profile
Source: (Ersnt&Young, 2011)
Referring to the research model the internal image and external communication of Swisslog, both
contributing to the current EVP, were analyzed. In a next step, recommendations are given in order
to improve Swisslog’s EVP for achieving the status of an empl oyer of choice.
Source (Ernst&Young, 2011)
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4. Recommendations
4.1. An Approach to Culture Change
According to Atchison (2002, p. 11) every organization has a culture. At Swisslog the overall culture
does not seem to be aligned with the subcultures, not with the environment and therefore the
favorable impact a culture has on a company is missing. It could be concluded that the culture of
Swisslog is a culture of subcultures , which prohibits well -functioning collaboration and
communication within the company . It is therefore suggested for Swisslog to cre ate a positive overall
culture.
Positive culture
Even though culture is not only responsible for success or failure of an organization, a positive
culture might provide competitive advantage for a firm (Sadri and Lees, 2001, p. 853). A pos itive
culture can be defined by several key factors:
1. Clear visions and missions including committed leadership
2. Culture supports the company’s corporate values
3. Employees at all levels are highly valued and the interaction of departments is enforced
4. Culture is adjustable to the environment but also consistent and therefore provides equal and fair
treatment for everybody
5. Culture is kept in certain way, for example slogan, symbols, stories and similar
Advantages of a positive culture, with which employees can identify themselves, are a favorable
work environment, increased teamwork, information sharing, creation of new ideas, improved
interaction among staff, increased learning and free information flow . According to Greger these
characteristics help “… to attract and retain employees” (Sadri and Lees, 2001, p. 856).
Complementary to a positive culture, Kenneth (2009) suggests a culture emphasizing on intrinsic
rewards in order to recognize employees. A s identified in the rewards analysis, Swisslog does not
purposefully use intrinsic rewards. When using intrinsic rewards, employees get more committed to
the work and therefore the company achieves a higher employee engagement (Gostick and Chester,
2009).
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Improving culture and identify the need to change a culture is critical for the success of a company in
the long -run (Mgbere, 2009, p. 193). The culture must be adjusted to the company’s strategy and
environment in order for employees to support the corp orate values (Schein, 1999). At Swisslog the
existing culture should be changed and therefore a unified positive culture, supported by all
employees including the top management, should be implemented.
Changing process
Culture change is challenging since culture provides meaning and predictability, daily life beliefs and
stability to a group of people (Schein, 1999). In order to accept a change in culture, employees need
motivation and executives need to show that change is needed (Flanagan, 1995) . This i ndicates that
not HR but CEOs initiate corporate culture change. Participation of employees in the process of
change is also important . At IBM they used the intranet to change their current culture with the
involvement of their employees (Yaun, 20006). Ide as of change were collected through the platform
and later on elaborated on specific ideas suggested by employees.
Before taking actions, in order to change culture, an organization needs to be open for change.
According to Cornelius (2003) four condition s create a readiness for change. First of all, employees
need to see the big picture of a company and understand strategic and personal impacts influencing
the business outcomes. Secondly, employees should enjoy authority and power in order to act with
permission and make daily decisions. Thirdly, make employees’ ideas valuable and therefore give
“…a sense of ownership” (Cornelius, 2003, p. 15). If the people know that it will be listened to their
suggestions they are able to provide solutions. Lastly, the leaders must share important information
such as strategic goals and trends in the industry with employees.
Sadri and Lees (2001, p. 858) propose the following steps and actions in the change management
process: 1) understand current culture, 2) define ho w culture should be, and 3) look respectively
change for behavior that aligns with new culture. Also Flanagan (1995) describes the basis for
changing a culture as the identification of an ideal culture and the definition of how the current
culture is diffe rent from the ideal.
According to Sherrriton and Stern (1997, p. 27) to identify the current culture and define a desired
culture, instruments such as observations, interviews and surveys can be used. After collecting
information, the management team resp onsible for implementing change should be taken off -site to
assess the results. With the insights gained it has to be decided which systems, processes and
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policies need to be adjusted. Human Resources Department supports the change by providing
expertise, identifying which procedures to modify, and acting as a role model in their own
department. Afterwards, how the change will be implemented needs to be defined. Miller (1998, pp.
152-153) identified five starting points to a useful strategy for change. Firs t of all, a convincing reason
for change must be provided to make people understand the need for chance. Secondly, select
leaders representing the existing behavior and improve their commitment to change through
training and mentoring. Thirdly, determine c hange -committed teams and provide them with the
resources necessary to prove that the changed behavior works favorably. Fo urth step, change
agents, internal or external, supporting the process facilitate the implementation. Lastly, remove
barriers that wit hdraw employees from achieving their best.
Susan Heathfield (4imprint, 2011) expert in Human Resources also suggests applying observations,
however her approach to identify the current culture is slightly different . She recommends observing
the behavior o f the employees as an outsider and therefore detecting the culture in action. Look at
emotions. Employees get upset or excited only about important things for them. Have a look at the
artifacts, the desk s and walls of the departments.
As mentioned earlier the steps to change a culture are to identify the current culture, define the
desired culture and then change the behavior to fit the target (Sadri and Lees, 2001, p. 858). Warren
(1992) emphasized that the most effective way to improve capability of an o rganization is to teach
new behaviors to employees. The culture cannot just be changed completely but behavior can be
taught. In order to gain a competitive advantage, a company needs employee ’s commitment and be
able to use the employee’s ability to work jointly as source of competitiv e advantage (Warren, 1992 ).
Firms can increase this capacity of the organization by the following steps (Warren, 1992, pp. 72 -76).
A clear corporate strategy must be in place and communicated. After the development of this
strategy, the HR strategy can be created. The vision, strategy and values need to be communicated
effectively by the top management. Afterwards, the need for learning required has to be evaluated.
These learning options must be effortlessly reachable and available. Learning must be integrated in
employee’s job, not just an extra next to the job. Then the results of the learning process have to be
measured and more learning options should be provide d. Finally , the desired behavior needs to be
modeled and rewarded as well as regularly reinforced to achieve the desired organizational
capability. Learning is key to change organizational behavior (Warren, 1992, p. 75). Training can
support the implementa tion of chance through targeted coaching and therefore employees
understand how the new behaviors are defined and what is expected from them (4imprint, 2001).
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There exist obstacles when increasing capability (Warren, 1992) : First of all CEO’s might be
uncommitted or unclear about the vision, mission and strategy. Second, executives are insincere and
uncommitted to change and focus on a short -term view rather than in the long run. Thirdly, the top
management does not change behavior according to the new cul ture. Lastly, executives might be
unwilling to reward correct behavior of employees and are still rewa rding undesired behavior .
Additionally, change takes time to be implemented, some three to ten years .
Once a fitting culture is established, employees n eed to maintain commitment to the culture values.
In order to maintain a functioning c orporate culture, McCune (1999) suggests showing the
importance of culture, by connecting cultural values to employee’s compensation. For example
Siemens measures how wel l its employees work in accordance to the seven core beliefs of the
organization at appraisal. They measure individual behavior at annual performance evaluation
(McCune, 1999, p. 55). Therefore culture should be part of the appraisal and real emphasis shou ld be
put on it. In addition, to maintain ing an overall positive culture, it has to be implemented in the
recruitment process (4imprint, 20 11). When recruiting new employees, special attention should be
paid to the culture fit as the example of Zappos show s. The Human Resources Department
developed interview sets only for the testing whether a prospective employee fits the core values or
not.
Overall best practices provide a helpful starting point when searching for ideas and motivation
(Keeley, 2004), however, best practices alone are not sufficient since culture serves as differentiation
of one company to another. Out of the analysis and recommendations given, Swisslog can discover
the development opportunities in their culture change wh at is appropri ate and together with
improvements in external and internal communication retain and attract employees. Following
approaches on how to resolve the issue of silo th inking within Swisslog is given .
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4.2. Breaking S ilos in Internal C ommunication
System thinking approach
In order to break organizational silos, there are number of studies introduced to small, medium and
large -enterprises. There are three approaches that will be recommended to Swisslog t hat could help
in riding out silos. System thinking approach defined by Virginia Anderson & Lauren Johnson (2009)
as “a school of thought that focus on recognizing the interconnections between the parts of a system
and synthesizing them into unified view of the whole.” This approach looks at the organization as a
difficult system of dynamic, complex and interconnected nature of relationships. The concept
emphasized in this approach is getting the right people on the bus . What does it mean? The hiring
people process carries the danger of picking individuals who might possess a strong silo mind -set.
Therefore, there are three aspects that should be considered in order to prevent and brea k silo
thinking.
First of all, the recruitment process is the number one field to tackle. Job announcement s and job
description s shou ld be designed in the way, that it is clear for candidates , that it is required to
express and support interest in cross functional responsibilities and relationships. Furthermore
pointing out any programs or services for which the position shares responsibility and accountability.
During the interview, in order to identify silo thinking mind -set, the following questions can be asked:
Talk about a time when you were part of a cross -functio nal team with shared responsibility
and accountability for a major project. How did you contribute to the project's success?
What did you learn about collaborating with colleagues when you don't have authority over
them? (Associations now, 2009)
What speci fic actions would you take to cultivate relationships with individuals outside your
department so that you can support their efforts and contribute to their success even if you
are not directly assigned to projects with them? (Associations now, 2009)
How w ould you approach leveraging the ideas and experience of colleagues outside your
department for the work you are doing? (Associations now, 2009)
You're part of a cross -functional team that is struggling on a very visible association project
whose financial success is critical. What would you do as a team member to help get the
team on t rack and working together more effectively? (Associations now, 2009)
A next step for change, according to Anderson and Johnson (1997) is organizatio nal structure .
Involving e mployees in the decision -making process, creating condition s for effective idea voicing will
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help to disrupt organizational silos. An eas y way to break down the silos are cross -functional
meetings and conversations. Strategy and accountability for results stands for clear and systematic
communication of organizational st rategy and plans. Without clear strategic guides, company should
focus on getting its own department's work done, building silos by creating their own strategy and
objectives, argue Anderson and Johnson (1997). Finally, talking about practices that can be employed
to fight with silo thinking, there are cross -functional teams, diversified project teams, rotating job
responsibilities, shifting office layouts, organizing staff meeting reports by project inst ead of
department.
As for the cross -functional teams, this is probably one of the most effective tools to cope with silo
thinking within the organization. According to Zimdars (2003, p. 6), a cross -functional team is defined
as “a group of pe ople with a clear purpose representing a variety of functions or disciplines in the
organization whose combined efforts are necessary for achieving the team’s purpose”. The
advantages of cross -functional teams, named by Zimdars (2003, p p. 7-8) are:
Speed: Cross -functional teams reduce the time it takes to get things done, especially in the
product development process.
Customer focus: Cross -functional team focuses on the organizations resources on satisfying
the customer’s needs.
Creativity: By bringing tog ether people with a variety of experiences and backgrounds, cross –
functional teams increase the creative capacity of an organization.
Organizational learning: Members of cross -functional teams are more easily able to develop
new technical and professional skills, learn more about other disciplines, and learn how to
work with people who have different team -player styles and cultural backgrounds than those
who do not participate in cross -functional teams.
Single point of contact: the cross -functional team promotes a more effective cross -team effort by
identifying one place for receiving, exchange of information and decision making processes.
Matrix management approach
The next approach recommend ed to cope w ith silos is matrix management . For increasing cross
functional and cross geographical cooperation, there is a need to set virtual teams. For that reason,
people in each silo are asked to collaborate. Next step is report ing to the virtual team leader s. No
more than two reporting lines should be installed. For example, reporting to the local country
functional manager and to the functional manager internationally. In this way, employees have to
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take into account the needs of both in prioritizing their work. Both reporting lines have an input into
objective settin g and evaluation of performance (Global integration, 2011) . Woburn Consulting
Group suggests focusing on five key elements shaping a matrix organization (Atkinson, 2011):
Core values should be realistic, easy aligned with business and reflected in employee
behavior .
Leadership for change. Real Leaders are independent, maverick -like and often difficult to
manage. They have strong views on most things and are good at influencing, persuading
others to their point of view. Good leadership in building Matric organization is challenging
the existing form of organization, deconstructing it and building a new form in its place.
(Atkinson , 2011) argues:
Forming a new organization based on working across boundaries requires dismantling the old
silo's, getting rid of restrictive behaviors and practices , and creating one culture replacing the
many divergent and unhelpful sub cultures that have evolved due to the silo mentality.
Rewa rd and performance management. Effective performance needs ap propriate rewards.
In case with m atrix organization, old practice of reward based on moving through seniority in
a function is not effective. Performance management moves toward s valuing the
cont ribution that people make across boundaries and away from their functional specialty .
Matrix organization requires a more sophisticated form of 360 degree assessments w ith
input not just from managers, senior s or colleagues, but also from peers, direct rep orts and
other stakeholders including suppliers and the end user, customer or consumer (Atkinson,
2011) .
Resistance to change. Even the businesses with the most positive and apparently open
cultures have sub cultures, power politics in various functions wi th decision -making and
resource allocation that do not follow the desired or logical route expected. Implementing
the change within the organization and breaking the silos will take time; meanwhile the ideas
and benefits of matrix management should be comm unicat ed through the organization
(Atkinson, 2011) .
The change team. To create and shape a m atrix organization requires a team of internal and
external change agents for developing solutions to pra ctical problems. The target of t he
change team is to ensure that the m atrix organization delivers to its strategic and operational
plans. The c hange team has to align strongly with the key sponsors of the cha nge and have
access to senior per sons as CEO and other executives (Atkinson, 2011) .
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Leaders who think across the silos approach
Finally, t he third approach dealing with silo thinking was introduced by Cisco Systems CEO John
Chambers. The idea behind this approach is training leaders who think across the sil os (John Miller,
June 2010) . This approach was us ed and is been currently in use for people with highly technological
background. In order to train the leaders to think across silos, they are rotated through various
departments and acquire company -specific knowledge (McKinsey quarterly, 2001) . Under this
approach, a generalist group of leaders is trained, who know how to learn and operate in
collaboration teamwork. After a certain period of time, collaborated teams are settled a nd led by
those leaders. For example; a sales leader will lead the engineering department, a lawyer goes
running the business development department , and a business development leader will be the head
of consumer operations (McKinsey, 2001) . John Chambers stresses that leaders are more effective
when they have access to good information more quickly, when two -way communication happens
and when leaders are visible in their sup port for the organization. The go see for yourself principle of
lean leadership is challenging but essential for multi -national organizat ions (McKinse y, 2001) .
There are at least two drivers of silo mentality. First of all, the culture of the organization might
reinforce divisional or functional competitiveness rather tha n teamwork. Second, h eads of divisions
or functions might be competitive and aggressive, liking to win rather than share ( Cohen and Cohen,
2008, pp. 14-15). Silo mentality or culture are mostly driven from the top down and come in layers
where communicatio n is spread horizontally from the bottom up as it is a case in Swisslog. In such
organizations relationship are ba sed on reward s and punishment or critics . Unfortunately very few
people consider the impact that their silo culture has on their internal busi ness relationship.
Research in large corpora tions has shown it can take five to ten years to change corporate culture
(Cohen and Cohen, 2008, p p. 10-12). People are creatures of habit and it is hard to break their
condit ion unless they are motivated by sel f-interest.
These were the recommendations for improving the internal image, which contribute to a high
degree to the EVP of Swisslog. The next chapter provides suggestions on how to empower Swisslog’s
external image and communication.
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Message:
product &
services Audience:
Industries
Suppliers
Consumers Website
Blog
Press Releases 4.3. Boost External Communication
How to improve?
As mentioned in the analysis , external communication consists of a message, audience and tools like
every communication but external communication in employer branding is not only talking about the
products and services of the company, it should also communicate the culture and values of the
company (Fill, 2009, pp. 5 -11).
According to the results of the quantitative and qualitative research, it has been identified that
Swisslog has an int ernal problem with the corporate culture and organization therefore this has not
been transmitted to the outside. As well that the main audience with which Swisslog communicates
is within the industry and just using a few external tools. Therefore , in orde r to have a better view of
the current situation at Swisslog, the following graphic has been developed:
Figure 9: Swisslog's current external communication
Source: Author based on Fill (2009, p. 20)
In order to improve the message of the company, Swisslog should concentrate first internally
because it has to transmit the values and culture of the comp any. The audience should be selected
according to the message that would like to be transmitted. It has been identified with the research
conducted at the company, that Swisslog has problems with finding potential and committed
employees. Therefore , it is recommend ed amplifying its pool of tools introducing interactive external
communication tools such as business so cial media and career sites in on -line recruitment.
As in the graph from the Swiss Federal Statistics (2011) can be seen, since 1997 the int ernet usage in
Switzerland has been increasing. In the last year al most 85 percent of the population fourteen years
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old and up has used internet one time in the past six months, and almost 80 percent of the
population fourteen years old and up has used int ernet more than one time in a week. Therefore , we
can conclude that internet can be used as a successful channel in order to transmit a message to the
external audience.
Figure 10: Internet usage development in Switzerland from 1997 -2011
Source: (Swiss Federal Statistics, 2011)
This tool is appropriate because it catches those persons which can be a target audience of Swisslog ,
the potential employees, which means there are persons between 20 and 39 years old. The statitics
shows that people of the age between 20 and 29 uses almost 100 percent the internet and of the age
between 30 and 39 uses the internet about 90 percent ,which confirms that the internet will be a
good media for Swisslog (Swiss Fe deral Statistics, 2011) .
Figure 1 1: Internet usa ge development according to the age in Switzerland from 1997 -2011
Source: (Swiss Federal Statistics, 2011)
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According to the Swiss Federal Statistics (2011) and Beck (2008, p. 28) the purpose of employer
branding and external communication can be mixed. Through this the company will create a
distinctive image in order to attract internal and external audience s such as current and f uture
potential employees. The message will highlight its competitive advantage as an attractive employer
and consequently t he company has to choose an effective tool in order to increase the awareness of
the employer brand and transmitting the identity of the company’s brand by sending a consistent
message to its relevant target groups. The new communication tools such as social media and
websites are used in order to satisfy the needs from the today’s fragmented labor market.
Swisslog’s website improvem ent
The analysis of Swisslog’s website was conducted by the expert in m ulti- and s ocial media Mario
Kotschner (2011). The analysis is based on ABB and Siemens web sites.
The following points were highlighted by the expert as potential improvements as well as
recommendations are included:
Overall website: T he website looks presentable. It has a good concept and attractive colors
choice. It is informative but the structure of information should be revised.
Overview: It does not have a good search navigation style . Therefore, the person who knows
what he/she is searching for will probably find it, but the one who visit s the web page for the
first time, might have some problems.
Content : There are no references presented. References could be im portan t to Swisslog’s
customers and/or partners . References play an important role in recruitment process and
customers finding , as well as it might increase the company’s brand awareness .
Information: The website contains a huge amount of information, t his migh t be because the
company is operating in a B2B environment and the current and potential companies know
what they want. Thus the problem arises with finding the right information as it is not
organized in a customer -friendly way. The main content is not di stinguished from the extra
information , for example the block given on the right side of the website . Additionally , there
is a lack of difference between the categories at the web page. Th is lead s to a
misunderstanding of the right direction while browsing. The information flow can be
improved by highlighting the important information so it does not look as a monotonous
flow of information.
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Multimedia: I n spite of numerous videos presented on the web page, creativity and
intera ctivity is missing. In that sense , it would be good to make the web page more
interactive by introducing floating information, such as videos, blogs, news , etc.
Recruitment site : The information presented in the si te job and careers is not appropriate
since the company’s c ore v alues should be given in the category about company . As well as
the content of the information should be simplified and avoid to create too many categories.
Additionally in the category of contact the company makes emphasis to be a global player,
however a map could be provided in order to find the closest location of Swisslog office. This
is a small thing that makes the picture of recruitment different.
How can an organization use Web 2.0 for recruitment?
A company should have more participation; interact with its audience through Web 2.0 , which
provides new technologies and applications in order to develop from passive to active consumers of
any personnel marketing and employer recruitment (Beck, 2008, p. 47) . Swisslog could personalize
its profile to the needs of t he target groups, as well as an offer of important and interest ing
information to the external audience. In the actual webpage of Swisslog there is a section where
career and jo bs are offered. However , this can be combined with a recruitment page of an online
network.
Through social media the company can build trust and image, create and maintain contact with the
target group, exchange experiences and information , for example as being part of an al umni
network. By being part of b logs, as Swisslog has a blog at its webpage; will increase the participation
and interactivity with the target groups and the sympathy for the company as an employer of choice
(Beck, 2008, p. 47) .
The universalization of the internet has changed the way people look for employment and the way
organizations recruit employees. However , in order to implement an interactive tool in the
recruitment process, nowadays called E-cruitment, the company should analyze what are the
opportunities, and advantages that this can bring.
E-cruitment
E-cruitment is the new term used to define the process of recruitment done online . This new way of
recruit ing people offers an exceptional opportunity not only to examine the company’s influential
attempts to recruit potential applicants online, but also to find current corporate representations of
the meaning of work (Young & Foot, 2 006, p. 44) .
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E-cruitment provides advantages for both sides. On one side for the job seeker, the job search
process can now be don e online, such as preparing a curriculum vitae , searching for offers, and
submitting an application. On the other side, t he company can communicate directly to the
interested person, as well as it reduces advertising costs (Young & Foot, 2006, p. 44) .
According to Young & Foot (2006, p. 45) the popu larity of E -cruiting has grown due to several
reasons, the 3 principals are:
1. It reduces costs. In general o nline recruiting costs are considerable lower than other
recruiting methods, such as the use of advertisement in newspapers, headhunters, etc .
2. Career sites provide companies the freedom to present information and recruiting strategies
in their own way, unlikely run by third party service providers. According to Young and Foot
(2006, p. 45) in a career site co mpanies present convincing descriptions of the company,
employee benefits, workplace culture, along with other information which may increase the
likelihood that individuals will adopt a positive image of the organization and perhaps submit
an application.
3. It saves time and decreases the hiring cycle. Online applications enable recruiters and hiring
managers to collect information about applicants more quickly than traditional methods.
When a company is using career sites it will represent an important part of the organizational
communication. Therefore , Young and Foot (2006, p. 54) recommend creating strategic and
influential sites with meaningful i nformation, so it will catch not only a company’s convincing
attempts to recruit new employees, but also a public declaration of its idealized self -image.
It is recommend ed to Swisslog to use social media and career sites for their expansion and
diversific ation of the recruitment process. As Nordmann (2011) points out the importance of social
networks nowadays in Switzerland by introducing the following table in the article Facebook is
equally important as the NZZ (Swiss newspaper).
Table 2: Importance of social media in Switzerland
Range Platform CH usage Percentage
(From 7.5 million CH population)
1. Facebook 2 432 660 32.4%
2. LinkedIn 180 000 2.4%
3. Xing 100 000 1.3%
4. Twitter 52 500 0.7%
Source: (Nordman, 2011)
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In order to create an effective career site Young and Foot (2006, p. 54) recommend the following
four key movements:
1. Introducing the company (personality, values, motive, credentials)
2. Building a case for the comp any as employer of choice
3. Sampling the workplace
4. Enabling the job search and application process
Movement 1: Introducing the company as workplace
The company should be introduced as an employer of choice and not only promoting as a producer
(Young & Foot, 2006, p. 55) . Therefore the company could highlight these through a n image, an
interactive game show and inviting users to play , or a recruiting tagline. The catchiest way to
introduce a company is using a r ecruiting tagline or slogan. This will represent the company’s stance
on work and workplace, captured in just a few words. For example: Microsoft: Your potential, our
passion (Microsoft, 2011) ; Small -company environment, Big -com pany impact (Johnson&Johnson,
2011) . Slogans transmit two key persuasive strategies: 1) they quickly frame work in a context of an
outstanding vision, and 2) it promotes the workplace offered in the company through a positive
frame (Young & Foot, 2006, pp. 55 -56).
Movement 2: Building a case for the company
Career sites give convincing reasons why the company is an employer of choice. It focus es more on
strengthening the image of the company so the company’s intend to offer more than just a job, but a
workplace (Young & Foot, 2006, pp. 56 -57).
Image is flanked with the slogan: this should be related to the employee ’s benefits, commitment of
workplace, corporate citizenship, educational and professional growth .
For example at Swisslog:
Figure 1 2: Swisslog's slogan
Source: (Swisslog, Jobs and career, 2011a)
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Zhang Yingjiao, Sabrina Fedeli, Rhea Senn 13.01.2012
Swisslog uses Our employees de liver solutions. Our solutions deliver results (Swisslog, Jobs and
career, 2011a) however this does not reflect the potential that the company has as an employer of
choice. For example, Johnson & Johnson slogan ‘‘small company feel, big company impact’’ is a way
of transmitting the company’s unique offer of a decentralized organizational structure within a large
multi -national company (Young & Foot, 2006, p. 58) .
Movement 3: Sampling the workpl ace
This movement can be achieved by reserving a section in the site for textual and visual
representations of the workplace culture and climate, company values, and generalizations about
employees. It provides narrative proof in the form of employee testi monials or including videos
(Young & Foot, 2006, p. 58) . For example Johnson&Johnson has included a photo gallery of their
offices in the career site of the company (Johnson&Johnson, 2011) .
Figure 1 3: Johnson&Johnson career site
Source: (Johnson&Johnson, 2011)
Movement 4: Enabling the Job Search and Application Process
The sites should provide information and tools that allow and simplify job searches and the
application processes. The main purpose of a career site, as a recruiting tool, is to present a broad
collection of applications from which the company can select key job candidates. The sites are
generally similar with information regarding campus recruit ing events, internships, and typical
majors recruited ad ded to college recruit sections (Young & Foot, 2006, p. 59) .
In spite of the advantages that the new media offers , it should not be forgot ten that the common
communi cation tools such as job fairs are also important for trading the brand of the company
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because the recruiter can directly transmit its own perception of the brand , which will affect to the
audience’s opinion about the brand quality.
4.4. Summary
The recommendations in culture, internal and external communication give Swisslog the chance to
increase their EVP and therefore effectively use the approach of employer branding. The creation of
an overall positive culture and the removing of the silo thinkin g will improve the internal image of
the company. Both culture and internal communication improvements will contribute to a favorable
internal image as illustrated in the model above. This advantageous image is forwarded to the
external environment through the use of valuable external communication channels, as suggested
web 2.0. Hence, the improvements in the internal image and the effective use of external
communication will help Swisslog achieving a better reputation and therefore become an employer
of choice. Through the improved EVP, which will be perceived by the outside, the company will be
able to attract prospective employees and retain the current workforce.
Application of the research model
Figure 6 : Modified Employer Branding Model
Source: Authors
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The research model is the foundation of the entire project. At the beginning it was used to
demonstrate the outcome of the survey analysis in combination with the literature review. Moreover
it provided a basis for the interview questionnaires.
Based on the results of the interviews it was focused on the sub -elements in internal image;
engagement and culture especially recognition and communication. Additionally the external
communication view of employees was investigated on. On the other hand wo rking conditions was
excluded from the analysis part because the need for improvement was not confirmed through the
interviewees. Besides that Swisslog requested for a n in depth analysis of culture, inter nal and
external communication, t herefore the analys is and recommendation parts elaborate on these
aspects.
During the ongoing process it was discovered that the internal image and the external
communication are the building blocks of reputation however, this element was only indirectly
considered. For fu rther research there would be potential to emphasize more on reputation in order
to build an overall outstanding Swisslog brand.
All in all it can be concluded that employer branding is a broad topic and nowadays highly important.
The research could be ex tended to other factors influencing a company.
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6. Appendices
6.1. Interviews at Swisslog
Interview 1
Part A: General Information
Name : Interviewee 1
Field of work : Quality manageme nt warehousing and distribution solutions. Setting best practice
How long have you been working in this field ? He joined Swisslog in January 2000. Hansruedi is
working for Swisslog for almost 12 years.
Part B: Employer brand
1. How would you define your employer brand in two or three words ? I miss a little bit the external
view of the company but I assume the Swisslog name is seen as swiss quality, accuracy,
expensive, precise, technical and specialized. Swisslog is advertised itself as leader in healthca re
and warehouse solutions that builds the picture from one side is fancy but currier growing
limitations and limited possibilities of growth. There are a very few serious competitors around.
Instead of career opportunities and growth company offers the op portunities of traveling,
working internationally, and gaining international and intercultural environment. But it turned
out that there are limited possibilities to travel and be involved into international work. It is
available only to the certain employ ees, without families and settlement. Reallocation packages
cannot guaranty that after you come back your place of work is still be free and not occupied by
others. That leads to uncertainty from the workers perceptive and lack of wish to be involved
into international project s or international assignments.
2. How does the market perceive you as an employer?
3. How do you sell yourself at employer market?
4. What differentiates Swisslog from its competitors?
There are different leadership styles, values and visions around. The competitors are very
innovative and forward looking. Other companies are held by entrepreneurs and our company
has a flat organizational structure. There are managers who are on the payroll depend on
shareholders and not centred. In the end pe rsonal objectives of the managers are have higher
priorities. Everyone is working for optimise and benefit itself. Everyone is having his own
objectives and individual goals. But that makes it different. You can build up your own ideas and
you are not depe ndable on one single person. While other companies in our industry are run by
a single person with a single vision and goal that is spread all over the company and all the
players in that company. I had a working experience in both types of organization bu t what you
like more depends on you. The speed in decision making is faster in entrepreneur held
organizations. But if you prefer rather big company, longer decision taking time but with
developing opportunities then you go for flat organizations.
5. What co uld be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
First of all we must be clear about what exactly we are looking for. This is our homework. Besides
the job offer there must be a honest, transparent career path offer to ma ke it clear what are the
possibilities in our company and what are the limitations not to break the expectations of the
employees that leads to disappointment. We need to find a way how to develop our employees
even though it is not that popular. As a line manager I have 3 -4 people working under me and I
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am not interested in giving to them training and development, grow the talent and once they are
educated and supporting me see them leaving the company because of inability of promotion
and going to our com petitions. Then new comers require the same time, money and efforts
though in the end the result will be the same. I don’t want to start from the scratch again. I need
to build new talents as a line manager and I need to offer them something in exchange. I would
like managers talking openly and honestly from the beginning during the first interview with
candidates and explain all the positive and negative side of working for the company. The times
are gone when people are staying in the company from the app renticeship till retirement with
the same salary. The career part must be supported by the company; the talent pool must b e
developed and used, retained.
Part C: Culture
6. How would you describe the learning organization project?
It is a very important initiative and it carries a very strong message. It is easy for managers to
understand and accept but there are difficulties with communicating to employees. Another
problem is to take an action, to really implement those practices i n life. People are change
avoidant. There are lack of time and wish to do something different and not to follow already
familiar path. Work is about accuracy, being in time with results in order to satisfy the customers
therefor everyone is under certain s tress to deliver a proper quality. And it is demanding every
day. Additionally to that it is required to support a learning organization. Employees ask such
questions when shall I do that? Do I really have time for that? With whom shall I share that? I
established the learning organization within the quality management circle. I was able to bring all
the coworker together once or twice a month to discuss what have been done, what are our
latest challenges and objective, what was fulfilled and what was not. That helps each other to
manage the issues. There is a team of 12 people that makes it easy to handle and make really
successful results. But it still needs the support from management, free time and the leaders.
Because I cannot drive this project for who le the company. I can do that only for the quality
management. It is driven by HR but it ends in HR community. HR has a little contact to the people
in a daily work. From that point of view it is a bit disappointing because this project doesn’t go
further than HR department.
7. What tools do you use to communicate this project to employees?
We introduced early mornings meeting. It is a great idea to lead a two way communication
between managers and employees. That improved communication, collaboration and pre venting
the crisis before it occurs. Unfortunately, we have not measured before either preventive cost or
corrective costs. So we cannot compare those before and after.
8. If you could describe your corporate culture in three words, what would you say?
It´s different and depends on the department and area. Swisslog was not founded as Swisslog. It
is a result over the years of merges and acquisitions. You still see and feel this different origin
companies inside with their own values and attitude that often is different from each other. The
difference is in management style, objective setting, customer service and communication
between people inside the company in different arrears is different. Easy -going, open culture is
in Swisslog. We are calling each other first names up to the boss. Family feeling is all over the
company. It depends on how much time people are spending together.
9. How people within your organization communicate this culture?
10. If you were going to give public tours of this company, what stops would the guide make?
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I would stop at the tech lab (technology canter). It's something we can be proud of. That would
make its clear what we are really doing and what is our work about. We are the engineering
company and we would show our production and t hose outcomes. We could show awards and
videos with our customers but tech lab is something that draws the picture about us.
11. What's the best part about working in this environment that I won't be able to see from just a
walk around the office?
Do you feel the passion these guys show? Logistics is something I am addicted to. I wouldn’t do
anything else. These people are growing with the work and projects they do every day. Passion
to our work makes us walk an extra mile, precises and quality wise. That woul dn’t be recognized
from the first site. Employees' passion and know -how is something that is driving our business.
That we need to take care of and appreciate.
12. What stands behind your core values? How do they mean for you? How do your employees see
them? Are those values reflected in employees’ behavior? If no, what is missing or required for
that?
Usually we don’t keep those values in mind when we are doing this work. But of course I could
come back and always say that that was collaboration that was clar ity and so on. I like those core
values, their simplicity and I believe they form our company. But the interpretations of those
values are different around the employees. If we come back to objectives of learning
organization we will see that this project tries to bring everyone to collaboration and
communication in order to share the same definition and understanding of those values. One of
the goals of learning organization is to prevent or stop sailor thinking. That means if you are
working in one depart ment it doesn’t mean you should care only about this department and the
rest doesn’t make any relation to you. That is where collaboration is missing. Experience and
information in that point must be shared. I work accordingly to the core values and try to set my
objectives and objectives with my employees accordingly. I try to live it and match it to everyday
processes.
13. Does your organization have inherent value that could negatively or positively affect your core
values?
Having different values but not common is rather disturbing than help to the success of the
business.
Because it’s like having the company in the company. I don’t think we can completely prevent it
but still it can be quite destructive. This is the dark side of the medal when it comes t o the big
organization with many different people are working there.
14. Corporate culture is very important, but it’s usually hard to define until one violates it. What is
one thing an employee might do here that would be perceived as a violation of the comp any’s
culture?
There is an undermining of loyalty towards the company and objectives.
15. What types of people seem to excel in Swisslog?
Open – minded, passionate to what they do, with high expectations to others and themselves.
That attracts our customers. They like the people they deal with, approach, reliability and bright
ideas. And that is why they are ready to pay more for that.
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Part D: Employer Value Proposition
16. What do you think about your organization as a place to work ?
I have always liked to work here because I am proud of what I am doing, I developed myself, I am
satisfied with the salary I get and I was able to grow in this organization. I came here not as a
manager. It was not planned but now I am. And I still like to work here.
17. How do you retain and optimize your workforce once you have acquired it?
During employing the employees it’s very important they match the culture of our organization.
And this is something you can immediately see and feel. You cannot get th at information out of
the CV. This information can be acquired only through the personal contact. Usually I know it
after the first 5 minutes whether this is a good match, we can benefit from this person and its
work or not.
18. How do you balance financial and non -financial rewards to keep your employees motivated?
There are different levels of satisfaction with financial rewards in the company. For me
personally I have a very good balance of financial and fringe benefits. That is something you need
to be sa tisfied with and if not that must be speak out. A lot depends on the managers relations to
subordinates. If people are treated with lack of respect and only as a workforce with no fear to
lose those, then there might be problems. The non -financial rewards in this case are missing. It is
in my interests to please my employees and rewards them at the way I estimate their work and
efforts. That can be a promotion to the leadership programs or get the possibilities to be my
deputy when I am on vacations. Anothe r option is free mobile phone, company credit card, and
flexible working time.
19. Work -life balance is an issue of retention as well as productivity. Can you talk about your own
view of how to navigate the tensions between getting the work done and encouragi ng healthy
lives outside the office?
Passion and commitment to the work leaves less space for personal lives. People are working on
weekends, at night not because they are forced by the company but because they want to. They
want to go extra mile, they se t the high standards for themselves and they want to reach their
goals. They do everything it takes. It is a strong bad tendency to good work -life balance. Few
people who have it have good balance of those things. But as long as they feel comfortable about
that and they like what they do it is not seen as something harmful. There is a huge possibility of
flexible work time. It is fully trusted and the most important the work needs to be done no
matter whether you are at work or at home. You just need to fil l out the time sheet every month
for rewards and for booking the hours for the projects coordination. Another reason for time
sheet is for dealing with holidays. Working part time is possible but not that common.
20. What other organizations can learn about y our company?
21. What would you improve in Swisslog?
I would do a clear, transparent career path starting at the junior level. It takes 3 years of working
in Swisslog before getting to another level. In case of doing couple of projects or international
project s it leads the employees to expert level. All that should be applicable to all the
departments and fields. After the 7 and more years of experience there should be other learning
opportunities available as supervision, managing. Another possibility we shou ld look at is to
create interdisciplinary project teams in order to extend knowledge, know how, intercultural
experience for enhancing possibilities and skills, working on the international projects. But there
is always a certain number of people, family f ree who are able to travel and do such kind of
projects as the majority is tighten to the families and the place they live. Those people are not
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that flexible for that type of work. Though all the possibilities mentioned above do not bring the
possibility of career growth. It can lead just to the gaining of new experience. Clear stru cture of
career path is needed.
Part E: Employee engagement
22. What is your management style?
I like to talk, integrate, set clear objectives and encourage employees to build they own way to
reach their objectives. I give a lot of freedom to my employees.
23. What carrier planning and development opportunities you suggest to your employees?
Leadership development programs, international projects working.
24. What are the most difficult aspects about the communication and collaboration with employees?
It is very difficult to reach everyone and gather together due to busy working time. Another
problem is to communicate the strategy in clear and understandable to everyone way. We are all
different with different background and education. The messages sent by CEO should reach
everyone and carry the same meaning to avoid misunderstanding.
We are very good on communicating on the top level but we are very bad on the communicating
those message s to the front line employees.
Communication aspects are tried to be improved through the learning organization and early
morning meetings.
A lot of information is missing on the management level and does not reach the low level
employees.
25. How do you desc ribe the interaction between employees and management?
26. How can employees voice their ideas?
Yes during the early morning meeting and in the communication with the supervisors. Employees
share what happened, what was the cause of the problems and how it cou ld be prevented. All
this is considered by managers and is brought to corrective actions.
27. What should be changed to prevent it in future?
28. How is your experience wi th immediate feedback practice?
In most cases my employees are thankful to me for the clear, direct and immediate feedback as
they can improve and coordinate their actions more efficiently. I always do immediate feedback
to my employees, pleasant or not.
29. What appraisal techniques do you use?
Performance management process is in place. This is appr oved by all employees. This is a form of
three pages to fill in. On the first page we set measurable objectives together with employee for
the current year starting in April. We revise those objectives in summer to check whether we are
on track or there is anything that must be changed. Then we adopt them and go on with work.
This is linked with salary and bonus payment. In the end of the year we do the appraisal with the
employee through self – appraisal, by manager. The results are discussed at the meeting with HR
manager, two peers, manager and supervisor (360°). This kind of appraisal is done once a year.
The employees are rated and aligned into A, B, C categories. That helps to build a common
picture of the appraisal. Afterwards it is discussed with the employees. After the setting the
objectives, the appraisal is based on those objectives and their achievement. I tend to say
immediately if something was done good or bad and must be improved.
30. What do you look for when you hire people?
31. What is your recrui tment strategy?
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Online platforms, networks, ads in newspapers are used. Paper ads are the most useful way to
communicate at the moment. We advertise with including of success stories. F.e. once we had a
project and it ends with fruitful positive results, w e announce it to the public proudly presented.
Also we try to make a story out of this and ask the customer to present from his name but about
us (Advertisement through customers). Also we try to reach graduates in the educational
institutions like Olten, Brugg, Zurich and present our company as a potential place to work.
Certain employees and managers in our organization used to tech in schools and universities
such subjects as logistics. This is win -win situation for both sides. I can share and extend my
abilities and at the same time attract new talents and advertise the company. But this is
something that is not pushed or forced in our company. This is done on our own initiative. And I
would encourage our organization to put this practice among our objec tives. F.e some people
from our organization could get a certain amount of hours per year for teaching in educational
institutions. We could promote it in Swisslog in different ways like giving the free time for
preparations, some extra training and so on.
32. Does Swisslog keep its promises?
I can say for all. And I don’t think there is a general statement for that. Some had their bad
experience and others always see them fulfilled. But we as professional try always to keep the
promises we make. I personally as a line manager do not give the promise I cannot keep. I treat
my peers respectively and I hope they do the same but I have never heard anything from my
colleagues about someone’s promises were not fulfilled. We are Swiss and Swiss people are very
diplom atic. We cannot name the truth directly and we are always walking around. Germans are
different. They like clear and straight statements. Here are the cultural differences. Germans are
tending to be more promising. That matters a lot when you are talking t o the boss for the
employees and vices versa. Sometimes it is unclear was the mentioned information an idea,
vision or promise. As a company culture are not that clear on making a point that is
understandable for everyone. But we have got a new division ma nager that is very clear on
transmitting vision and mission to the front employees. That might be something that has
changed this situation a little bit. Spread of information within the company and communication
has significantly improved over the past ye ars. But there is still old company behavior sensible.
And it depends on the person who gives the promise. Some people are able to set clear and
measurable objectives and others no.
33. Would you like to add something important that we haven’t mentioned in our discussion?
Social media is something very foreign for us. We understand that it is a part of our life and it is
more and more incorporated in the businesses but it is still not takes seriously as the people
working in our organization are not in close to uch with that the way it is in the lives of young
generation. I don’t need Facebook. From the company’s point of view, do we really can step out
of this? I don’t know whether we can adopt it in a way it can be suitable for us. Younger
generation will becom e a part of us sooner or later and social media is a part of their lives. We
are in a bit stage field with logistics. If you walk around you can see older people then young
ones. And the retention of employees is really initial for us. We need to build new talents and
keep them in the company.
It is important for potential employees to make it easy to get the information about the inner
side of potential employers straight away from Facebook page.
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Interview 2
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 2
Department:
Function: System engineer on mechanic (team of 8 people)
1. How long are you working at Swisslog? 3 years
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
I have become half -part project manager in Germany. Calculating, cet drawing, contacting
customers and suppliers. I am a part of sales process and I am also a part of the process when we
give out orders and contractors. And I make sure all the documents are in right and then on the
realization side I make sure that everyth ing that has been planned and scheduled will actually
take place and its correct.
Part B: Culture and Vision
3. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
It is a very pressured culture. We are very short of human resources and many of us are very
overworked. And as everyone is in one boat you actually cannot see the way out. There are no
any work -balance projects running and the only thing we initiated is the morning M onday coffee
drinking where we can share something but basically, with those workload we have got it is just
wasting of time. I wish we could have more people to take the work over but it will take a while
until new employees will be fully integrated.
4. Wha t is the vision of Swisslog?
I don’t know. I just know that we strive to be better and to get a good knowledge pool and that
knowledge is our core business. But those knowledge is spread over a few people. They should
try to treat the core talents well an d do not let them go. Those people are highly overworked at
the moment.
5. How would you interpret the core values of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, Commitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicated / implemented and lived?
Communication is hard to dis tinguish. There are many things that are considered to be
communication. We get letters and e -mails but people have no time to read those. Even if the
company has the change in strategy it is not something that is going to change our life
immediately.
6. How is the work force committed to the culture?
7. What are the activities to improve the culture commitment? (events, worksho ps, etc…)
I am not sure that everyone working here can tell you what is really company’s culture. And it
depends on the department as we ll. Culture is poorly communicated.
8. Can you tell me about your experience with the approach “learning organization”?
I was at the LDP training program this year and I think that it is a good idea but I don’t think its
something that must be pointed out. I t should be a common knowledge or common sense or
concept to pass your knowledge over the other people. Nothing has changed in my team as we
were applying those knowledge already before. But the perception of learning organization is
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going not well within the organization. It sounds like a therapy. Someone needs to do something
so let’s give it a name. In my team I don’t need it but there are certainly people who need to be
reminded about that.
9. How would you describe the communication at Swisslog in general?
Part C: Employee engagement
10. How would you describe the leadership style of your supervisor?
He is fantastic but he is in the same boat as we are. For the last couple of month he ad so much
work and he was travelling a lot. We don’t see him often now. He tries to help whatever he can. I
still feel very supported by him and I know that not all of my colleagues think like that anymore
and they though he got socked too much in those philosophy that we need to save money and
time and so on.
11. How can e mployees voice their ideas? Are there any tools available?
I can’t see any one the big scale what you actually can affect in the company. And on the other
thing you are so busy that you don’t come up with anything.
12. How is the interaction between employees and management?
It is good. I have good communication with my superiors though he is good in his position. I have
a lot to do with him. If we get some information then it comes from other superior. I am not
lacking communication with management.
13. Can you describe a satisfying and motivating working environment?
The place where I will be challenged but not over my boundaries, but if i do go over my
boundaries and i get help. The environment where I do work and I see the result and
appreciated. I want to see the result of the work I do. Possibilities to be involved in further
education, recognition within the team and by supervisor.
14. How is the working environment at Swisslog?
Its good and I have no problems to make contacts. I am smoker so it helps me to mak e the
contact with people from different departments and let me share the information and acquire
some information from them.
15. How could it be improved?
I don’t think it can be improved with force.
Part D: Working conditions
16. What are the development / fur ther education opportunities at Swisslog?
LDP is quite motivating to be elected and sent there. It was good for networking because it is an
international program. This shows you that they believe in you and trust that you are not going
to quite next year. It is a costly thing in terms of time and money. And it is certainly helped me to
develop myself. But I still need to study what other opportunities exist.
17. Did you use an opportunity so far?
Yes. LDP
18. How is your experience with the process? ( supportive / fight?)
Our superior motivates us to go to training if there are any but you need to find the time.
19. How did you perceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
They lost my application. I was just from university and I did not know anything about Swisslo g.
But they showed me they really care about me as soon as I was hired. After two weeks of
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employment I was sent for 2 weeks product development training to Sweden. They showed me
trust from the very beginning.
20. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said during recruitment interview?
Part E: Closing
21. Why do you like working at Swisslog?
I like my boss and I like my team. I like the diversity of work and I am not getting bored here
which is good.
22. What do you not like?
23. How could this be improved?
24. What woul d you change at Swisslog if you could?
Nothing can be changed. I find it very hard to do because everyone got his work to do and it is
difficult to share it.
Interview 3
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 3
Department: Engineering
Function: Software engineer, participation in international projects
1. How long are you working at Swisslog? 5 years
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
Part B: Culture and Vision
3. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
I think in my department it is a nice culture but sometimes you feel that company is big and you
don’t contact other people so often. Here is the problem of communication that must be
improved. It is different in every part of our company but the things we have in commo n are
friendliness, ease and speed of communication. Helpful and supportive culture.
4. What is the vision of Swisslog?
They want to make the customer stronger and more competitive and to be from the beginning
till the end of the project on the customer side . They want to understand what customer really
wants to have.
5. How would you interpret the core values of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, Commitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicated / implemented and lived?
I don’t think about those values durin g my work but I am sure that each of them is important for
us and company success. Collaboration for example is a part of everyday activity, project works,
interaction between different departments and part of the company. I am every day involved wit
this. Competence I think is a strong point of Swisslog but we could improve knowledge transfer.
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Commitment is shown in the result of our work and my proud to work in Swisslog. I am proud of
working in Swisslog. Retain employees is the most important from my poi nt of view. Make them
stay and want to work in Swisslog. Clarity is a bit a problem because not everything is
transparent and clear in terms of goals, objectives, overall strategy of the company. When the
executives decide to lead company in a certain dire ction it is often unclear for us why and what
are the reason for that. In the end I am working and going somewhere but I don’t know where
exactly.
6. How is the work force committed to the culture?
It is different from department to department but mostly we have a certain contradiction.
(example with developed software and no problem in Sweden and Italy but complaints about
difficulty from English and German filial)
7. What are the activities to improve the culture commitment? (events, workshops, etc…)
Sometime s the regions have too much freedom. (example with developed software and no
problem in Sweden and Italy but complaints about difficulty from English and German filial) I
think the problem is with management. They need to push more on the employees.
8. Can y ou tell me about your experience with the approach “learning organization”?
We all have got an e -mail and cards with the idea behind and main principles of learning
organization. Well, I do not implement it in life because I have no time and moreover I thi nk in
my department everything is alright with learning organization approach. It doesn’t change a lot
of things to me.
9. How would you describe the communication at Swisslog in general?
In Switzerland it is easy and friendly, fast communication but the prob lems occur when it comes
to work with international filial. Between regions can be slow but friendly.
Part C: Employee engagement
10. How would you describe the leadership style of your supervisor?
My supervisor gives me a lot of freedom and flexibility in terms of work. He is not concentrated
on control. I feel independency in my job. “Du” relations are between us.
11. How can employees voice their ideas? Are there any tools available?
I know just that we can go to staff manager but the problem is mostly we do n’t have time and
money to implement those ideas and they stay at the level of discussions.
12. How is the interaction between employees and management?
At the moment I am working at the TC and we have an understandable good communication.
Sometimes our discus sion cost more then those things we are discussing.
13. Can you describe a satisfying and motivating working environment?
Challenging interesting work, friendly helpful team, possibility to participate in international
market and possibility of growth as well as chance to see the results of my work and be
appreciated by the company.
14. How is the working environment at Swisslog?
There are nice building, office, canteen and workers.
15. How could it be improved?
We need bigger monitors and we are discussing this sinc e 3 years already and no reaction from
management side.
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Part D: Working conditions
16. What are the development / further education opportunities at Swisslog?
I think that is the field that should be improved. We do have some training or coaching programs
but they are too short and I am not aware of all the possibilities I can have in terms of education
in Swisslog. It would be good to have a week lasting training courses and available for everyone.
17. Did you use an opportunity so far?
I did but very short on es.
18. How is your experience with the process? (supportive / fight?)
No clearly or enough communicated and it was too short.
19. How did you perceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
It was a very fast process with very friendly people during two interviews. And we were talking
about facts that I got a good idea how it is like to work in Swisslog and what is my job, what are
my responsibilities. When I applied to Swisslog this company was new for me, but I studied the
web page and it seemed to me very interes ting international company with growth
opportunities.
20. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said during recruitment interview?
I would say yes.
Part E: Closing
21. Why do you like working at Swisslog?
It is a global company with opportunities to grow, there is a challenging work I do and there are
people I like to work and spend the time with. I like to work with different regions.
22. What do you not like?
Politicking within the company, unclear responsibilities distribution and decision making process.
23. How coul d this be improved?
If you start a new project then you make sure from very beginning who is responsible for what.
24. What would you change at Swisslog if you could?
25. How do you like the balance between financial and non -financial rewards in Swisslog?
The sala ry is not the best but the other incentives you get are ok. I think the salary is not
transparent and you have no idea in your department whether y ou are at the upper level or at
the lower level. The salary is not increasing so much over the time.
26. How do y ou like the appraisal system?
I think the main idea behind it is good and makes the appraisal more objective.
27. Would you like more active participation of CEO and executives in your working life?
28. How important it is?
Sometimes they are not quite aware abou t those problems we have and it would be good if they
could come and see what we are doing. That would be good.
29. Why did the employees have left the company in a significant amount? What are the reasons for
that?
The main reason are the political discussio n which our origin and among other regions of the
company.
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Interviews 4
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 4
Field of work: Head of HR department
How long have you been working in this field? A bit more then 4 years
Part B: Employer Brand / External Image
1. How would you define your employer brand in two or three words?
Employer branding is something internal that goes to external communication. Here is internal
side is retention and external side is employee attraction. Then employer brand i s about the
image of the company communicated internally and especially externally.
2. How do you sell yourself at labour market?
Inspiring challenging workplace, fun and development at work, success for individuals and high
appreciation of their work from t he company side.
3. How does the labour market perceive you as an employer?
It is considered to be a global player, international working environment, strong corporate
culture, interesting project based challenging work.
4. What could be done in order to attrac t employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
We could improve out external brand communication, expand the channels as well as improve
the internal communication not only of HR department and employees but also the line
managers with their subordinate s. We could clarify better development opportunities,
instruments for development and communicating them. The internal marketing is not that
sufficient. In terms of current benefits in the company, employees are lacking the information
about what does the company have and what it can offer to its workers.
5. What differentiates Swisslog from its competitors?
It is our open, transparent , close to employees culture makes us different. Moreover, work
content and possibilities of work in international environme nt, career opportunities make
Swisslog different from its competitors. Another point to mention is high commitment of
employees to the organization in spite of work pressure and less of work -life balance.
6. Are you planning any consultant support for employ er branding process?
No. It is too costly and we are trying to work on this problem on our own. We think we can do it
better as we know the company from all the sides.
Part C: Culture
7. How would you describe the learning organization project?
We are knowledge -based company due to that it is very important for us to learn from each
other, share experience and knowledge. Therefore we sell it as a project but in the end it must
be a part of our daily business, it should be incorporated in our behavior au tomatically. We have
many projects that are adjusted to the learning organization, such as: project reviews, kick -off
meetings, quality processes, improvement processes. Learning organization is something that
goes in line with certain culture ch ange. It i s all about behavior.
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8. How do you communicate the principles of learning organization to your employees?
We do not try to feed the employees with extra information in addition to all those work they
must do. We just try to give advice to call or ask some o ther department about any issue that
would save time and let the knowledge be shared for more efficient work. I created small card
that explain what is learning organization and what is required from them, how they need to
behave in this organization. Le arning organization is on the agenda list every morning. And we
always pick up a certain aspect of learning organization and discuss it. Another thing we do is
behaving ourselves as a role model.
9. If you could describe your corporate culture in three words, what would you say?
I can call it risk averse especially from the side of managers who is most of all involved and risk
taking decisions. Risk must be calculated. This is something that should be changed in minds but
it is not possible to do right now. It takes time. For that the appropriate environment need to be
created as well as being a role model.
10. How do people within your organization communicate this culture?
We have those 4C`s and we try to integrate them in our work. We assess people according to
them. WE have a new management team and we started heavily rely on more communication
within the company. We are planning to start with Friday afternoon beer, standing lunches, open
door policies. We try to live those 4Cs. We show appreciation to the empl oyees.
11. If you were going to give public tours of this company, what stops would the guide make?
Techlab that people could really see what are we doing here.
12. What is the best part about working in this environment that I won't be able to see from just a
walk around the office?
Culture itself, interaction between people.
13. What stands behind your core values? What do they mean for you? How do your employees see
them? Are those values reflected in employees’ behavior? If no, what is missing or required for
that?
There are still some areas for improvement here. But they all know them. I am not sure if they
live them. There are different situation when they forget about them.
14. Does your organization have inherent value that could negatively or positively affect y our core
values?
I am sure we have some; If we have employees that are really demotivated they could influence
others due to high pressure at work or when they are leaving the company. But there are good
examples exist as well like with opinion leaders.
15. Corporate culture is very important, but it is usually hard to define until one violates it. What is
one thing an employee might do here that would be perceived as a violation of the company’s
culture?
Mostly it would be the breach of 7 leading rules we hav e at the company. Blaming is one of them
and would be considered as violation or corporate culture. Sailor thinking is one of such acts. But
we do not have any penalties for breaching the rules and violation of corporate culture.
Reflection session after m eeting let us discuss what went wrong or vice versa but this is
something that is done on the corporate level.
16. What types of people seem to excel in Swisslog?
High committed, achievers, innovative and open, tend to be potential.
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Part D: Employer Value P roposition
17. What is your current EVP?
You can find it at the Internet. I still have to improve it but it is inspiring, supportive working
environment. EVP is development and fun with international environment work. And it includes
our core values as well.
18. What do you think about your organization as a place to work?
It is a great place to work as we have a lot of flexibility in timetable and decisions. I am here for 4
years and I have a lot of work to do but I love my job and I can learn a lot at the proje cts. There is
something new every day. I feel good about communication with people and I feel very fast as a
part of the family.
19. How do you retain and optimize your workforce once you have acquired it?
20. How do you balance financial and non -financial rewar ds to keep your employees motivated?
We are more focused on financial rewards. We have variable salary but not for every one. WE
started with incentives for good performance like vouchers. Non -financial rewards are mostly
about courses available, apero, t hree apples in winter, three bottles of wine, flue injections for
free. But not all people participate in that.
21. Work -life balance is an issue of retention as well as productivity. Can you talk about your own
view of how to navigate the tensions between get ting the work done and encouraging healthy
lives outside the office?
22. What other organizations can learn about your company ?
They can learn the way we conduct our projects, our culture, learning organization experience,
commitment of employees, job -fit acti ons.
Part E: Working conditions
23. What is your recruitment strategy? (Recruitment is described in the document provided by
Nicole)
There is a huge shortage of resources in the company. There are many things to do but less
people and whole the workflow has t o be distributed among those people we have in place right
now. The difficulties in this case are with the planning process. Now we develop the possible
position that will be required next year, for that w are working closely with line managers to be
more precise in our calculations and measures about job requirements, description and so on.
But new comers are mostly young and need to be educated or coached first to get to new work,
project. This takes time as well. The problem of underemployment is seriou s and at the moment
we see no solutions for that.
We have presentations and interview at the universities and in common we are working close to
the universities for Bachelor or Master thesis . We are thinking about target group like can we
employ someone from the university or we need more experienced worker. When it comes to
candidate screening, we have a “grandfather principle” that for the second interview the
employees is talking to the manager +1.
24. What is appraisal system in Swisslog?
Objective with minimum 4 people at the final board appraisal. First of all it is a self-appraisal ,
then it comes to the supervisor appraisal, peer and the last forth level involves HR members and
the previously mentioned participants. Performance and achievement goals ar e discussed with
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employees. Performance process is closely link to compensation and possibility of further
development and acquiring of education. References in the assessment influence the salary.
25. .What do you look for when hiring people?
First of all I look at whether employee match to the corporate culture and only afterwards I look
at CV. And they way I understand if people really belong to our culture is through open
questions, giving the situation and asking them how would they behave in them. In thi s terms
the potential employees are really challenged by me.
26. What are your career planning and development opportunities?
Part F: Employee engagement
27. How do you describe the interaction between employees and management?
There are all the communication eve nts mentioned before such a lunches. Friday afternoon beer,
round tables and so on. But we need to distinguish between corporate level and regional level
management. The ones from the regional level are very close to the employees but the
corporate level i s something that must be improved. It would be good to get them to the
company and just show them everyday life of the employees. That would be inspirational. I try to
convince them to come to the events in order to show themselves and may be talk to the
employees, communicate and show through that their appreciation.
28. What are the most difficult aspects about the communication and collaboration with
employees?
It is difficult to be fast enough, communicate clear and In understandable way as the employees
we have are different in their education.
29. How can employees voice their ideas?
Learning log is a program when employees with the very good idea can share it and it goes like a
flow. It is analyzed and implemented and gi ven immediate feedback. Another possibility is to talk
to the management.
30. Describe your personal leadership style.
I am on the same level with my team. It is important for me that they have a chance to develop
therefore they are quite free in action and t he most important for me they achieve their
objectives. I am aware of everything they do, try to communicate mor e and share every though I
got.
Part G: Closing questions
31. What do you like about working at Swisslog ?
32. What you do not like?
Work -life balance , misunderstanding in communication, too much pressure and hope for HR,
blaming for the salary.
33. How could this be improved?
34. Would you like to add something important that we have not mentioned in our discussion?
Most of innovation is driven by divisions a nd we have engineers who want to reinvent everything
in case they don’t like the software and strategy they don’t like. There are certain reasons for
them to behave like that because of some pitfalls of the programs and so on. They always see the
problems and forget to concentrate on the possible solutions for them.
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Interview 5
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 5
Department: Sales New Business Sales
Function: Acquisition / Project Development
1. How long are you working at Swisslog? 5 ½ years
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
Aquisition, Project Manager, Budgeting, Offers
3. How did your career path at Swisslog proceed?
After University: Software Engineer for one year
Part B: Employee engagement
4. How would you describe the leaders hip style of your supervisor?
Open, self -responsibility, you are your own boss with guidance
5. How can employees voice their ideas?
I personally do not have problems. Some departments have problems with that. Some
employees left the company because of that .
We have problems with the technology center; Collaboration with this department difficult. We
need sometimes things to satisfy our customer however the Development Department of the
Technology Center cannot understand why. They don’t know the requiremen ts of our customers.
6. How is the interaction between employees and supervisors?
From my point of you ideal
7. How should a satisfying and motivating working environment be?
Open, Freedom, clear goals, with a bit of recognition. I prefer direct supervision
8. How is the working environment at Swisslog?
Sometimes you don’t see your supervisor because he or she works in another building.
Supervisors have sometimes double burden they supervise 2 departments and then they cannot
identify anymore what is for whom…
9. How could it be improved?
Supervisors need to give up one burden
Part C: Working conditions
10. What are the development / further education opportunities at Swisslog?
It depends on the employee’s own initiative. S wisslog will support everybody.
11. Did you use an opportunity so far?
Yes more Seminars
12. How is your experience with the process?
No problem. Yes I got a lot of support
13. How did you perceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
No standard process. I did not make an application. But through a friend I got t his position right
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after the University. They looked for Software Engineers.
14. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said during recruitment interview?
Yes. We did not define any goals of my future career. I just wanted to get some experience.
Part D: Rewards and Recognition
15. How is the reward system of Swisslog?
Bonus system at manager level normal employees do not get bonus. But Bonus is based
company performan ce not on your own performance.
16. How does your supervisor recognise your work/efforts?
Sometimes I am surprised of recognition. When my supervisor recognises me it is more by the
way not very official. But I like it that way. My supervisor gives me constructive feedback.
17. Are the recognition and the rewards fair?
Yes. But employees cannot in fluence the rewards. It only depends on company’ s performance.
18. If no. What could be improved? What kind of rewards and recognition do you expect?
Part E : Culture and Vision
19. How would you interpret the core values of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, C ommitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicated / implemented and lived?
I personally don’t identify with that. I see it more as an intern marketing mechanism. In general I
would say this is not recognized. For example the pyramid was just a goodie but w e weren’t
really introduced to it.
The four C’s should inspire the employees but I think Swisslog failed with that approach, it was
hardly introduced.
20. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
Global Cooperation. Big department boundaries, may because of different locations. You don’t
know people from oth er people.
But this was improved recently. Swisslog tries to develop more collabo ration between the
departments.
I would prefer job sharing! Go 3 months in another department. E.g Department Realisierung
could go abroad to strengthen commitment and collaboration in Switzerland and abroad. We
only know about Germany but what En gland is doing? I have no Idea.
21. What are the activities to improve t he culture commitment? (Events, workshops, etc…)
22. Can you tell me about your experience with the approach “learning organization”? (Feedback
culture / collaboration / sharing know how)
I don’t have experience yet with that. There is brochure but I personall y think what stands in
there should be clear for everybody. I do not really understand what that is. There were
workshops but employees only received that brochure.
There was not enough introduction.
23. It just costs a lot of money but is it really worth it?
Long -term employees don’t see the benefit or the sense behind it.
24. How would you describe the communication at Swisslog in general?
At the beginning 5 years ago, there was regularly information. And then it stopped and we didn’t
get any information. It ch anged recently my supervisor gives more information. There is more
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coming t ogether within the departments.
Division / Corporate etc… there is a huge structure above Switzerland Region. And you don’t
know who is saying what. Also our head of the Warehousing Distribution is hardly in the office
and when he is here he doesn’t talk to its employees.
I have the feeling he doesn’t know what we are doing.
CEO is only available on company events, but when he is coming he talks shortly and mainly what
Swisslog is do ing wrong. We don’t have the feeling that he is interested in us and our works.
It is improved in CH; but across boundaries not!
Part F : External Image
25. Can you describe how people from outside see Swisslog as an employer?
People don’t know how Swisslog d eveloped over past few years. Customers say we are
innovative but I would not confirm that.
I can’t really say.
26. Can you describe the image of Swisslog?
We stand for Swiss values. In general Swisslog lost his image in the past few years some people
said th ey were cocky. They are big and they only want to support big projects.
27. How does Swisslog communicate externally?
Marketing communication / Contact to logistic press. I don’t really know.
28. What differentiates Swisslog from the competitors?
Swisslog is international. Swisslog has own “Baukompetenz” we can also build a machine on flat
land. We can do everything
29. How does Swisslog attract future employees?
Job fares, to get people from the Universities. Offer Trainee programs. I don ’t know the up to
date p rogram.
30. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
I don’t know
31. Would you recommend Swisslog as an employer to your friends?
Yes! Depends on the department! Not into the Development a lot of people left Swiss log there.
Department Consulting/Design and Engineering is very attractive.
Part G : Closing
32. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
I learn every day. I have a big network internally. I can acquire Customers on my own.
33. What do you not like?
Conflicts inside. Swisslog is lethargic. E.g. we get a request from a customer and I would like to
give response asap. But I always get stopped internally because people don’t have time, don’t
think It is important etc.. the barrier internally is greater than exte rnally. We forget about the
customer because we need t o fight with other departments.
34. How could this be improved?
Improve collaboration with the Technology Center. Better resource allocation e.g CH – DE; DE
has a bigger market but fewer people therefore CH sponsors resources but then CH does not
have enough resources.
35. What would you change at Swisslog if you could?
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More interests in employees, divisions, departments. Customer Support and Realisierung
Department should be merged together. More interaction between the departments and people
should get to know each other.
36. Would you like to add something that we have no t discussed yet?
Swisslog is an attractive employer in different areas. But some departments could be improved.
As an employee you can gain a lot of experien ce. I chose the right employer.
Interview 6
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 6
Department: Technology Centre / Software & Controls Quality Manager
Function: Responsible for new developed products / right of representation of supervisor
1. How long are you working at Swisslog? 1 year
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
Track and push regions to train people for the new products/ data collection for training /
3. How did your career path at Swisslog proceed?
Quality management from the beginning. New; the right of representation since 2 weeks.
Part B: Employee engagement
4. How would you describe the leadership style of your supervisor?
Cooperative less authority, freedom, self -responsibility
Young people may need more supervision
5. How can employees voice their ideas?
Always! Supervisor responds positively to new ideas. But I can only talk from my department.
6. How is the interaction between employees and supervisors?
Open / fair little hierarchical thinking
I cannot talk for the whole Com pany only within my department.
7. How should a satisfying and motivating working environment be?
Freedom, make own decisions, trust of supervisor, voice own ideas / opinions
The right to do mistakes improvements from supvisor
Acceptance (no criticism for behavioral attitudes)
8. How is the working environment at Swisslog?
Try to be professional /to present development opportunities / resistance or fear to learn
something new. Additional work is feared.
9. How could it be improved?
Happy with current working conditions.
Heard that some people don’t have freedom and development cannot voice their idea s. In this
department not a problem. Employees may only have the view that the supervisor is bad.
Part C: Working conditions
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10. What are the development / further education opportunities at Swisslog?
Employees can go on external training always. Technologic al center trains people for new
software etc..
11. Did you use an opportunity so far?
Yes 3 -4!
12. How is your experience with the process?
No problem got support from Swisslog
13. How did you perceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
Website Advertisement / Ap plications online (e -mail)
Fast response within one day per telephone. Invitation for first interview within one week. (at
short notice)
Second interview with head technology center
14. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said during recruitment interview?
Yes
Part D: Rewards and Recognition
15. How is the reward system of Swisslog?
Managers: Bonus system according to goals
Also other goal setting process without bonus
Possibility to reach more than 100% max. 130%
goals are ambitious it needs effort.
16. How does your supervisor recognise your work/efforts?
Rarely / he takes motivation naturally
I know that excellent means= very good / Grate = ok
Need to get to know supervisor before recognising the recognition
If you have a long career you know yourself what is g ood what is bad recognition of the
supervisor is not that necessary.
Young people may need more feedback for orientation.
I don’t miss recognition
Sometimes little aperos etc… together with the team in order to recognise just small things….
17. Are the recogni tion and the rewards fair?
yes
18. If no. What could be improved? What kind of rewards and recognition do you expect?
No long term career planning that could be improved.
Part E: Culture and Vision
19. How would you interpret the core values of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, Commitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicated / implemented and lived?
Desirable/ but not everybody lives those.
Competence: trying to be competent in the market = Swisslog is good
Clarity: not very clear / more communicatio n about strategic goals from the management
Communication: newsletters / division president sends newsletters but just general information.
Some managers do not pass all the information through whole company. Line managers are not
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informed at all. Why? It is not seen as impo rtant / project is not yet set.
Commitment: commit fast to some actions but forget about their resolutions in daily business.
Nothing will happen in the daily business. Projects are developed but people don’t learn how to
use it.
Collab oration: no clarity, little commitment= collaboration is also weak. Core Values are ok but
need to be improved.
How would you improve this?
Management has to communicate more and through whole company. If you have clarity about
something only then you can commit. Individuals need to commit to their commitments made.
Yes I do it, then I will do it and try my best to do it.
Commitment is also an individual attitude.
For me Clarity, Competence and Commitment = Collaboration.
Managers and Employees need to li ve the core values.
20. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
Negative! Corporate culture developed in negative direction. Negative thinking, Fear to make
mistakes, fear to confess mistakes, fear for s omething new, new technologies.
In my o pinion: everybody should be happy to learn new things so you are at the pulse of
technology. 30 year old knowledge in this indu stry is nothing worth any more.
Culture is formed by blaming, fear for mistakes and new things.
21. What are the activities to impro ve the culture commitment? (Events, workshops, etc…)
Learning organization
22. Can you tell me about your experience with the approach “learning organization”? (Feedback
culture / collaboration / sharing know how)
Workshop to strengthen the culture e.g. learning organization is a good approach. We have also
a monthly “soft -ware znüni” to find the communications with people from other departments.
LO Activists, persons who coach and motivate other to share their kno wledge.
Positive approach, to cross department boarders. However it needs time to implement it.
23. How would you describe the communication at Swisslog in general?
Within the department regularly telephone conferences and calls. Cooperation is ok, although
feedback is hardly given. Inactive communication to say it in general
Part F : External Image
24. Can you describe how people from outside see Swisslog as an employer?
Most people ask: what are they doing? Swisslog is only known within the industry. People who
know Swisslog say: Swisslog has competence has good project. Very ambitious and though
company. You may have to leave because you don’t meet their expectations.
25. Can you describe the image of Swisslog?
Swisslog is not popular for outsiders therefore no ima ge
Within the industry: I don’t know enough about the image. Most customers are confident with
Swisslog.
26. How does Swisslog communicate externally?
Events/ fares / Internet – Website/ produce articles for journals
27. What differentiates Swisslog from the compe titors?
Thinks for a long time…
Good products / reliable
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Is good at complex and difficult project –> customized products
28. How does Swisslog attract future employees?
Website / online -tools within and outside Switzerland
I am not sure about Universities?!?
We have also trainees
29. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
More commercials although it is costly. However we need to carefully decide on the channel.
Within the ind ustry Swisslog is very popular.
30. Would you recommend Swisslog as an employer to your friends?
Yes!
Part G : Closing
31. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
Job variation, interesting tasks, new technologies, having the chance to meet other people
Supervisors are nice in my department and cooperative, they take us serious, no hierarchy, and
the development opportunities.
32. What do you not like?
Culture: Negativ e thinking
33. How could this be improved?
We already make good approaches e.g. learning organization / workshops / events etc.. but this
needs time
34. What would you change at Swisslog if you could?
I would be stricter! I would people who doesn’t commit to the strategy don’t should better leave.
Clear expectations but also consequences if people don’t meet expectations.
But this could also be a culture issue because Swiss people are so nice an d give p eople a lot of
chances.
35. Would you like to add something that we have not discussed yet?
No t he interview was very complete.
Interview 7
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 7
Department: Technology center
Function: Development and design of co ntrol software (Steuerungssoftware) responsible for new
products
1. How long are you working at Swisslog? ……5…………years
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
Product design, architecture (requests) of product, life cycle of product, testing roll out into
regions
3. How did your career path at Swisslog proceed?
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No development
Part B: Employee engagement
4. How would you describe the leadership style of your supervisor?
Self-responsibility because we are senio rs we don’t need much guidance.
Do you wish m ore guidance?
No actually not. Just for new projects a bit more supervising would be good
5. How can employees voice their ideas?
Direct at the supervisor
6. How is the interaction between employees and supervisors?
Difficult to say. If we have problems we say it right away. We need continuous interatction.
7. How should a satisfying and motivating working environment be?
Clear goals, good infrastructure, enough resources, openness, freedom, self responsiblity
8. How is the working environm ent at Swisslog?
The way it is. Not enough resources, infrastructure is weak
9. How could it be improved?
Infrastructure: if we need new tools (werkzeuge) we have huge problems to get the money for it.
I don’t understand this, it should n ot be a fight to get new tools.
No development program! Personally I have the feeling Swisslog does not support development.
Part C: Working conditions
10. What are the development / further education opportunities at Swisslog?
I don’t know exactly
11. Did you use an opportunity so far?
No! I actually wanted, but HR department did not response to my request. Therefore HR has no
interests for development of its employees
12. How is your experience with the process?
––––
13. How did you perceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
Via Headhunter. Normal nothing special
14. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said during recruitment interview?
No!
Part D: Rewards and Recognition
15. How is the reward system of Swisslog?
I don’t know
16. How does your supervisor recognise your work/efforts?
Feedback immediate from customers if they are happy or not. Also from the supervisor enough
recognition. But this is just “go od job” or something like that.
17. Are the recognition and the rewards fair?
Yes but…
18. If no. What could be improved? What kind of rew ards and recognition do you expect?
More resources, concrete development planning. Management should be more consequent with
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its requests. E.g. defined standards need to be carrie d out through all subsidiaries.
Part E : Culture and Vision
19. How would you interpret the core values of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, Commitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicated / implemented and lived?
Good values, but they are not lived in the company. Not even from management not only in one
department also in all regions. At Swisslog are great boundaries betwee n departments and
subsidiaries.
20. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
Federalist
21. What are the activities to improve the culture commitment? (Events, workshops, etc…)
I don’t know!
We clearly say: we are not ok with the standard, we commit to its own work, to its own
competence collaborat ion just within the department.
Within departments core values ok. Over boarders not!
22. Can you tell me about your experience with the approach “learning organization”? (Feedback
culture / collaboration / sharing know how)
It is a start. Don’t have personal experience with it. Swisslog should first learn where the deficits
are at Swisslog.
Greatest deficit is: if restructure company it needs to learn abou t new situations. We should
switch from project thinking to product thinking.
23. How would you describe the communication at Swisslog in general?
Firstly: Blame then discussed
Managers are just in their offices. We don’t see them a lot. They don’t even come t o say hello.
Part F : External Image
24. Can you describe how people from outside see Swisslog as an employer?
Good pension funds / tasks are challenging and interesting / inconsistent workload / market
driven / at weak economy times Swisslog lays off people / Development is not a goal of Swisslog.
No clear structures / weak organisations
25. Can you describe the image of Swisslog?
Don’t know
26. How does Swisslog communicate externally?
Don’t know
27. What differentiates Swisslog from the competitors?
Don’t know cannot compare
28. How does Swisslog attract future employees?
Current Employees were supposed to look for new employees and we also got money for it.
29. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
–––-
30. Would you rec ommend Swisslog as an employer to your friends?
Yes I also did.
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Part G : Closing
31. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
Job variety / design development of products
32. What do you not like?
Company Politics
33. How could this be improved?
More strict organizational rules, not that federalistic conversations .
34. What would you change at Swisslog if you could?
That what I mentioned before.
35. Would you like to add something that we have not discussed yet?
Active development planning for employees
Management should keep promises
More presence of HR
There are currently many changes at Swisslog do you feel that?
It changes all the time, if something changed a new change is coming immediate ly. I am
overwhelmed of changes.
Interview 8
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 8
Department: PSU1 Software Engineer / Realisierung
Function: Software Engineer 50% / Supervisor of Apprentice 50%
1. How long are you working at Swisslog ? 25 years
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
Software Development for Projects
Responsible for 10 IT Trainees
3. How did your career path at Swisslog proceed?
Apprenticeships at Swisslog as Electric Technician
Project leader
Team leader
Part B: Employee engagement
4. How would you describe the leadership style of your supervisor?
PSU1: self -responsibility, freedom, loose guidance
Manager: strategic guidance, I don’t need much supervision from him
5. How can employees voice their ideas?
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PSU1: direct communication but ideas don’t seem to go to the top. This is bad. Th ey don’t take
them as important.
6. How is the interaction between employees and supervisors?
PSU1 daily, permanent we have a good atmosphere in the team.
Manager: monthly meeting
7. How should a satisfying and motivating working environment be?
Recognition for efforts / efforts are valued. Employees are taken serious and their requests
8. How is the working environment at Swisslog?
We work in separate building and we have a good atmosphere in our team.
9. How could it be improved?
Inputs from employee s (voicing ideas) should go to the top!
Part C: Working conditions
10. What are the development / further education opportunities at Swisslog?
PSU1 you can start as a junior / trainee and work to the top as a senior / project leader
11. Did you use an opportun ity so far?
Some leadership training for trainees / HR courses / presentation skills
12. How is your experience with the process?
If the company goes well we had a lot of training and further education, however if the
company’s performance is weak no education programs are allowed. Therefore it is an
inconsistency.
13. How did you perceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
25 years ago I can’t really remember
14. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said during recruitment interview?
No promises were given
Part D: Rewards and Recognition
15. How is the reward system of Swisslog?
Depends on position. Project leaders and long -term employees got sa lary without time
compensation. Bonus system that depended on company’s performanc e and employees
personal goals.
16. How does your supervisor recognise your work/efforts?
Work is recognised. Sometimes we go for dinner etc… small things
17. Are the recognition and the rewards fair?
I can’t really say. For the part as the leader of the trainees I am ok. But for the project work I
canno t compensate my overtime. Not compensating the overtime and getting bonus is pretty
much equal. But what do employees really want? Swisslog needs to recognise what employees
want, compensating overtime or bonus?
Due to savings program we don’t have the “We ihnachts apéro” this are things that employees
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really liked but Swisslog saves money at wrong positions.
18. If no. What could be improved? What kind of rewards and recognition do you expect?
Part E : Culture and Vision
19. How would you interpret the core value s of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, Commitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicated / implemented and lived?
Commitment: individual some are committed some not
Competence: employees are competent but managers??? I think managers don’t know what
employees are doing.
Collaboration: within the department it works well. We improved it by engaging the customer
support earlier into project to guarantee a better after sales service. Working over distance is a
bit more complicated. If we would be closer all together everything would be easier we can also
discuss tasks at a coffee break.
Clarity: tasks are clear. Structure and organization is also clear but maybe the whol e Swisslog is
“over structured” and there are a lot of changes in the organization.
Most employees live the core values, but there is no training on that I think these values are core
that employees usually have naturally if you w ork in company and you lik e it.
I think the core values have a great effect on customers but not on the employees therefore
where is the interest from Swisslog?
20. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
Depends on departments, we have a lot of subcultures which also depend on the supervisor.
Open / friendly collaborative.
People leave the company because of employees / supervisor problem!!! People get stopped if
they would like to bring new ideas. So they leave the company this is a huge loss of know -how all
the tim e.
Due to savings program we don’t have the “Weihnachts apéro” this are things that employees
really liked but Swisslog saves money at wrong positions.
Nowadays we try it again. It is a lso a way of recognition again.
21. What are the activities to improve the culture commitment? (Events, workshops, etc…)
We now have more events. But top managers are mostly absent which doesn’t create a good
relationship and employees don’t feel engaged and recognized.
22. Can you tell me about your experience with the approach “le arning organization”? (Feedback
culture / collaboration / sharing know how)
I personally don’t have much experience with that. It is here but we didn’t feel anything of that.
But we try to engage people more and motivate for development and education. If t his is the
reason of the learning org. I think it is a really good idea. But it needs time and resources to
implement it.
23. How would you describe the communication at Swisslog in general?
Within the department we have open and regular communication. If you would like to talk
overall you need to watch your word! Most comm unication goes over supervisor.
Part F : External Image
24. Can you describe how people from outside see Swisslog as an employer?
I think good. A lot of people left Swisslog but came back. T herefore it cannot be that bad.
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25. Can you describe the image of Swisslog?
For trainees Swisslog is popular. We have a lot of application s. Overall I cannot really say.
26. How does Swisslog communicate externally?
Media – releases / employees get them via e -mails
27. What differentiates Swisslog from the competitors?
Swisslog is expensive, competition is high, we don’t have all requested products.
Customer satisfaction, but we are not attractive bec ause of high prices. We are not
competitiveness.
28. How does Swisslog attr act future employees?
Advertising, online, ads in 20min. / professional recruiter
29. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
Good press releases. Consistency of brand use. Universites / FH job fares
30. Why peop le don’t come?
I don’t know… because of work? Not enough salary.
31. Would you recommend Swisslog as an employer to your friends?
YES! But not all of them
Part G : Closing
32. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
I like to supervise the trainees / self -responsibility / a lot of freedom
33. What do you not like?
Product development it is not efficient it goes to long!
34. How could this be improved?
Maybe education? More energy and resources
35. What would you change at Swisslog if you could?
Product development new manager! Managers should be interested why we have so high
turnover rates. (just in some departments)
36. Would you like to add something that we have not discussed yet?
Interviews 9
Part A: General Information
Name Interviewee 9
Field of work Software support / development / changes / migration of projects. Customer support
How long have you been working in this field? Since 2004
2004 Customer support as Software developer
2007 Project leader
2011 Team leader
Part B: Employer brand
1. How would you define your employer brand in two or three words?
International / flexible / open / consturctive
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2. How does the labour market perceive you as an employer?
Attractive an employer / a lot of development opportunities
3. How do you sell yourse lf at labour market?
Adverts seem to be wrong approach. We should more focus on Universities and FH.
4. What are the fields for improvement?
We should be more focused to attract more people at Universities of FH’s there we can attract
talented people, we see the trends in the labour market. We should also ensure the retention of
know -how. (the whole process of leaving and recruiting people needs a lot of time. ) How would
you solve this problem? I would suggest that we don’t layoff people immediately if the b usiness is
not going well. This is just a huge loss of know -how all the time.
5. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
Bachelor – Thesis and Semester projects this is how we can attract more talented peopl e. this is a
good way to introduce people to the company very early. At job fares eg. ETH / FH we will appear
in casual clothing. To show that we are different. People liked it.
6. What differentiates Swisslog from its competitors?
We offer a complete custo mer service. From the beginning of the project until after – sale
service. We are very flexible and innovative.
Part C: Culture
7. How would you describe the learning organization project?
It is an innovative project. But there is no feedback. It has potential but it is not developed
further.
8. What tools do you use to communicate this project to employees?
Website / online
Not especially for employees
9. If you could describe your corporate culture in three words, what would you say?
Open / innovative / future oriented
10. How do people within your organization communicate this culture?
People communicate the culture as I said before. Of course there are people who don’t. But the
potential is her e to bring this culture to the market.
How could this be improved?
I don’t know concretely. But Swisslog has to problem to investigate everything new. But if we
investigate new, we do the same mistakes again and again.
Swisslog gets bigger and bigger all nations want to voice their ideas. there is a need for a
standardized product, but I think we are not yet big enough to support a standardized product
like SAP
11. If you were going to give public tours of this company, what stops would the guide make?
–– ––-
12. What is the best part about working in this environment that I won't be able to see from just a
walk around the office?
We have a lot of self – responsibility, we can think innovative, we don’t have standardized rules.
13. What stands behind your core values? What do they mean for you? How do your employees see
them? Are those values reflected in employees’ behavior? If no, what is missing or required for
that?
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I would say this the strategy of the company. Employees see if for example the commitment i s
not enough.
It is very variable. Some employees are very committed some are less. Some are competent
some not. A lot of differences…
14. Does your organization have inherent value that could negatively or positively affect your core
values?
e.g the one who is implementing a project wants security. The sales -man needs to sell the
product at market price and takes more risks. We should be more clear about our requests.
15. Corporate culture is very important, but it is usually hard to define until one violates i t. What is
one thing an employee might do here that would be perceived as a violation of the company’s
culture?
We mostly work in teams. But some team members cannot work in a team this violates the
whole culture. And demotivates employees
16. What types of pe ople seem to excel in Swisslog?
Ambitious, goal oriented, critical, experienced people
The ones who don’t excel: people who see themselves as victims of the markets. And peo ple
who don’t accept decisions.
Part D: Employer Value Proposition
17. What do you think about your organization as a place to work?
Challenging, a lot of development opportunities. But you need to be the one and take the
initiatives.
18. How do you retain and optimize your workforce once you have acquired it?
This depends a lo t on the teams. Some do really well others don’t.
19. How do you balance financial and non -financial rewards to keep your employees motivated?
Freedom / flexible work hours. You can compensate overtime etc.. I think non -financial rewards
are very difficult t o implement.
20. Work -life balance is an issue of retention as well as productivity. Can you talk about your own
view of how to navigate the tensions between getting the work done and encouraging healthy
lives outside the office?
I plan employees working sche dule for project. I make sure that they have enough free time,
because sometimes they work over the weekends.
21. What other organizations can learn about your company?
Innovative, we give freedom / free space.
Part E: Employee engagement
22. What is your mana gement style?
Some employees need more guidance some less.
The ones who are experienced don’t need much guidance I give trust, commitment loose
guidance.
Others need more control etc…
23. What career planning and development opportunities you suggest to your employees?
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I create a development plan for my employees. But it is their own responsibility to use it.
Swisslog delivers the framework . but they need to choose which development opportunity.
Some employees don’t understand this.
24. What are the most diffic ult aspects about the communication and collaboration with employees?
First you are the colleague and then you are someone’s supervisors. It is difficult to manage
weaknesses and strengths of employees. I want to motivate people and not blame them.
Enginee rs are special people they don’t want a strict hierarchical supervisor.
25. How do you describe the interaction between employees and you as a supervisor/manager?
I have monthly meetings, also direct and informal interaction is always and regularly. I support a
loose manager style.
26. How can employees voice their ideas?
Learning organization: Idea Hub
Altough our budget is very weak, to implement new ideas it needs to go over the SEDC (software
development) decides on new technologies. However weak output the last years.
What would you suggest to improve this?
Change CEO. He delivered very bad performance the last few years. We realized that we should
track back to old technologies. We had a huge loss on a project and these made the upper
management rethink.
27. How is your experience with immediate feedback practice?
I usually give immediate feedback. But sometimes it is better to rethink and give feedback then.
28. What appraisal techniques do you use? (Rewards and rec ognition is different from appraisal)
Performance management. (in CH)
29. What do you look for when hiring people?
Continuity of work (not change of employment every year) / qualifications but it HR had to high
requirements for some jobs.
Experienced employe es need to justify why they want to leave their current employer.
30. What is your recruitment strategy?
Online / Adverts in newspapers and online in CH and DE
We also focus now on Universities and FH.
31. Does Swisslog keep its promises? (mentioned during inter view?)
I think employees don’t see the improvements of Swisslog, Management does not communicate
it enough especially when we did changes or improvements. A list and action plan is necessary to
track the improvements and weaknesses. Also change small things not on ly big ones and
communicate it.
Part F: Closing
32. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
A great variety of work, entertaining, people oriented, job variety
33. What do you not like?
There are a lot of projects but there is not enough money for it that is sad. We only do things
with high financial output. Very money oriented.
34. How could this be improved?
Internal taks, e.g. project analysis after that is done
What would you change at Swisslog if you were CEO?
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I would not develop own software any more. I would by standardized software. It is impossible to
migrate our software we develop always further our prototype.
The logistics market is though. Because we compete with all over the wor ld price pressure is very
high.
35. Would you like to add something important that we have not mentioned in our discussion?
––– ––-
Interview 10
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 10
Field of work: HR division manager of Customer Support, Health Care and central functions
How long have you been working in this field? In HR since 2004, at Swisslog since May 2010 (1 ½
years), same function when entered and now.
Part B: Employer Brand / External Image
1. How would you define your employer brand in two or three words?
Traditional CH company (quality), which is appreciated by customers but products might be more
expensive than the ones from competitors
2. How do you sell yourself at labour market?
More efforts/promotions are necessary in the industry or locally in Buchs area. Only people who
are in the same industry (technical industry / logistics) know Swisslog. While interviewing I
discovered that Swisslog is not known by applicants when they see the job advertising, they go to
the website to get to know Swisslog. I.e. many people do not know S wisslog before consulting
website.
Swisslog is present at tradeshows (mess), industry journals and sponsoring.
3. How does the labour market perceive you as an employer?
After consulting the website they have a positive impression of the company.
4. What could be done in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
Increase promotion etc. and therefore increase awareness of Swisslog.
5. What differentiates Swisslog from its competitors?
Flat hierarchy, independent work, high personal responsibil ity at work, autonomy. I personally
like the engineer environment that exists, which creates a “sportive” culture.
6. Are you planning any consultant support for employer branding process?
Do not know: ask Nicole
Part C: Culture
7. How would you describe the learning organization project? (LO)
LO activist: live the “project” in daily business and show others your actions in respect to the LO.
I purposefully use it in daily activities and communicate it during work (e.g. mention in emails
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LO). The LO includes b ehavior rules, e.g. less silo thinking, no finger -pointing, greater feedback
culture.
8. How do you communicate the principles of learning organization to your employees?
It is not only a project, LO is “pre -lived” by the activist in daily business. I am such an activist to
“pre -live the values”. It is an action, which should also cause a different mind -set. Out of the LO
there are then workshops in respect to know -how transfer for example.
9. If you could describe your corporate culture in three words, what woul d you say?
Sportive, independent work, open culture (YOU), honest, some closed subcultures
10. How do people within your organization communicate this culture?
In general culture is lived and communicated. I think you can feel it in the corridors/aisles.
Some subcultures exist also because there are different buildings on the areal in Buchs (have
some other behaviour rules). There are different types of people but the culture is
consistent/uniform in general.
11. If you were going to give public tours of this compa ny, what stops would the guide make?
In respect to culture I do not really know, but there are cafeteria, coffee edge and open offices I
would show. We have large offices, lots of windows and glassy door, which indicate openness.
Executives are located in 3rd floor. Sometimes people talk about them as the 3rd floor (I think its
not negatively influencing the culture, however, I worked in a company before where everybody
works on the same floor and all glass doors. So it was even more open than Swisslog. Th is was
very positively perceived by the employees there)
12. What is the best part about working in this environment that I won't be able to see from just a
walk around the office?
Personally, I like the job itself, autonomy and self -responsibility. Additional ly the company is not
complicated, only minor bureaucracy from my point of view. Might be different in other
departments. I have high voice (right to say) and influence in my position.
13. What stands behind your core values? What do they mean for you? How do your employees see
them? Are those values reflected in employees’ behavior? If no, what is missing or required for
that?
Beside LO, the core values Competence, Collaboration, Commitment, Clarity are still important.
They are part of the company and alignme nt accordingly
How do you present / introduce core values? good question
I present it to prospective employees at the job interview and after succession of probation time
employees receive the pyramid. How the supervisors “pre -live” or influence it regar ding the
employees I do not know. Although I hope the values influence behavior/ daily business at work.
14. Does your organization have inherent value that could negatively or positively affect your core
values?
Long thinking……. I would say problems are not always discussed openly. I think problems should
more often be directed to responsible person and open communicated.
15. Corporate culture is very important, but it is usually hard to define until one violates it. What is
one thing an employee might do here th at would be perceived as a violation of the company’s
culture?
There had been culture violations and some of them lead to terminations of employment.
Everything exists but I cannot mention a concrete example regarding culture violation. From my
point of view, there are people who permanently negatively influence the e nvironment and
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there, HR and managers search for ways of communication and improvement or if no solution
possible, we terminate the employment.
16. What types of people seem to excel in Swisslog?
People with independent behavior, proactive people (own initiati ve), assertive behavior (ability
to assert oneself), cooperative, factual thinking
Part D: Employer Value Proposition
17. What is your current EVP?
Commitment, Clarity, Competence, Collaboration. I think mostly competence and know -how. We
have a lot of exp erience as well as high customization possibilities.
18. What do you think about your organization as a place to work?
We have high independence at Swisslog. Swisslog as an employer is fair: good social insurance,
vacations are above average, working times in contract low (however in reality not that low
this seems to be a contemporary phenomena). I personally like the industry, communication
with employees etc. and the taking care of different types of people.
19. How do you retain and optimize your workforce once you have acquired it?
Main points: Advancement of employees to keep employees inside Swisslog, e.g. with internal
department/task change, junior staff development, internal and external development
opportunities, acquisition at FHNW
20. How do you balanc e financial and non -financial rewards to keep your employees motivated?
Financial: Tool used: Salary band width and benchmarking with other companies (since 2009).
However the salaries are not adjusted to actual market situation but HR takes this into acco unt
and makes adjustments accordingly.
Non -financial: Working conditions are good, e.g. possibility to receive unpaid vacation, buy/sell
vacation days, flexible working times, actions with health management (flue shot), language
courses (motivation and edu cation for people using English/French in their task activities).
21. Work -life balance is an issue of retention as well as productivity. Can you talk about your own
view of how to navigate the tensions between getting the work done and encouraging healthy
lives outside the office?
For example the system we use: flexible working times and sell/buy vacation days. Especially in
the “project business” it is very difficult to always balance work -life (people are likely to work
more In order to realize the projects, tight schedules)
22. What other organizations can learn about your company ?
Junior staff development
Part E: Working conditions
23. What is your recruitment strategy?
I can tell you about the application process. There is a first Interview with the HR and direct
supervisor, and then a second meeting with the direct supervisor and manager plus 1
(=supervisor of direct supervisor). We often use case studies and assessment during interviews.
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We use personal assessments especially for leading functions. I think assessments have potential
for improvement, we should extend assessment. Additionally to the two interviews, the HR or
supervisors show the prospective employee the o ffice etc. and sometimes we offer “tasting” in
the prospective job.
24. What do you look for when hiring people?
Assumed the professional competence is adequate, then we check how the person fits into the
team and strategy of team development, e.g. fit team go als and personal goals, and e.g. if
strategy of time is to involve the younger generation to ensure know -how transfer then young
people are searched.
25. What are your career planning and development opportunities?
Intern: especially leadership development (g lobal approach)
Extern: many opportunities self-development and initiative of employee or direct supervisor
26. Did you personally use an opportunity so far?
Yes
27. What is your experience with the process?
Positive experience.
Part F: Employee engagement
28. How do you describe the interaction between employees and management?
I think the communication in general is negative. I am an activist for “pro one person more in
communication leadership area”. I do support the idea and assume it could improve
communicat ion but I know it’s connected to costs. The additional person I suggest should lead
the communication flow, make sure information gets to the right person at the right time and so
on. Additionally, I think CEO or management information exists but for locat ion info there is
more potential. Intranet exists inside the company; I personally do not use it very often.
29. What are the most difficult aspects about the communication and collaboration with employees?
Difficulties are that one person would like to forward information but does not know who would
like / need to receive the information. In general there could be more information flow also in
order to avoid misunderstandings.
30. How can employees voice their ideas?
They can do it with a direct communicatio n to supervisor or HR. They then forward it to upper
management If needed. I think feedback to the requests/ideas gets back to employees. Some
departments use a tool for employee suggestions.
31. Describe your personal leadership style.
Not a leading function
Part G: Closing questions
32. What do you like about working at Swisslog ?
I like the job itself, the culture, “easy -going” working environment, high acceptance and respect,
high trust in my department (however in other departments it is low).
33. What do you not like?
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Interest conflicts regarding decisions made. Sometimes I do not agree with decisions or solutions
but then it should be implemented and later on it is changed again.
From my point of view the infrastructure (software) is an internal issue (mistakes made in
research, the implementation must be made more carefully). There is a new software solution,
however the integration is globally and therefore inclusion of employees is difficult.
34. How could this be improved?
I would suggest extending analysis befor e taking decisions/actions.
More employee involvement.
Communication and interdisciplinary thinking (among departments)
35. Would you like to add something important that we have not mentioned in our discussion?
No.
Interview 11
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 11
Department: Project Controlling
Function: Controller
1. How lo ng are you working at Swisslog Since 2001
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
Support project leader and therefore controlling of these projects
3. How did your car eer path at Swisslog proceed?
Before Swisslog I was financial consultant at another company (OWL, which is today part of
Swisslog). I started and still work in project controlling
Part B: Employee engagement
4. How would you describe the leadership style of your supervisor?
Factual and objective, competent, open, time for “conflict resolution”, backs up employees
5. How can employees voice their ideas?
I use direct communication with direct supervisor in case of problems inside department and
concerning whole S wisslog. I heard that Swisslog is creating a pool to voice ideas. However, I
prefer to get in touch with my direct supervision first.
6. How is the interaction between employees and supervisors?
Is functioning well.
7. How should a satisfying and motivating wo rking environment be?
Good teamwork and spirit, open communication, listening, direct communication, no indirect
gossip.
8. How is the working environment at Swisslog?
In my team it is Ideal, also in cooperation with project managers. In case the communicati on with
project manager is not successful I get in touch with his/her supervisor to receive the required
information. In general the cooperation is going well.
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9. How could it be improved?
Sometimes the information collection from project leaders via email (l ists) is not working well.
However, we are a big organization and project managers have other priorities. I think it is a take
and give, so we as controller need to ask further to get the needed information.
Part C: Working conditions
10. What are the develo pment / further education opportunities at Swisslog?
If employee would like to do so it is on his/her own to initiate it.
Internal: For example office courses were available
I personally had the chance to visit a big current logistic center to get to know the current
technology.
11. Did you use an opportunity so far?
Yes project controll ing course and rhetoric course.
12. How is your experience with the process?
I expressed my desire to do a further education in my yearly appraisal. Request was accepted. No
problem with the process.
13. How did you perceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
I worked at OWL, which is now integrated in Swisslog. It was more an informal process. The
previous supervisor from OWL shifted to Swisslog and asked me to join the company as a p roject
controller. It was not a formal process through HR.
14. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said during recruitment interview?
Yes. However my integration process was not really accompanied by someone. I took initiative to
be able to start working and g ot myself familiar with the material.
Part D: Rewards and Recognition
15. How is the reward system of Swisslog?
I personally did not do any further education (federal certificate in bookkeeping or similar).
Therefore I think my salary is fair.
Non -financial rewards are: 5 weeks of vacation (after 4o years of age 2 more days of vacation),
possibility to achieve time in advanced for Christmas and other holidays, ability to sell or buy
vacations via HR (this is possible since 2 or 3 years)
16. How does your supervisor recognise your work/efforts?
We have a monthly meeting with feedback session at the end (regarding everything and
everybody). Supervisor shows appreciation of efforts of employees during those meetings. Praise
and appreciation highly expre ssed by supervisor.
17. Are the recognition and the rewards fair?
Yes.
18. If no. What could be improved? What kind of rewards and recognition do you expect?
I would suggest giving some special “gifts” or goodies for extraordinary efforts, for example gift
card. I can mention one example when we got something similar. It was when we had a software
system change. We got an iPod.
Part E : Culture and Vision
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19. How would you interpret the core values of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, Commitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicated / implemented and lived?
Clarity: clear communication to avoid misunderstandings and provide transparence. In my area
very important and “lived” (only in case of lack of experience of project manager communication
is not always succes sful)
Competence: Know -how
Commitment: Everything is overlapping in respect to communication
Collaboration: Tell reasons for information request in my emails when collecting information to
increase the probability to receive the information needed.
Values such as openness, no finger -pointing, look for communication etc. were recently and in a
similar way re -expressed in a salary letter we received.
20. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
Big management, however management is more or less “invisible”, openness, “YOU” -culture,
open communication with existing and new employees
21. What are the activities to improve the culture commitment? (Events, workshops, etc…)
For example in case of lack of resources, supervisor should approach employee to t alk about
capacity overload. Take care of employees’ problem and try to find a solution together. Take
employees more serious and don’t let too much time pass before an action takes place.
22. Can you tell me about your experience with the approach “learning organization”? (Feedback
culture / collaboration / sharing know how)
I did hear about the LO. For me it means that if someone has a proposal to do something more
efficient it should be communicated to coworkers. It also includes Independent organization an d
prioritization of work tasks. The LO approach did not really change my behavior. This behavior
was in place before. I personally support new employees and introduce them to new tasks. On
the other hand they can then later on take over parts of my work. E specially if someone is
interested in the work it is helpful to exchange know -how. In general very open feedback culture
in my department. I appreciate the cooperation in the department and with project managers.
For example if I get quick answers from pro ject managers I show them my appreciation.
23. How would you describe the communication at Swisslog in general?
Several employee information every year, where numbers, new projects of CH and Central
Euorope are presented. I perceive this very positive. Recentl y we got informed about the actions
taken because of the results of employee survey. For example Swisslog wants to organize a
getting together for a drink after work in the cafeteria or buffet lunch once in a while. I find this a
good approach to motivate employees. Of course if someone does not want to take part you
cannot force him or her.
Part F : External Image
24. Can you describe how people from outside see Swisslog as an employer?
Swisslog is not really well -known.
25. Can you describe the image of Swisslog?
From my point of view the people who know Swisslog they know it because of the stock market
and their impression is often something like; did the stock price go down again. In this respect
image somehow negative. The image otherwise I cannot real ly describe and as I said only few
people know Swisslog. People do not deal with this subject (logistics solution) and therefore are
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not aware of it.
26. How does Swisslog communicate externally?
Articles in newspaper (AZ, NZZ) and Internet presence
27. What diffe rentiates Swisslog from the competitors?
The benefits differentiate Swisslog, i.e. working hours of 8.1 hours, possibility to achieve time in
advanced, 5 weeks of vacation block time,and therefore flexibility. Additionally, I like the contact
to other empl oyees (e.g. project manager) and the openness of the employees.
28. How does Swisslog attract future employees?
Temporary employment agency and Internet job advertising (jobscout.ch or similar) as well as
communication at universities (e.g. ETH)
29. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
I think it is good. For example big projects are communicated in newspapers to be present as a
company. An option would be to have an open day event, e.g. for the next anniversar y
30. Would you recommend Swisslog as an employer to your friends?
Yes!
Part G : Closing
31. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
I like the diversification in my task/work area and the regular contact with other employees.
32. What do you not like?
No, not in general. I could only mention here that the information collection is not always
successful, however you learn and get experience how to manage it.
33. How could this be improved?
Nothing to improve.
34. What would you change at Swisslog if you could?
I do not really know. Maybe to reduce the big management that Swisslog has, however I cannot
judge it. Additionally, I would appreciate if the communication would be even more open and no
indirect gossiping. Be open and clear among employees and have high mutual un derstanding.
35. Would you like to add something that we have not discussed yet?
Swisslog is for example not as well -known as Novartis.
Interview 12
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 12
Field of work: Head of Marketing Warehouse & Distribution Solutions (globally)
How long have you been working in this field?
I’ve been working at Swisslog for 3 years. I started as Marketing manager and after a year I was
promoted to the Head of Marketing. I lead 3 people here in Buchs and I am responsible for th e
marketing departments around the world.
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Part B: Employer brand
1. How would you define your employer brand in two or three words?
Swisslog is an international company but still manageable (not too big) and the interesting field
of work.
2. How does the labour market perceive you as an employer?
This is difficult to say. We are not that well -known mostly because of the limited size. I am not
sure how prospective employees perceive Swisslog.
3. How do you sell yourself at labour market?
I think this is a ques tion for HR. We from the Marketing department try to position and sell
ourselves to our customers. However, I think this also influences how prospective employees
perceive us in the industry. For example our innovative solutions might influence an employee to
be interested in working at Swisslog. The communication to the customer market and labour
market is related. We are working on selling ourselves as innovative and therefore make Swisslog
more attractive also for employees. The things I mentioned in que stion 1. are important to
mention during job interviews to emphasize why someone should join Swisslog.
4. What are the fields for improvement?
We have ideas to improve the situation; especially we want to communicate with more clarity
and unique messages. The re we did discover need for improvements. Here we often have
discussions with our colleagues in the USA regarding the use of social media. I think Xing and
Linkedin makes sense to use for professional contact management, however about Facebook I
am not so sure. I think Facebook is more for personal use than professional and the question is
how much resource to put in these activities. I think in Europe it makes more sense to focus on
other multi media channels. Since resources are limited Facebook should no t be on the top and
not very actively managed. I suggest to put efforts on the website and improve the website with
videos etc. Those can then still be posted on Facebook etc. However website should be mainly
directed to customers and in a second stage to employees. Of course an adequate career page
should be in place.
5. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
We want to improve the career page on our website by emphasizing more on the employer
brand, however , this is HR responsibility.
6. What differentiates Swisslog from its competitors?
What differentiate Swisslog are the aspects I mentioned in Question 1 (employer brand)
Part C: Culture
7. How would you describe the learning organization (LO) project?
It is a n interesting project to make people more aware of the behavior rules. In general I think
know -how exchange is important and the project helps to remind people of that. However, I
think it should not be communicated as a constant project, it should be natu ral and enforce
people to do it without reminding. I think it should be on the job.
8. What tools do you use to communicate this project to employees?
In my daily business I “pre -live” the values. We are a global department and therefore exchange
with subsidi aries around the world is needed and available. For us it is important to break these
barriers. It functions and we are pushing to improve the collaboration.
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9. If you could describe your corporate culture in three words, what would you say?
We have the 4 cor e values. In my opinion those values are lived in the company. Commitment
and competence is something the employees fulfil. Collaboration somehow limited because of
time issue. Clarity is lived but you can never be clear enough, especially if you operate w ith
foreign languages.
10. How do people within your organization communicate this culture?
In the daily behaviour with colleagues.
11. If you were going to give public tours of this company, what stops would the guide make?
That is difficult since in our business most people sit and work on the computers. For sure I
would show the Tec -Lab to show our technology. Maybe a short tour through the offices to show
the small and big offices we have and where employees work together. It is difficult to suggest a
fix tour but to walk around and show people working etc. can give a good impression of the
environment (i.e. collaboration, commitment etc.)
12. What is the best part about working in this environment that I won't be able to see from just a
walk around the offi ce?
The international environment might not be seen.
13. What stands behind your core values? What do they mean for you? How do your employees see
them? Are those values reflected in employees’ behavior? If no, what is missing or required for
that?
See question 9.
I can identify myself very well with those values. I hope my employees as well. I try to be a role
model for them and use the values at job interviews to find out if someone fits in the culture and
team. I would like to add the values are prett y generic and nothing from far away or not
understandable. As well those values are necessary for a successful business life.
14. Does your organization have inherent value that could negatively or positively affect your core
values?
What I discovered, especi ally when I talk to employees who have been working at Swisslog for
many years and witnessed many restructuring, they have somehow a negative view regarding
new approaches and projects. For example they say that this was already done before and not
really successful integrated. Even though those employees are very committed to their job and
do a good job they might be somehow resistant to restructuring. There the openness is
somehow missing.
15. Corporate culture is very important, but it is usually hard to def ine until one violates it. What is
one thing an employee might do here that would be perceived as a violation of the company’s
culture?
No.
16. What types of people seem to excel in Swisslog?
People who would like to advance and engage themselves to achieve so mething.
Part D: Employer Value Proposition
17. What do you think about your organization as a place to work?
It is a very interesting place to work, the international field and still moderate size. We have
about 1200 employees in our division in 5 continent s. Relatively small size in each country but
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still we work together as an international team and it is manageable. We can share know -how
beyond boarders.
18. How do you retain and optimize your workforce once you have acquired it?
Provide my employees interes ting tasks so they are able to develop. Be aware what my
employees could do if they have seen everything in their current field of activity. However,
because of the size of the company, those possibilities are somehow limited. In a larger
company there ar e more options.
19. How do you balance financial and non -financial rewards to keep your employees motivated?
We use different benchmarking for financial rewards. For me personally it is adequate and also
for my employees. Nobody complained so far. Non -financia l reward respectively recognition I
communicate and congratulate my employees for successful project termination. If there is
feedback from other departments and countries I forward praise to the respective employee.
Work -life balance is an issue of ret ention as well as productivity.
20. Can you talk about your own view of how to navigate the tensions between getting the work
done and encouraging healthy lives outside the office?
In a first step each individual has to make sure it is right for her/him. Of co urse if I see an
employee works too much and her/his mood gets worse I would approach him or her to find a
solution. I think in my team respectively for my employees the work -life-balance is good.
21. What other organizations can learn about your company?
We a re not really a best practice example such as Google. However, we use things such as bike to
work, provide apples and other activities. I would like to add that Swisslog is shareholder of a
small Austrian company with about 150 to 200 employees. They devel op intralogistic solutions.
The leader (also founder of the company) integrates his philosophy very much in the company.
They have rooms to relax, project tables, open office, special organization to improve efficiency
etc. So also compared to companies in our in industry and continent we are not that advanced.
As I said Swisslog is no best practice example also without taking Google as a benchmark.
Part E: Employee engagement
22. What is your management style?
In my opinion a collaborative style and flat hie rarchy. Important is that we communicate with
each other and exchange expectations. My employees have lots of freedom and autonomy in
their execution. In general the style always depends on the kind of function and the kind of
employees. We have monthly me etings regarding projects, employee meetings given by HR and
team meetings as necessary.
23. What career planning and development opportunities you suggest to your employees?
This is mostly the employees’ responsibility to propose a further education. However , if we see
an employee has the need somewhere for an education I would suggest it to him/her. Mostly it is
the other way around.
24. What are the most difficult aspects about the communication and collaboration with employees?
The most difficult is to find th e balance between enough communication but not too much
communication. In general it is said you cannot communicate too much, however I think
sometimes it can be too much and therefore a balance is needed.
25. How do you describe the interaction between employ ees and you as a supervisor/manager?
Monthly meetings, regular contact in the office to inform each other and exchange
26. How can employees voice their ideas?
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Employee can directly communicate to me as a supervisor. I am open for inputs, requests and
ideas. I would do the same; also go to my supervisor. My supervisor or me would forward it to
the responsible person if necessary. It did happen that employees got no feedback in return.
Maybe we should have taken actions again. However, it happens especially in c ritical cases that
there is no response from the responsible person.
27. How is your experience with immediate feedback practice?
Positive direct feedback experience, I think this is very important.
28. What appraisal techniques do you use? (Rewards and recognitio n is different from appraisal)
Performance management process as given by HR. We have an appraisal management form.
Each employee is rating him -/herself and the supervisor is rating him/her. To ensure consistence
within the division, which often includes s everal teams, the supervisor and his/her supervisor,
meaning head of division as well as a person from HR together with the other supervisors of the
other teams compare and align the ratings, meaning adjust if necessary. This is to avoid that one
team lead er is rating his/her employees very mild but on the other hand another team in the
division is rated very strict.
29. What do you look for when hiring people?
Know -how, personal characteristics and therefore fit into the team
30. What is your recruitment strategy?
My own strategy is to know what I need from the business profile of the employee, so she/he is
able to execute the job. My personal strategy is to read CV and start with a phone call first,
especially when somebody is living in Germany or else. T hen when a person is invited to an
interview, I check the know -how and if the person fits in the team.
31. Does Swisslog keep its promises? (mentioned during interview?)
It was partly fulfilled. One part was fulfilled; I started as a marketing manager and then got
promoted to marketing head. On the other hand, I applied more for the strategic part of
marketing. However, I was more involved in marketing communication. So this part was not
really as promised, however nowadays change is needed etc. Currently thing s changed, we
employed an expert in strategic marketing and therefore I can now focus on this area. The
company develops and therefore such things happen.
I think in case people are not patient, the not kept promises can be a reason for employees to
termin ate the employment. There are options later on to develop but if someone is not patient
then this does not help to keep employees.
Part F: Closing
32. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
As I said at the beginning, I like the internationality, and th e industry itself as well as our products
and solutions are very interesting to me.
33. What do you not like?
No.
34. How could this be improved?
–
35. Would you like to add something important that we have not mentioned in our discussion?
No.
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Interview 13
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 13
Department: PLC (Program Logic Control )SW Engineering
Function: Software Engineer
1. How long are you working at Swisslog? almost 5 years
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
Development of customize d software and implementation
3. How did your career path at Swisslog proceed?
After university start at Swisslog as Software Engineering, in the meantime more responsibilities
Part B: Employee engagement
4. How would you describe the leadership style of your s upervisor?
Direct supervisor / team leader: Controlled is the result of the project, how I achieve it is my
responsibility. I have freedom in projects and time management and I am flexible.
Head of department: He is putting lots of efforts to represent the division in front of
management. I think there is a whole between what our division does and thinks and how the
management perceives it. There is communication between division and management but does
not get back to employees. Management does not respec t division enough, not enough
influence of division in respect to future of Swisslog. The feeling to belong to Swisslog does not
really exist.
5. How can employees voice their ideas?
I approach my direct supervisor or head of department, depending on the pro blem or request.
Within the department I feel understood. In the upper management I do not feel related to.
6. How is the interaction between employees and supervisors?
Interaction and communication works well.
7. How should a satisfying and motivating working e nvironment be?
The most important is that I like my profession, good working climate, possibility for
development and changes. Active participation in changes of products should be possible.
8. How is the working environment at Swisslog?
Active participation in product changes is only limited possible within my projects but not
beyond. If I would suggest doing bigger changes I cannot participate, this is the responsibility of
the development department, which is from my point of view very isolated. The communi cation
is difficult within Switzerland and abroad.
When I started working at Swisslog I used to have more co -workers, which created a
familiar/loyal environment. Recently, this environment started to fall apart. Even though, I get
along with the others and I can convince people from my views. For example a drink after work
with co -workers of department would be nice to improve colleagueship.
9. How could it be improved?
It depends on every individual employee. There is no general solution.
What is difficult is , that there or not that many employees between 20 and 30 years of age
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anymore. A possibility would be to have common events, however it does not change interaction
within departments.
Part C: Working conditions
10. What are the development / further education opportunities at Swisslog?
The opportunities are to develop in direction of project management or line manager. For me
personally I do not see a benefit in the further education. To reach a function, where I can have
influence, I would need to b e in a much higher function.
I would appreciate to take part and responsibilities in product development, but the product
development department blocks this. I was supposed to work about 500 hours for this
department but at the end it was not realized beca use the participation was suddenly not
welcome anymore and most activities went through department in Sweden.
Recently I got an offer to change internally but I do not know if I will accept this offer. I do not
know if I can have the participation there I would like to have.
11. Did you use an opportunity so far?
Only internal project management course, not external
12. How is your experience with the process?
No problem. Swisslog is open to suggestions.
13. How did you perceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
I perceived the recruitment very positive. Was a reason why I at that time I decided to work for
Swisslog. I received a personal dossier, I felt they took time to prepare for my interview. I had the
chance to get to know the team at the second meeting. I h ad a conversation with the current
employees and felt that we are on the same “wave -length”. First meeting with HR.
14. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said during recruitment interview?
Yes, tasks and area as promised. During employment, recently I was su pposed to work for
development (question 12.). I did work there for two weeks and because of internal decisions I
changed back to my old department. However, I am glad since I did not like the working climate
there, it was kind of sterile.
Part D: Rewards and Recognition
15. How is the reward system of Swisslog?
Function grid and salary band width. I like the system, however the bandwidth should be
communicated. To guess where you are and if it is fair is difficult.
Non -financial: company mobile phone
No bon uses.
Of course salary is necessary but is not the highest priority for me since my task variety etc. is
more important.
There are team events etc. but more as team building than compensation.
16. How does your supervisor recognise your work/efforts?
Apprais al and recognition functions well within department trough feedback etc. Appreciation of
upper management is not felt within department.
17. Are the recognition and the rewards fair?
I cannot really do a comparison therefore hard to say. But I think lower limi t.
For example the pay increase for employees was restricted to a maximum 5.5 per cent last year
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but this did not count for management. This was not fair.
18. If no. What could be improved? What kind of rewards and recognition do you expect?
I do not know. What I do not judge to be fair is how the management decisions are then broken
down to employees.
Part E: Culture and Vision
19. How would you interpret the core values of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, Commitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicate d / implemented and lived?
I personally do not work according to the values. It was introduced to me at the beginning and I
could interpret what I do according to the values but I do not live them explicitly. Of course I am
committed to my work, communicat e openly, competence is necessary and encourage
collaboration. For me those are “natural” factors. The feedback of my team shows me that I do
my tasks right and behave correctly.
20. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
No uniform culture , it rather depends on the individuals. Difficult to describe corporate culture in
general. It is an open culture, “YOU” -approach. But living a culture and communicating is
different. E.g. feedback is collected but nothing done with it and nothing giving b ack.
Regarding management I think there exists a thinking that everybody looks for him -/herself.
Somehow customer -oriented but customer is not always in the center as it should be.
21. What are the activities to improve the culture commitment? (Events, worksho ps, etc…)
At the beginning we belonged to costumer support department and had a quarterly meeting
with dinner. Now there are certain team events and department events. Sometimes a
spontaneous drink after a meeting.
22. Can you tell me about your experience wit h the approach “learning organization” (LO)?
(Feedback culture / collaboration / sharing know how)
I did receive the Learning Organization behavior rules in writing. However, for me this behavior
rules are a “natural” thing / implicitness and does not nee d to be communicated in this ways. If
there is the assumption that we are not a Learning Organization other measures should be taken.
For me there are causes for the project. In my opinion the problems are always searched for and
broken down on the employe es. Management should be a role model to make employees feel
they live it, e.g. learn from mistakes, no finger -pointing etc.
23. How would you describe the communication at Swisslog in general?
Swisslog says to be a “software -company” which all information can be accessed electronically.
However this is not really the case. Additionally I think without emails the communication would
be more open and people would not hide behind emails. For exampl e a CEO does not stand in
front of workforce to communicate decisions and reasons/ consequences. I only heard the CEO
once, talking at the Christmas event.
There was an event due to the employee survey, however nobody does stand in front to admit
mistakes , make reasoning and propose conclusions. The role model function is missing.
Part F: External Image
24. Can you describe how people from outside see Swisslog as an employer?
Swisslog is seen as a good employer as I know from my environment. The people who r eally
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know are the ones who have worked here or work here. The people who left, they know why.
Do you know the reasons of them to leave Swisslog?
Reasons are that everything is broken down to employees, employees need to take responsibility
for management actions, project manager need to justify red numbers monthly even though
project was sold unprofitable at the beginning, everything is around price and not the outcome,
there was lots of time pressure and capacity overload, however this has increased for s ure.
25. Can you describe the image of Swisslog?
I do not know. Image is not appropriate.
26. How does Swisslog communicate externally?
Communication through news, employees talking about Swisslog
Regarding customers not enough respect
27. What differentiates Swisslog from the competitors?
It is very difficult to compare with others. Beside apprenticeship firm no experience.
28. How does Swisslog attract future employees?
I do not know.
29. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
What I think Swisslog should be more active at universities of applied sciences. Not only
participate at information events. We should be better prepared for the event, inform what
other options are possible, e.g. be interview partner and do firs t interviews right there with
students. Swisslog does not use full opportunity of these events and is not prepared. I also think
regarding semester and bachelor thesis the approach could be more active.
30. Would you recommend Swisslog as an employer to your f riends?
It depends on the education and interest of this person.
Part G: Closing
31. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
I like the freedom within my projects, flexibility and integration within my department.
32. What do you not like?
Negative that the above -mentioned aspects are limited to the department.
33. How could this be improved?
Management needs to be a role model, create and live acceptance and respect. However, this is
difficult since management does not communicate properly. With that I mean ther e should not
be more newsletter etc. but face -to-face communicating.
34. What would you change at Swisslog if you could?
If I could I would replace the whole management (everything above head of department), they
are not credible and trustworthy.
35. Would you like to add something that we have not discussed yet?
No.
Interview 14
Part A: General Information
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Name: Interviewee 14
Department : Costumer Support Software
Function: Software Engineer
1. How long are you working at Swisslog ? 4 years
2. What are the main tasks of your work at Swisslog?
Programming of logistics system software, specifications for customers, support of logistics
system (picket)
3. How did your career path at Swisslog proceed?
I started as Software Engineer. My tasks did not really change over time.
Part B: Employee engagement
4. How would you describe the leadership style of your supervisor?
Since I am working in a project team I do not really have a lot of interaction with my direct
supervisor (head of department). I do not really work with him. I only have team meetings and
yearly employee appraisal with supervisor. Inside the projects I have the freedoms to execute my
tasks.
5. How can employees voice their ideas?
I approach the project manager if it is regarding the project itself. If I have any other
ideas/concerns etc. I approach my team leader. Recently an employee proposal system was
introduced. Since it is new I do not have experience with it.
6. How is the interaction between employees and supervisors?
In my team and with my direct supervisor communication is good. With the upper management
(above head department) communication or interaction does not really exist.
7. How should a satisfying and motivating working environment be?
That I like the work itself, mutual understanding in team and with d irect supervisor
8. How is the working environment at Swisslog?
From my point of view it is ideal. We have a loyal relationship, open communication within team
and department. Superior and with other departments there is not much interaction. However,
new act ions are taken for example once a month a common “mid -morning snack” for all
software employees. They are putting efforts to increase the interaction.
9. How could it be improved?
Nothing concrete. I think each individual employee should more often approach t he department
to request information etc. Stop thinking the others cannot be disturbed. Be more open.
Part C: Working conditions
10. What are the development / further education opportunities at Swisslog?
It is each employee’s own initiative to do so. If you like to do an education you can propose it to
your direct supervisor and if the development is helpful for your job they would accept it.
11. Did you use an opportunity so far?
No external education. The only option I used was an internal communication progra m organized
by Swisslog.
12. How is your experience with the process?
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I think if you would like to do a further education and it is helpful for your work at Swisslog, then
Swisslog would accept it. I don’t think there are any problems with that.
13. How did you pe rceive the recruitment process at Swisslog?
I did not go through the standard process. I did already an internship during my studies at
Swisslog. As I finished with the university I approached my current head of department for a job
offer. He told me to ye s and I got the job. The formal interview was when I started my practicum.
By that time I became aware of Swisslog because of advertising in a student magazine of the
student coalition that they offer practicum.
14. Did Swisslog keep its promises etc. said dur ing recruitment interview?
Yes. We did not discuss development opportunities or similar by that time.
Part D: Rewards and Recognition
15. How is the reward system of Swisslog?
Salary is adequate. No bonus system for employees.
16. How does your supervisor recognise your work/efforts?
We practice a “Supporter of the month award” within the department. I perceive it positive and
honest. Head department shows appreciation in half -yearly and yearly appraisal meeting by
giving feedback or I feel it in case of sa lary raise, which is performance -oriented.
With project manager in the daily business, I feel if he trusts you and delegate tasks, which he
thinks I will execute according to his expectations (indirect recognition).
17. Are the recognition and the rewards fair ?
Yes. However it is possible to earn more money at other companies.
18. If no. What could be improved? What kind of rewards and recognition do you expect?
No.
Part E: Culture and Vision
19. How would you interpret the core values of Swisslog? Competence, Collaboration, Commitment,
Clarity. And how are they communicated / implemented and lived?
It was presented to me at the beginning of my employment. I personally do not execute my tasks
according to the values. I do not live it explicitly. I think it is he althy common sense that you put
efforts in the job etc.
20. How would you describe the corporate culture at Swisslog?
I cannot really tell. “YOU -culture” facilitates communication. Within my department open
feedback. Many hierarchical levels inside company, maybe too many. Everything above head
department no communication.
21. What are the activities to improve the culture commitment? (Events, workshops, etc…)
Department events, Christmas event (whole Swisslog), unofficial weekend events (which we
organize ourse lves)
22. Can you tell me about your experience with the approach “learning organization”? (Feedback
culture / collaboration / sharing know how)
For me this approach is a chance to better handle mistakes, learn from previous projects and use
it to improve next projects. Open communication of feedback. It just started but I think it will
improve the situation. It was communicated in different ways: behavior values in salary letter,
team meetings and presentation at yearly employee information.
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23. How would you des cribe the communication at Swisslog in general?
Within the department it is ideal, beyond department and with upper management not optimal.
I personally prefer to use internal phone calls. Channels used are intranet, emails, newsletter etc.
Sometimes the information is not relevant for me. I am missing some important information
regarding general strategy, ideas etc. to better understand the actions.
Part F: External Image
24. Can you describe how people from outside see Swisslog as an employer?
I cannot. Mo st people I know they do not know Swisslog. Swisslog is unknown to people from
other industries.
25. Can you describe the image of Swisslog?
For me Swisslog is an attractive employer. From customer perspective I am not sure, since not all
our products have a g ood image regarding quality. Projects fail because of unnecessary reasons.
Better strategies for product development should be implemented.
26. How does Swisslog communicate externally?
I only know they have a website. Additionally, they participate at the con tact mess at the ETH. I
do not know how the execution is.
27. What differentiates Swisslog from the competitors?
The working conditions are very convenient, e.g. flexible working hours, holidays etc. For me the
industry is interesting.
28. How does Swisslog attract future employees?
I do not know.
29. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
I do not know.
30. Would you recommend Swisslog as an employer to your friends?
Yes.
Part G: Closing
31. What do you like about wo rking at Swisslog?
The working conditions and the interaction with the team.
32. What do you not like?
Beside the communication with upper management, I would like to be informed about the long –
term strategic goals and similar. They are putting efforts to impr ove it. However, from my point
of view it is not optimal. It has not reached all the levels yet. I have trust in my department head.
If they can influence the upper level I do not know.
33. How could this be improved?
Swisslog is pretty unknown. Maybe regardin g recruiting, Swisslog could sell itself better on the
labor market. For example be more present and interactive at universities. There is more
potential to be used.
34. What would you change at Swisslog if you could?
Nothing beside the points I mentioned befo re.
35. Would you like to add something that we have not discussed yet?
A motivation is always the job itself. If this is not satisfying for me, then the other aspects such as
culture etc. cannot influence if I stay or leave.
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Interview 15
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 15
Field of work: Head Software Buchs, Realisation
How long have you been working in this field?
Leading function of department (at the moment 17 employees with goal to raise to 20)
I have been working at Swisslog for 20 years. I started in an engineering function, changed to
software engineer, then software project manager and then division manager of software
department .
Part B: Employer brand
1. How would you define your employer brand in two or three words?
Swisslog off ers flexibility and freedom for employees, represents good employer
2. How does the labour market perceive you as an employer?
We offer especially expect careers, which is positive. For example if we look for new employees
at universities it is very favourabl e. You can enter as engineering and then develop to
management.
3. How do you sell yourself at labour market?
We are an international company with many locations around the world and do offer job
rotation also across borders.
4. What are the fields for improveme nt?
To find good employees in our field (software) is very difficult since labour market is drying -out.
Therefore we did think about our appearance and got in touch with universities of applied
sciences. We collaborate with FHNW Windisch, provide projects for semester and bachelor
thesis. Furthermore, we have job advertising at university to sell the expert career Swisslog
offers.
5. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
Activities have taken place ( question 4.)
6. What differentiates Swisslog from its competitors?
We did not really compare ourselves in this respect to other employers. However, I think we are
an innovative company but it could be improved and strengthen.
In other respects, we have prod ucts of which we can be proud, e.g. autostore.
Regarding IT we are making a generation change, we change from classical programming to java.
Part C: Culture
7. How would you describe the learning organization (LO) project?
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When I heard about it the first time it was a confirmation for me that we do things already the
right way. It is positive that we talk about it, take it serious and integrate it so that employees
believe it.
Which aspects do you already practice in your a rea?
For example project reviews, we draw lessons learned from the project, we just introduced a tool
so employees can provide own inputs and ideas and we communicate it. We engage employees.
However, we need to proof the survival of the tool. Many such ac tions were taken but were then
not implemented well, which means the actions failed and employees loose confident in such
projects.
I am a learning organization activist and from my point of view the right people are in place to
make this implementation su ccessful. I “pre -live” the values and behavior.
8. What tools do you use to communicate this project to employees?
I as an LO -activist was introduced to it by a workshop. I communicate decisions and so on out of
the LO to my employees through meetings and my daily work. In general we try to reduce the
silo-thinking within and across department boarders. However, there are boarders, which cannot
be broken. In my area “realization” we have a low hierarchy, we communicate openly and direct
and good collaboration. On the other side the communication with the area “product
development” is sometimes difficult. The LO project started well, we are working on it and take
risks to reach improvements. The question now is how to keep the project alive and realize
successfu lly.
9. If you could describe your corporate culture in three words, what would you say?
Calculated risk is taken, adjust to changes, innovative, familiar environment, freedom at work,
open culture, common events.
10. How do people within your organization commun icate this culture?
Lived in daily business
11. If you were going to give public tours of this company, what stops would the guide make?
I show new employees our building, where they see how open everything is. Our office consists
of project rooms, smaller and bigger one. Furthermore, we have a laboratory to demonstrate the
products, have a visualisation.
12. What is the best part about working in this environment that I won't be able to see from just a
walk around the office?
Flexibility and Freedom
13. What stands be hind your core values? What do they mean for you? How do your employees see
them? Are those values reflected in employees’ behavior? If no, what is missing or required for
that?
Core values are communicated to new employees. However, employees do not perce ive the
pyramid positively. Especially new employees take note of it but do not integrate it into the
work. This approach was not really integrated but the LO is now. For me the LO approach
“replaces” core values and LO should be emphasized.
14. Does your orga nization have inherent value that could negatively or positively affect your core
values?
Low performing people are not acceptable.
15. Corporate culture is very important, but it is usually hard to define until one violates it. What is
one thing an employee might do here that would be perceived as a violation of the company’s
culture?
Low performer in a project team is not acceptable. If an employee does not fulfill requirements,
supervisor searches the communication. Open and direct communication to solve pr oblems.
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16. What types of people seem to excel in Swisslog?
People, who are willing to perform. E.g. we have a rating of employees A, AA and AAA at
Swisslog. My department consists of employees with rating A and AA. If employee is going below
A, my task is to motivate this employee. I would do it in form of a further education and
therefore give employee new perspective. In case employee does not fit job profile anymore, an
internal change would be possible. Main goal is to keep employee inside company. Especia lly
know -how of employee is important for us.
Part D: Employer Value Proposition
17. What do you think about your organization as a place to work?
Good employer and place to work, flexible
18. How do you retain and optimize your workforce once you have acquired it?
Career development opportunities / further education internally and externally
19. How do you balance financial and non -financial rewards to keep your employees motivated?
Salary system: Salary function grid and salary band width. This helps to show an employee over
time how the salary will increase. Important is that the employees feel to be in the right band
width. However, adjustments in salary should be made according to current market situation.
Career development opportunities are also a motivator for employees.
Work -life balance is an issue of retention as well as productivity. Can you talk about your own
view of how to navigate the tensions between getting the work done and encouraging healthy
lives outside the office?
There used to be a time with high productivity expectations, which actually just caused the
opposite. However, measures were taken to adjust those expectations and budget to have room
for further education and similar. For me work -life balance is very important. It is part of my
performance management. Is an objective in personal goals of employees. I can for example
influence that the employee cuts the line during his/her vacation to really enjoy the vacation.
20. What other organizations can learn about your company?
Expert career devel opment opportunity
Part E: Employee engagement
21. What is your management style?
Direct supervision, freedom/autonomy of employees within projects, present for needed
support, open -door policy, take part at project meetings once in a while to see how projec ts are
running, back -up and support employees internally and externally.
22. What career planning and development opportunities you suggest to your employees?
In general it is the employee’s responsibility to suggest further education opportunities and we
(line manager) decide on it. Development is available and possible. The available time for further
education was improved, especially because of the generation change of the software
(workshops etc. necessary). Additionally, in my department employees have 4 hours per month
to educate themselves by reading expert journals or similar.
23. What are the most difficult aspects about the communication and collaboration with employees?
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In general the communication and collaboration of employees and supervisors is going well. Also
interaction with upper management in realization department is functioning well. However, the
interaction with upper management is difficult in product development department. What could
be improved is the collaboration between the two departme nts and communication of upper
management and division manager.
24. How do you describe the interaction between employees and you as a supervisor/manager?
Monthly meetings, regular contact
25. How can employees voice their ideas?
Recently new tools introduced for idea voicing out of LO project. Initiative from Swisslog CH. At
Swisslog Buchs the main workforce is located.
Drawback: Not all suggestion of employees can be taken into consideration as a matter of time
or relevance. Two many projects at a time is not pos sible and not successful.
26. How is your experience with immediate feedback practice?
Positive direct feedback experience.
27. What appraisal techniques do you use? (Rewards and recognition is different from appraisal)
Salary and further education. I use praise and appraisal on a frequent basis, I am honest in this
communication.
28. What do you look for when hiring people?
How does a person approach a task? How is her/his appearance? Characteristics? Social
competence? And then I check her/his technica l know -how.
29. What is your recruitment strategy?
Process together with HR: First interview with HR and a second interview with my supervisor and
me.
30. Does Swisslog keep its promises? (mentioned during interview?)
For myself the recruitment was long ago. It co uld happen that some promises are not all kept
since changes take place daily. However, we did improve the introduction stage for new
employees. They get the chance to get familiar with other departments, making appointments to
visit other areas. Additiona lly, we have a godfather program in place to facilitate introduction
stage. However, time is always an issue either of godfather or direct supervisor.
Part F: Closing
31. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
Autonomy and freedom
Internal changes/development possible
32. What do you not like?
I do not like the communication between realization department and product development. This
is an “old” issue and lots of effort was done to improve the situation. An adequate solution was
not found yet.
33. How could this be improved?
We tried to open the boarders of the two departments through global meeting, request in
writing in advanced. However at the meeting, the peopled involved sold everything in a positive
light. Therefore nothing changed.
34. Would you like to add something important that we have not mentioned in our discussion?
In general time pressure and performance pressure are issues, which are reflected overall in the
employee survey.
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Interview 16
Part A: General Information
Name: Interviewee 16
Field of work: Head of customer service and customer support in Switzerland. That includes insuring
maintenance and continuous support of installed base of logistic systems. Help desks and all the
software aspects. Another filed of work is mechanical and operational support.
How long have you been working in this field? 12 years
Part B: Employer brand
1. How would you define your employer brand in two or three words?
Flexibility, education programs, good compensation for the work done. Challenge is innovation
and poor compensation for the young employees. Innovation is not enough communicated,
promoted and supported. Many ideas have been created bit not processed and implemented,
just left without attention. F.e. the recent Google Light interaction project turned not that
successful as expected. For every employee was created the account and given 4 hours per
month to communicate, share ideas, know how, make internet research and come up with new
fresh initiatives. We are still running it and we have just 40 hours recorded from 100 of
employees. It is turned out to be not very useful.
2. How does the labour market perceive you as an employer?
Not sure there but we have a very strong position as a logistic supplier company. We are a strong
player in inter logistics, operating globally. We are probably 2nd or 3d at the market. But we are
short of own inventions. Our company is a fast follower and not pioneer. That could be our
drawback. Risk averse management and slow decision making process is probably the main
reason for lack of innovation and more follower projects.
3. How do you sell yourself at labour market?
Official events of the universities. Size, capable people, potential.
4. What are the fields for improvement?
Support of ideas by management, taking risk.
5. What could be improved in order to attract employees and strengthen the image of Swisslog?
Recruitment process in defining job requirements and fit people to this position. (Java -Oracle
example)
Decision making process done not considering the employees we have.
No connection between company product strategy and employees requirements (skills pool)
6. What differentiates Swisslog from its competitors?
Global presence, ability to integrate complex projects.
Part C: Culture
7. How would you describe t he learning organization project
I get support form managers if I do activities in this direction. But it is too early to talk about the
outcomes because it is too young initiatives. (Google light approach.)
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Helps to improve interaction between managers an d employees. The next step should be to
bring people to come up with some good ideas and work with them. Silo thinking is very strong.
8. What tools do you use to communicate this project to employees?
It is communicated on the management level. Official com munications were led, but I am for less
communication and more acting in this direction to be a role model. To make employees act
that way I take the ideas and give feedback, define time for them and work on it.
9. If you could describe your corporate cultu re in three words, what would you say?
10. How do people within your organization communicate this culture?
11. If you were going to give public tours of this company, what stops would the guide make?
12. What is the best part about working in this environment that I won't be able to see from just a
walk around the office?
13. What stands behind your core values? What do they mean for you? How do your employees see
them? Are those values reflected in employees’ behavior? If no, what is missing or required for
that?
14. Does yo ur organization have inherent value that could negatively or positively affect your core
values?
Corporate culture is very important, but it is usually hard to define until one violates it. What is
one thing an employee might do here that would be perceiv ed as a violation of the company’s
culture? Free riding.
15. What types of people seem to excel in Swisslog?
Innovative, achievers
Part D: Employer Value Proposition
16. What do you think about your organization as a place to work?
17. How do you retain and optimize your workforce once you have acquired it?
18. How do you balance financial and non -financial rewards to keep your employees motivated?
Work -life balance is an issue of retention as well as productivity. Can you talk about your own
view of how to navigate the t ensions between getting the work done and encouraging healthy
lives outside the office?
19. What other organizations can learn about your company?
Part E: Employee engagement
20. What is your management style?
I try to support my subordinates in creative actions and give them a lot of freedom.
21. What career planning and development opportunities you suggest to your employees?
When I see the potential talent, I intend to suggest the leadership programs or lead the inter –
team project.
22. What are the most difficult aspe cts about the communication and collaboration with employees?
There is no problem with interaction between employees within team or department but not the
outside. The main problem is the understanding of the message between the employees from
different de partments. Here we can have an issue with customer service or others.
23. How do you describe the interaction between employees and you as a supervisor/manager?
Friendly, trustful and very open.
24. How can employees voice their ideas?
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Google light
25. How is your exp erience with immediate feedback practice?
I not always have time for that, but try to do it immediately.
26. What appraisal techniques do you use? (Rewards and recognition is different from appraisal)
Team meeting with thanks and granting of bottle of wine i s one of the options for special efforts.
27. What do you look for when hiring people?
Cultural match, besides skills of employees.
28. What is your recruitment strategy?
I am not involved directly in employment process, but the thin g I would suggest to HR team to
pay more attention on what do they promise to applicants and make sure that all the promises
for development are fulfilled.
29. Does Swisslog keep its promises?
(mentioned during interview?)
Part F: Closing
30. What do you like about working at Swisslog?
I like challenging work and working environment, particularly people.
31. What do you not like?
I can’t find anything. Or, maybe this cautious of being the first, innovative from the executives
‘side. And probably lack of responsib ility for mistakes conducted by upper level.
32. How could this be improved?
Take risks but figure out first what the market knows and what do customers know.
33. Would you like to add something important that we have not mentioned in our discussion?
No.
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6.2. Interview s to experts
Interview to expert 1
Name: Prof. Rodolfo Ciucci
Expert in competitiveness and reputation
Communication management
Reputation management
Internal communication
Part A: General Information
Field of work:
Studies: Diploma in Public Relations management
Executive diploma in company management
Communication management (from internal to external communication) for more than 20 years
Lecture for communication at FHNW for last 2 years
Reputation management
Branding
Internal communication
How long have you been working in this field? Since 25 years
Part B: Questionnaire
1. What does internal communication consists of?
How communication is happening in the company, it can be:
Management communication
Communication among peers
Functional communication related to the job
HR communication (everything that happens in the HR field)
To communicate the employee value proposition
Cultural related items like events and rituals are also communicating something
The companies have to bring whatever they are doing in line
2. What are the best ways to communicate internally? (cheap and effective)
Social media for example would you consider social media as one of the best ways to
communicate?
Channel wise you will miss what kind of communication is.
Communication is not only top -down; it can be bottom -up, and across the company.
The most effective communication happens orally.
All the media channels that you can implement in a company are in essence supporting whatever
happens between people and what they share between people
The best way is to know what you want to communicate and what the communication topics are,
the objectives, know the audience, and depending on all of these then choose the most effective
tools.
There is no cheap way.
You thi nk strategically and then you implement what media or what channel s suit to the task and
company.
TOOLS
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Nowadays you use a lot of online media however the multitude of channels and tools would not
help communication it rather will create wide noise.
It ma kes it difficult to come through with the message because there are going to be so many
messages that the people will not know what to pick or choose.
The more communication tools that you use to communicate in the company, the more that the
employees wil l feel informed because they do not know what relevance individual
communication has.
The message will lose value.
STRATEGY
Know what you want to communicate
Think about your company
Think about your stakeholders
Look at stakeholder’s needs and then implem ent a suitable strategy.
There are individual solutions. No overall solution.
3. How can a company use social media to communicate internally and externally?
Social media help image/reputation?
It is not a media that is going to make an image. It is the message, the coherence between your
behavior and message and the way you are communicating consistent or not.
First if you want to create an image or more a reputation then you have to align your culture,
and visions to your communications and behavior. On ly then you will be able to improve your
image, reputation through media in long term. But you cannot just focus on the tools.
Companies which strongly focus on the tools (e.g. online media) would not be able to solve their
problems, eventually they will i ncrease.
Before entering in the online world, companies should ask themselves what kind of strategy they
have.
Every company needs a website. It has to be a good website, has to correspond to the company
and to their core philosophy.
Example: Big companies like APPLE are not in social media so why should you be there?
Only if you have something to offer through this channel, then yes. You can do tests, and plan it
slowly, and look if social media is helping you or not.
Not necessary because is helping to ot hers, it means that will help you.
Problem: to attract people, therefore we are asking us if social media will help them to promote
themselves.
Check the employee value proposition. It is competitive or not.Ask to people who are not
working at the company, why they don’t apply for the company?
Talk with people that had an interview but they choose not to enter in the company.
Talk to the employees going out of the company. Why?
These are potential sources for research.
What are the issues of the company?
Visibility, consistency, value proposition is not good enough you have to go after the real
causes and then see w hat communication can do there.
4. What does it take to be an internal communicator?
Internal communicator as a manager
If there is lack of trust critical incident analysis, it could help you to how management reacts
to failures, to critical situations where employees has spoken out something bad about the
company.
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It takes empathy, openness, and trust.
By creating, having trust and allowing peop le to speak.
Communication cultures are linked to openness, to the feeling that you can speak out will
directly affect others or not
Do you think that this can vary in terms of specialization (career)?
Certainly there are profession with more skills to manage a company and others not.
By engineers you can see that those skills related to communication are weaker than in others
professions.
DISCOVER: You have first to look at the top before you go to the people below. You cannot say
be open and honest if the top management does not allow you to be open and punish to the
people being honest (Cultural pyramid).
ASK: Who is at the very top? Does the CEO allow open communication? What about the line
managers?
TRAINNING: you can train the top management first a nd then go to the rest of the employees . It
always has to be top -down.
5. How can the management maintain a good communication among the employees?
The management should allow an open, frank and honest communication, by setting up the right
tools.
Frist you n eed a culture of communication like: open, honest, direct. Then you need tools which
use this culture of communication like meetings, events, platforms depending on the task and
communication.
Additionally, management treatment where they communicate very clear written during year,
they should speak about results, problems arising, team meetings, things that have been decided
by the Executive Board and everybody should know, set a clear calendar when things have to be
communicated and support it with tools. Here you can use social media tools only as long as they
are task oriented, and are adequate to carry the whole message that you have. It depends on
how complex it is, emotional you want to be and so you pick the tool
6. Do you think that a bad communication can result on lack of trust?
Yes, and not only in lack of trust but also means a lot of costs. If there is a lack of trust you cannot
discover errors in the right time.
7. If yes, how are these two things related?
If there is bad communication then you will have to deal with bad habits.
You are going to lose a lot of possibilities to skill the company, employee’s and customer’s
satisfaction, employee’s motivation; eventually you could lose good people, you don’t get the
right people that you desired to have on board because this affects reputation. This is like a
domino effect.
Bad communication gives results directly in the bottom line
8. How does poor communication affect to employees? (Work environment, employee
engagement, etc.)
Dissatisfaction, lack of trust, constantly search for answers, rumours, psychological contract, lack
of confidence among employees and as an employer, lack of motivation
Is bad communication related to reputation?
Certainly is related to reputation. Satisfaction at the workplace, employee alignment, open and
honest communication, trust that affects directly to reputation.
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Reputation is created by the employees, who are speaking out, speaking to their peers, who are
going outside. All of these are reflected in the reputation that t hey build in the society,
community, potential employees.
So if a company has issues in positioning itself in the job market, so they should pay attention to
the issue because they are competing with companies who want also to attract the same people,
they have to compete not only in the salary because loan is not all but in motivation because this
will get the right persons on board. So if they don’t get this people they are losing opportunities
paying high opportunity cost
9. What could a company do in ord er to maintain a good image and reputation?
Building a strong corporate culture, strong corporate identity, part this identity is the internal
mind setting that they have to build up.
It is a joint effort between the management, HR department, communicatio n, the way that
employees are treated and promoted, the way management decisions are taken.
Important is to look into the culture and identity, which encompasses internal communication by
heart.
About internal communication we should look at first at the t op management.
Because management set the culture by how they decide, behave, treat the employee, and it is
seen from everybody in the company and everybody will act accordingly to what they see.
Therefore is important first to look at the critical inciden t analysis in order to find out how the
management really behaves, what signals do they send to the employees that makes them not
saying what they will/think. If you are able to identify these signals and to treat this properly
then the rest will follow th em by themselves.
Can you talk more about this critical incident analysis?
It is a tool used to observe how the management react by critical situations.
Example: if you go to you superior with bad news, how does he react?
Will he coach you? Or will he puni sh you?
Or when somebody doesn’t deliver the expected results, how does the manger react?
You will find out all related to communication and employee’s silence.
Company silence is one of the worst things that can happen in a company and this can bring bad
consequences for the company in long term, like mediocrity, lose market share, lose profit
10. How can a company communicate a good image/reputation internally and externally?
You can communicate a good image/reputation through examples and tools.
Once you hav e a good message, and content then you need to have the channels and skills to
communicate it. The people and tools are going to communicate this looking at the company.
How it sets up. You have to build up the communication architecture. What communicatio n goes
to the employees through which channels? And then you install some institution channels which
would stay for certain period of time.
It can be personal, written, online communication channels. This is part of the communication
architecture.
Once yo u have analyzed the company and found out the issues, you can develop the company
communication architecture.
One part of the job is not only to see what people think about communication, better to look at
what they have in place to communicate! And they see if the things that they have correspond to
their employees. It is a thing that related the management, corporate and communication
culture or do they don’t have the right tools in place to communicate properly.
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However there are a lot of tools, like ch ange management program which needs emotions and
you need dialog; or information where you just need mass -communication through a media
channel.
When it is a dialog oriented company, immediate feedback, support is important. It doesn’t have
to be financia l support.
According to policy of the company, have to be set the communication tools and channels.
11. Do you think that internal communication and the reputation of the company are related?
Yes, there are empirical studies which prove that.
12. If yes, How?
You have evidence that companies which have a good employee communication, they have good
reputation. And good employee’s communication makes happy customers.
13. How can a company improve their reputation?
By aligning their identity which means having a strong vi sion, culture, doing the right things
according to vision and culture, so having the right capabilities to implement the vision and live
the culture and with this they can close the loop in helping their audiences really create the
proper image of themselv es a balance.
GRAPH:
14. If you have a company which is weak and
the perception is also bad (red point) what
to do?
You have to move both things together
according to the line, in order to have the
right combination of perception and
strength.
If you are str ong enough but the people
outside doesn’t perceive you (green point)
so then what to do?
You have to promote yourself through
communication in order to gain the attention of the people.
It is a mix you have to ask yourself if the reputation that you have r eflects really what you are.
On one hand we have the worst scenario which is when your company is the red square because
the people outside think that you are good but you are weak and if they find out that you are
weak and you are not what they thought yo u will lose their confidence. On the other hand the
best position is to be situated in the green square because you are strong and also good outside.
012345678
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Percerption
Strenght WORST BEST
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Interview to experts 2
Name: Prof. Margaret Oertig
Expert in: Organizational behaviour
Part A: General Information
Field of work:
1996 organizational behaviour and culture by Roche
1998 set own company
How long have you been working in this field? 12 to 13 years of intercultural management work
Part B: Questionnaire
1. What are the most important things for a successful organizational culture?
Definitely the ability to reflect what is happening in daily business because people are so busy
that often cannot see the big picture.
“You cannot see the wood for the trees, you are looking to the next tree and you need a
helicopter to see the whole forest and to see what is growing where and how all the parts are
interacting with each other.”
Example: At the beginning is a small company and suddenly grows. At the beginning you didn’t
have an HR department but then you n eed to hire HR professionals because what you had is no
longer meeting the needs of the particular organization. Therefore you may have someone in HR
who is good administratively but it is not strategic, or there are not good in understanding
personalities , motivation of high flying people like managers that are ambitious, technical
experts. You need to have the right people.
The most important thing is to know what is going on everywhere and to see if the current
structure goes accordingly to the company, if your people are the right people for helping, and
supporting the company.
HR = Forester, they know everything what is growing in the forest
2. How can you maintain this good organizational culture?
If you want to maintain anything you should have got into your performance objectives of key
people so when somebody comes to the meeting at the end of the year and you ask how you
have been doing, how you performed, have you achieve your targets, people will meet their
targets and may neglected of anything else.
So anything that you want that happens has to be given to the employees as a task and will be
measured.
Especially in Switzerland self -motivation was very important, people taking responsibilities by
themselves but nowadays the environment has become so complex that self -motivation, self –
responsible doesn’t work anymore. You need to be forced into areas of the organization that you
normally would not feel responsible for in order to maintain a good organizational culture.
Make the goals of many people to work on different aspects of organizational culture.
Through employees survey you can find out how well it is working. Then you can asses the
problem in order to solve it.
Example: the company has a communication problem at certain level and of certain type,
between marketing and technical people and then you conduct a survey and find that out. So in
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order to solve the problem you can give trainings, build teams, and hire a consultant that can
assess you and help you.
So if you don’t check it again 1 or 2 years later, the probably that it goes back like before is very
high.
So you need to make someone responsible in order that take a constant look on it and work on
it.
If you find out a problem you have also to treat it and solve it and also to check it in order that it
maintains the same level and does not go back.
3. How can you encourage cooperation within and between departments?
By using “superficial things” like team build ing, events, is not enough. What make people
cooperate is when they have goals in common and they are rewarded together.
The worst thing is to let departments compete with each other because then they become non
cooperative.
Example: there is a bowl of ide as which is fulfilled with ideas from 3 different international teams
and they have to research and invent new things together. During a meeting they have to share
and pull their knowledge so that they can together the idea behind is knowledge synergy. But
they are also asses individually in their respective countries and this is contradictory and lead to
misunderstanding of common goals. Because on one hand you have the goal of collaboration and
on the other hand they have to deliver something alone for yo ur country too.
As a result they end up competing with each other and one may close its side, the 3 groups are
scared of pulling knowledge together.
At the end one side will not share its knowledge and only will try to get the ideas from the other
two, bu t this will not be for long time because the other 2 groups will not let it happen again
which leads to no one cooperating.
It is like the prisoners dilemma: you can and would cooperate then you give something and if you
don’t cooperate or give it then th e others will also not give anything and then you all lose.
Therefore is very important to know how to reward those groups.
You should not reward people for biting others. You should not reward single departments that
have been competing or cooperating wit h each other.
SUMMARY:
Common goals that everybody is motivated
Reward or punish teams outcome or group work which means to the whole group and not
separately.
So try to set common goals and these are rewarded which is beneficial for everybody to achieve
those goals.
Reward does not have to be financial; it could be a good performance appraisal. It depends on
the company rewarding system.
Rewards are also important when they are symbolic because people like to know that they are
appreciated and the bosses are happy about the results.
A company is like a family so it is possible that there is completion but they also like to be
rewarded for the good job; that you take the time to hear what they want to say or the problems
that they have.
All of these questio ns’ answer is about communication
4. What is for you a good management?
It depends on the personality of the manager.
Being a good management is to be in the right job that matches with your style.
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Source:http://www.creativeorgdesign.com/arti
cle.htm?id=112&title=Managing_Conflicts_Effe
ctively If you are a manager on charge of people then you have to be able to motivate them and you
need empathy and at the same time to be competitive.
By competitive style, it refers to conflict model from Thomas and Killmann:
What style people tend to use in different situations?
Example: when people are calm, they are more cooperative, they listen a lot to others.
When things get stormy; they take a stand and say we are going to do this way.
If you are a manager you have to be able to refuse what people want you to do, because if you
get into them all the time then you are not managing them so you have to have a certain amount
of driven competitiveness, which you are not using all the time.
It has to be a balance sometimes you will give people what they want and other times you will be
very collaborative and listen to th em in sense that you push what you want.
5. What are indicators for a good management – employee relationship?
You know it from direct feedback of the employees.
It is a political question: good management for the people you manage or for the people above
or for the customers at the end would you get a good product?
Customers are happy when they get that feeling that inside the company all works.
Happy employees or project teams work better so given a better result and customers will notice
it.
As things get m ore political and global, people have less trust in the industry. Even though this
came very late to Switzerland compare to Anglo countries.
At the end you can look good to your manager but maybe your product will not be good, of
course the management doe sn’t know it but the customer does and employees too.
In terms of working in technical issues the Swiss way (stick to the tradition) has been more
successful. Because for technical issues you need people to know each other very well in order to
solve thing s that are going wrong.
Conflict management model – conflict which means
interacting which each other.
If you are very highly assertive but not caring about others then
you are in competitive.
If you are highly assertive and cooperative then you are
collaborative.
But if you are highly cooperative but not assertive then you are
accommodating (given to the others what they want) and this is
a disaster for a manager.
If you want to be a manager yo u should be collaborative a lot of
the time but also be competitive.
As a manager you have to make sure that things happen,
because they will not happen by their own.
How to have a good employee relationship?
Regular communication
By promoting the best ways of communication, putting ground rules so people feel sure E.g. if I
send you (as my boss) an email do I have the right to have my emails answered? Do you have to
answer all the emails that I send you?
6. How to make an attractive work environment?
Good working environments are where people feel appreciated, that they are not being used. Fig. 1: Conflict management model
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A good work environment doesn’t have too much politics, because the impor tant thing is your
job, what you are doing and which is challenging for you
7. How can you motivate people?
Appreciating the job
Rewarding a good job
Supporting people
Giving clear goals
Understanding people
Communicating, listening to others
By not demotivating them, moving their offices e.g. some companies move employees’ offices in
order to make them understand that they depend on the company.
There are a lot of demotivators. Try to identify them!
People who left the company were because they felt insecure in the work environment which
was provoked by moving their working places.
Missing tools for make their work is also a demotivator, and when they cannot communicate this
need then employees are suffering a lot more because they need this “software ” in order to
make a good job.
8. Are there some inherent values in some individuals that make them more motivated than
others?
Absolutely but it is very difficult to classify it and document it.
There are some people who want to show that they are academic, they can produce data and
use information and they want to be appreciated for it where others want to be appreciated
because of their selling skills and etc.
If people work to live (work is most important) then this proportion of the private life is very
important.
Example: there are people who are workaholics they are more motivated for being working but
you also have to appreciate them a lot and this is a risk. It is not only to give them more work to
do because then they will be disappointed, they want c hallenges.
There are people inherent motivated for work but they have to be appreciated and the managers
have to take care of this.
Inherent values can motivate people in different ways in order to achieve things, which depends
on the personality. E.g. som e want to be the best (competitive) and others collaborative.
9. What kind of nonfinancial rewards do you recommend for engineers?
Ask to engineers directly what they would like to have in order to do not make mistakes or to
disappoint them
Offer training cou rses
Conferences abroad
Seminars abroad
By allowing them to attend important meetings, which will be paid by the company. E.g. by
paying 1st class flight tickets in order to attend the meeting will make them feel special.
The company will be spending money on employees but they would know that the company
appreciate them and also they are important for the company.
10. How can you attract experts to a company?
By offering an attractive career development path.
There is a problem if there is not good career stru cture.
Career path have to be look at.
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11. How can you retain those experts?
Same thing with career development path
There is no motivation if you know that you have to wait until somebody retires in order to get a
better position. Therefore start by looking at the structural organization, if there is somebody
from the upper -level who can move to a side and would like to share the tasks that he/she has. It
can be the administrative tasks for the new one while the top manager is still doing the
consulting part.
Moreover an inferior employee will feel challenged and motivated because will have some
interesting tasks from the upper -level to do.
People don’t have to know that they will get tomorrow a promotion, they just want to be sure
that it is a possibility of promotion which incentives you to work harder in order to get it.
Some people will wait until they get an upper position but there are others which won’t
therefore you have to make space in the upper -level for those people willing to move.
It can be a long -term promotion; it doesn’t have to be from one day to another.
Therefore you have to rethink about your whole career path.
NOTE: If using information given please inform Ms Oertig
Interviews to experts 3
Name: Prof. Erhard Lüthi
Expert in: International Human Resource Management
HR Strategy
Part A: General Information
Field of work:
FHNW HR Functions
HR functions for global industries and Banks
Recruitment processes for Europe and Arabia
Manage global projects
How long have you been working in this field? From 20 to 30 years
Part B: Employer branding & Culture
1. What is employer branding from your point of view?
It is a brand.
Example: Google has about 1000 applications per week worldwide without any advertisement,
because Google is very attractive and it has a brand.
Why is Google attractive? Because they have tools behind like flexible work time and good work
environment. It is very attractive for young people and Google is very creative so its tactic is to
be a dynamic company.
That is what people think but you can also hear it from people who are working there and so
Google has set its brand as a good employer.
By checking the ranking of companies’ brand you can see that position is occupied by the same
companies. It can vary but not much because after few years you recover always your position
back.
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Once you have a brand you have a lot of advantages, like cost.
This means t hat as a well -known company a lot of people would like to join your company even
though you offer a lower loan but for those people willing to enter means a good
recommendation in their CVs therefore they do not care about the loan.
Moreover huge well -know n companies often pay below the market level and they can afford it
because they have a lot of applicants, good applicants.
Branding is very important. A company should never underestimate branding and also should
take care that is a good branding and not a bad branding because this can raise application
issues.
2. What is the key factor in building a company image as employer of choice?
It depends on different factors:
1. Age e.g. if you are young you are interested on the career development program, what are
you offering for me? Can I make a career? Can I go abroad? Flexibility of the job. But if you
get older you are interested on rent, sure pension, and stable company. A company should
offer things according to their employees’ age.
2. Employees e.g. employee pe rsonality, what I am looking for? Do I have creative or innovative
people? Best examples are Google, Apple, and E -bay. Do I have analytical people? They will
focus more on tax office, financial sectors.
3. Kind of job that you offer e.g the job that you are o ffering is rare. If you want to be in the
military, then you have to go for the military service. Even they do not get a high salary their
kind of job is very interesting that makes them to choose it.
KEY: What are your interests? Depending on that you hav e to think about the whole package and
offer something accordingly.
Think about the profile of the people that you want to attract, this define at the end also your
culture that you have.
If you have a very high incentive system from compensation system,
High variable part and a low fixed part is suitable for risk averse people attractive for risky
persons but also dangerous for the company e.g. banking sector
But for people who are interested in the culture of the company, and not only on money you
should design a special compensation package.
At the end you can design variable models accordingly to the people that you want to attract,
therefore is not only one key factor which matters.
What do you think is attractive for engineers?
The company should offer a serious work environment and organizational culture.
They should offer an attractive career development path which is suitable for engineers. E.g.
Expert, leadership, or project management paths.
What is attractive? And to which population I would like to be attractive?
Example: if the company would like to attract young engineers, which just come out of school.
Would you offer him a leadership path?
You should never forget which whom you are competing in the market. You have to find out
those add o n which you could offer in order to be competitive in the job market.
Identify your competitive advantage. A company should not only concentrate on compensation,
as competitive advantage.
Very careful with standardization, do not try to copy your competito r otherwise you will never
get a competitive advantage.
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3. What is the best way to communicate core corporate values?
The best way to communicate the core corporate values is to live it and the people will speak
about it.
Example: it is like going to a restau rant most of the times you do not check it on internet, you ask
to your friend, family, etc. You listen or pay attention to the hints
It is like when you hear about a company and know the company but you have never work there
e.g Apple you know that is a v ery innovative company. Why do you know that? Because you see
it in their products, you read it on the newspaper; you hear it by their published booklets and
you feel it.
So the best way to communicate it is to make people feel these corporate values just by hearing
your company’s name.
A company should think about what and how they want to communicate.
It should choose the right channels.
By living corporate values employees will communicate and transmit this to the outside.
It exists silo thinking in each department, how to overcome it?
It is a culture issue.
It takes from 3 to 5 years to change a culture.
This change should be driven by the management board.
Sometimes is difficult for the top management to realize about the change that the culture of the
company need because they are thinking on the profit of the company. If the company is making
profit why they should change it?
Culture change questions for the management: Are they really willing to change it? Do they see
the sense of changing the culture ? If not forget it!
If yes, then for breaking silo thinking you could do team work between departments, job
rotation, and career program by sending people from one department to another to try things
and get experienced.
But changing culture is very diffic ult and they should start by making a deep analysis of how the
can change this culture.
Silo thinking is often related to performance management system. E.g. if I am paid for my goals
and objectives achieved I will not care about my colleagues or team.
For this company in particular happens due to mergers, what do you think about it?
It is very usual that a merger fails due to cultural issues.
It does not mean that they come from different countries; it means different corporate cultures
and organizational behaviour.
If in the company exists people who would not like to change then they should leave the
company otherwise a change will be impossible.
4. How to understand whether the candidate really match with the corporate culture?
Critical incident technique (CIT) explains how you can prepare questions about behaviour.
It is important that during the recruitment interview the interviewer ask some questions about
behaviour. These questions should be relevant for the company and t he job that he/she is
applying.
a. Ask to the interviewee to describe a specific situation that he/she had.
b. Which action did she/he take
c. What was the result
By analysing the action that the action that the interviewee took, you can say if he/she match
with the company culture or not.
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Exampl e: if the company incentive people to work in teams, you should look for a person who is
social and not numeric oriented.
In Europe this method is not as common as in North America but it is increasing.
In North American companies said skills can be traine d, but the culture is the key.
First step: always here to your feelings as an interviewer therefore is better to do face -to-face
interviews.
Second step: you can bring this person to your team and hear feedback from them.
Then you can know better if this person will fit into the company’s culture however there is
always a risk.
There is no common culture in the company, there are subcultures; what do you do if you are hiring a
person and you know that you will have a problem?
It is very difficult.
The HR m anager and line managers should talk with the top management about the problem of
culture, silo thinking, and communication.
They should together came up with a solution, taking into consideration the mission, values and
culture that they want to define.
They should include in their job analysis the cultural tool.
The company is hiring people without having a clear internal structure which is leading to all this
problems among departments.
Part C: Employee engagement & Reward management
5. What role does tal ent management play in company branding?
Talent management play a very important role because it is communication, and advertisement.
Example: before in the banking sector was very famous their 18 moths stage program. You could
move each 3 moths and try in different sectors of the banking business. This was really
appreciated by young talented persons because of the opportunities that they offered. At the
end you could really know which sector did you like most and would like to work for the next
years.
If the company cannot offer a salary above the market level, at least they can offered an
attractive talent program so that the company attracts to very interesting people from different
businesses.
The whole package must be designed according to the persons that you want to attract.
Example: the company can offer abroad talent programs, which means that you go abroad for a
few years and then come back and take more responsibilities. While you are abroad you will
collect a lot of information, you will be learn ing in the job and about the job.
If the company goes to
The company can also offer this to people who go to the open day’s conference or in the
interviews so people are interested about the company because they feel secure, and know that
the company has a plan to offer them.
Talent program or talent development is very important in order to create a company’s brand.
Even if they are experts and already have a lot of experience then what could you to offer?
What is for them a talent? You should ask them or discover it.
Talent management is not only for young people.
You have different levels which you could offer.
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One level is job enrichment: what you can offer in the future for people who are on the 50’s that
the can grow with the company? To keep the inte rest of the people, market value, what can I
do? What can I learn more?
Second level is expert level: you can go to seminars, or to internationals conferences which
concern specific topics and you can grow in this expert level.
Third level is Leadership le vel: for people which would like to take more responsibilities.
The problem with leadership level is that should be offer it to persons who have the leader
characteristics otherwise won’t be successful
You should readapt your compensation program in order that the expert level is so much
attractive as the leader level. Some companies pay to experts in the same level as a CEO; some
experts can save and make good business decisions for the company as a CEO.
Training programs are run in the company and people profit of it but they leave the company, what
to do in order to keep them?
Retention management.
If you send a person to take part of a training or workshop without objectives behind, they are
not that motivated because they do not know what is going to ha ppen after the training.
You should give security to the person by talking about the objectives and expectations that you
have according to this training or leadership program.
A company should link the training with the career development path of the comp any as well as
compensation program through objectives.
The company should look at the whole picture, what is the HR strategy? How can they bring an
added value to the company? Not by branding because this is a result of many things (product,
marketing, et c.). A company should have another way besides branding to gain added value.
6. What are the main reasons people leave the company?
1. No opportunities for career development. There are 2 critical moments during your career live
one after 3 and another after 5 years. Therefore HR managers should always keep an eye on
those 2 terms and offer for those persons that are going through this time more possibilities
according to their career development path and appraisal program. Also hearing what the people
would l ike to do. By this way you motivated the employees.
2. No communication. People feel unsecure when they do not know what it is going on in the
company so they look for another company. Therefore you need a pro -active HR manager which
keeps in contact with the employees and also informing them about all that happens.
3. Missing leadership style. Probably the manager in charge of the department does not have
leader skills.
4. Cultural clash.
7. What are the most effective practices for employees’ engagement?
8. How important personal and professional development for employee motivation?
Look at the world wide engagement indicator.
This shows that engagement is decreasing nowadays.
You need leadership qualities in order to manage all kind of situations in the comp any like
employee engagement.
Employee engagement is linked with corporate culture.
E.g. when the boss shows up to work with and like the rest of the employees, the employees
identify with the boss and it motivates them to work more.
Employee engagement is linked with recognition.
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E.g. when your boss is always criticizing your job, you feel demotivated and do not want to work
for this company anymore.
Recognition is one of the most important things for employee engagement.
Recognition (verbal) is more value that financial reward.
9. What is the link between employees’ engagement and rewards & recognition?
Rewards: there are two kinds financial and non -financial.
Motivation: when I feel that I am fairly paid then I will feel engage to the company.
Therefore it is important that the company design a proper reward system so that the employees
know that they are paid fairly wages.
Companies conduct surveys in order to know how much the competitors are paying and also in
which position the company is, above, below o r in the market level.
You should reward in a special way the employees’ big efforts.
A company can include rewards which link recognition with the work -life balance of the
employees.
10. What type of reward system is more effective for employee retention? Fin ancial and non –
financial.
1st factor base salary but on 2nd or 3rd place is career development1.
Should it be transparent?
There have to be transparency, but do not never talk about the salary of the colleagues.
They should know if they are above, below or in the market level but never say if they get more
or less that a colleague.
People should be rewarded equally if they have the same characteristics and tasks.
If you are paying more for a person in a same team with more or less the same characteristics,
you should be able to explain what kind of special thing he/she has in order to get more.
The reward system should be balanced giving a base salary but also offering variable things.
Non -financial rewards
Offering good equipment
Offering extras (massages, resting room)
Offering nice environment (nice view, good equipment, good light)
11. How to create a positive working environment?
Same as quesion 9
12. Based on your experience, what kinds of training programs are more effective particularly for
engineers?
Favouri te training program: action learning or learning by doing.
Example: Instead of explaining or giving a checklist to you with all what you have to do for a
specific task, I just give you the task and you should find out the way to do it. You can ask, you
can research by yourself, make own proposals. At the end you feel motivated for the solving the
task and also interested.
This training can be done at earlier stages (learning stage) where the employee cannot do big
mistakes.
Check: war of talent and employee branding
Break down the objectives of the company for each employee and department in order that the
employees feel motivated and understand why they are doing that task.
1 Check: what motivates employees? Available online at: http://www.mercer.ch/press –
releases/Mitarbeitermotivation -weltweit Published: November 2011
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What to do if the employees are knowledge based but CEO is risk adverse?
HR departme nt cannot do anything.
However the company should take advantage of this knowledge based employees and search for
innovation.
Promote innovation
Redefine the strategy of the company which add innovation.
Nowadays if a company does not like to invest in innovation or research development they can
closed very quickly.
The top management should understand that if profit is important so does innovation.
Should HR and marketing department work together in order to promote communication?
Absolutely, all departments should be open to work together.
Interview to Experts 4
Part A: General Information
Name: Prof. Claudia Meier -Biedermann
Expert on online marketing
Field of work:
Project Manager for Online Marketing at FHNW
Development of the MAS management online marketing.
Part B: Questionnaire
1. Why do you think is it important that a company enters in the social media?
Social Media is a new way to get in touch and keep in touch with customers and other
stakeholders.
2. How can a company take advantage (or disadvantages) of the social media?
With entering Social Media, a company shows willingness to enter dialog with customers and
other stakeholders. This is not without risk. Dialog can also mean negative comments everyone
using Social Media po tentially sees as well.
Not offering a presence in Social Media can lead to disadvantages to the company. The company
might not be found by potential customers as search habits change and Social Media presence in
general leads to higher rankings in search engines.
3. How can Swisslog improve their presence in the social media? (LinkedIn and Xing)
Xing and LinkedIn have advantages for recruiting talents and generating leads for future sales. So
Swisslog could open a company profile on both platforms to be foun d by future employees and
find actively talents and future customers.
4. How can Swisslog motivate their employees in order to use social media? (Yammer)
Changes always take time. Yammer can enhance the cooperation and the efficiency between
employees working together in distributed teams and adhoc project teams. A successful team
can show their co -workers how they use the tool to motivate the non -user trying it.
5. Would you recommend to Swisslog any other social media page?
Employer Branding
Tatiana Dickmann, Hanna Kuzmenkova, Page 149 of 149
Zhang Yingjiao, Sabrina Fedeli, Rhea Senn 13.01.2012
It is a bit stretchy to suggest new a ctivities without a proper analysis of the customer needs or
the needs of other stakeholders.
6. What would you recommend to Swisslog as next step in the social media?
Conduct an analysis of the stakeholder needs, especially the customer needs for Social Medi a
dialog. Then develop a Social Media strategy – based on the values of the company strategy.
Bring the Social Media strategy down to concepts, activities and policies – implement them and
measure the defined key performance indicator (defined in the strat egy)
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