Innovation in talent acquisition is something we talk about a lot on this show. However, in our rapidly evolving times, how do you embed innovation as both a mindset and a process within a large talent acquisition team?
My guest this week is Kerstin Wagner, Head of Talent Acquisition at Deutsche Bahn. Kerstin and her team have adopted a very effective approach to innovation, and there are lots of lessons other employers can learn from them.
In the interview we discuss:
• Deutsche Bahn’s talent acquisition challenges
• Developing a strategic approach to innovation
• The role of technology in Talent Acquisition
• The importance of a high-quality connected candidate experience
• How to globally standardize while maintaining local relevance
Kerstin also shares her thoughts on the future of Talent Acquisition and talks about Deutsche Bahn’s experiments with Virtual and Augmented Reality
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
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Matt Alder [00:01:23]:
Hi, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 105 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Innovation in talent acquisition is something we talk about a lot on this show. However, in our rapidly evolving times, how do you embed innovation as both a mindset and a continuous process within a talent acquisition team? My guest this week is Kerstin Wagner, Head of Talent Acquisition at Deutsche Bahn in Germany. Kerstin and her team have adopted a very effective approach to innovation, and I know you’ll find this interview fascinating. Hi, Kerstin, and welcome to the podcast.
Kerstin Wagner [00:02:05]:
Hi Matt. I’m really happy to be here today.
Matt Alder [00:02:09]:
Could you just introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
Kerstin Wagner [00:02:13]:
It’s my pleasure. Sure. I’m Kirstin Wagner. I’m head of Talent Acquisition at Deutsche Bahn. I’m in the industry of mobility and logistics. I have a team of around about 400 people doing talent acquisition, and we are taking care of hiring almost 12,000 people every year in Germany and also to become top employer.
Matt Alder [00:02:40]:
Fantastic. So with an organization of that size, what are the sort of unique talent acquisition challenges that you face?
Kerstin Wagner [00:02:50]:
As I mentioned, we have the homework to do to hire around 12,000 people. That means that we hire school leavers, we hire graduates, but also blue colors and white colors. So the whole range of people. So that’s a challenge in itself. So we need different strategies to acquire all these people, and 12,000 people only in Germany every year and also in the forthcoming years. So that is one side of the coin, and the other side of the coin is that we want to become top employer. That is one of three corporate goals. We have in our corporate strategy, so to become top employer. And as you certainly know, the market, the labor market in Germany, it’s kind of a tough market. So there’s a lot of competition and actually it’s a scarce resource to hire all these different people. So that is really a challenge, but it’s a lot of fun.
Matt Alder [00:04:00]:
Very interesting. They sound like very interesting challenges to be working on. So how do you overcome, how do you sort of innovate within your talent attraction team? What’s your sort of strategy for achieving that?
Kerstin Wagner [00:04:17]:
Actually, I’m deeply convinced that innovation is one of the big levers for talent acquisition. So you always have to stay ahead of the curve and in that very competitive market and very dynamic market and talent acquisition, so you better be really good and really innovative in what you’re doing. And therefore, we have kind of a process established in our team and there are kind of three pillars. First of all, we look into the market. So in terms of gathering data, so how does the labor market develop? What are the others doing other companies are doing in acquiring people? So that is a team, a market research team doing that exclusively. And they also come up with some trends, so they also look into other industries. You know, what are the trends and what are the technology trends in other industries? Not only in hr, but for example, virtual reality is one of the things we are doing. So virtual reality is, for example, coming from the gaming industry. So they take that trend and come back and say, look, let’s check these trends if they are also important for talent acquisition. And sure, we also look into our own performance. So we measure, once we have an innovation in the market, is that innovation really delivered what we expect from that method or from that technology? And what really helps us as a team is a format which is called digital and social think tank. That means that people from my team are coming together every six weeks, roundabout mostly at the very end of the day. And we spend time together to think out of the box. And there are rules like there are no limits, there are no boundaries, there is no hierarchy. And actually we think greenfield approach. And there we kind of think about what could we do to be innovative, what could we prototype. And you can imagine that is really a think tank where we. A lot of ideas we create there.
Matt Alder [00:07:07]:
That sounds like a brilliant process. Can I just dig down and ask you a bit more about the technology side of that? You mentioned virtual reality. It would be great to know a bit more about what you might have done with that, but also other technologies that you’re using to stand out in the competitive environment. What are you using and what’s working for you?
Kerstin Wagner [00:07:29]:
Absolutely. Virtual reality is a good keyboard here. Actually, virtual reality coming from the gaming industry, our market research team came up with that idea and we brought it into that digital and soft think tank. Then we discussed it and actually we thought why not prototyping it, why not really trying it out very quickly? You really have to be fast to prototype it and you need a little bit of budget, but not really a big budget. So I gave that small budget to two people to prototype it and to try it out. And then actually we needed like two to three months in order to have until we had the first prototype. And then we had a big job fair in Munich where we kind of launched it and gave it to the people and it was a huge success. So after having it prototyped very quickly, kind of launched it at a job fair, then we decided to kind of roll it out on a German wide basis. Now we have virtual reality as one of the big levers in our recruiting portfolio. All the recruiting teams now have it at hand whenever they need it. So virtual reality is one thing and it worked out to be very fast, low budget, but try it and be brave to try it out. The second thing, for example we did is we did holograms. Hologram. Again, a technology, not really an HR technology. And it’s a really great giveaway to have this prism and you give it to people and then you kind of unfold it the prism, you put it on your smartphone and then all of a sudden somebody is talking to you in a 3D model and talks about the jobs at DB. That is one second. It’s the second thing we have done. Ensure we use all important technology. For example, we are currently rolling out a global ATS aperture in order to have a great platform which is intuitive for candidates but also very easy to use for our recruiters.
Matt Alder [00:10:10]:
That’s really interesting. And you’re obviously doing lots of things that are really kind of helping you stand out in your market. What about the candidate experience? As people sort of move through the recruitment process, how do you ensure they get that sort of high quality connected experience sort of through the onboarding process? Are there any sort of particular tools.
Matt Alder [00:10:32]:
Or methods that you use to achieve this?
Kerstin Wagner [00:10:37]:
First of all, candidate experience is a central topic. Talent acquisition in my point of view. First of all, you have to understand your customer. And when I talk about customers, then I talk about my candidate, my applicant. So very customer centric approach, that’s the key. So first of all, understand your customer, understand their world, understand their expectations. And coming back to our portfolio, that means for us that we have different target groups, different customer groups, let’s say school leavers or graduates or professionals. They all have different expectations when it comes to recruiting and to an application process. So that is the first thing. Second thing is that I need recruiters who are very, very experienced, experienced in the interface with an applicant. So they really have to make sure that all the inter phases to an applicant is a memorable experience, a positive experience for the candidate. So therefore we train our recruiters and even if we hire a recruiter, we really look into their ability to be very customer centristic. The other stakeholder in the process is the hiring manager. The hiring manager very important because at the very end of a very positive recruiting process there is a hiring manager who sits then in the interview with the recruiter and the applicant. So you better make sure that the hiring manager is also very keen to enthuse the candidate for the job and for the company. That is the human side of the process. And there is also technology. So if you have a high volume of recruiting, you normally have an ats, a recruiting IT tool and there you need an IT tool which is very intuitive, very modern, in other words a tool which is really fun to work with from the point of view of a candidate. So I normally do a comparison if I order a book or if I do something with my bank, it should be also very easy to do, but 1, 2, 3 clicks should be done. And the same thing is the, the same thing is when it comes to recruiting. So therefore the human sides plus the technology side and very candidate oriented, that’s the formula we’re normally following.
Matt Alder [00:13:50]:
Fantastic. That makes a lot of sense and I can see how that kind of approach would work really well for you. Now you’re also a global company. How do you sort of manage to, and you know, you mentioned that you wanted to sort of be, you know, that kind of employer of choice. How do you sort of maintain standardization across the world while still having that sort of, that, that kind of, that local flavor to what you do.
Kerstin Wagner [00:14:21]:
First of all it’s, it’s very favorable that in my team we have the so called governance, so we’re doing the global stand methods and so on for talent acquisition that fits in my team and we also doing the operations for recruiting and employer branding and HR marketing and I have a global team working together with representatives from the different countries to come up with for example the global recruiting standardized process. They come up, for example, with the global career page, they work on how do we do social media activities. And that is very important that you have this global frame, this global standard. And that also gives you a specific professional level you need in talent acquisition. And when it comes to markets, normally the labor markets are very competitive. Therefore you also better make sure that you are very professional in talent acquisition. That gives you really a strength in the company. And then when it comes to specific local needs, needs, it’s important, or at least from our experience, to go into the country and understand the specific needs. Understand the specific needs means that you then take your global standards, your global talent acquisition toolbox, and then take these elements to help the country to support the countries. What’s the best fit for their needs. And that’s how we do it. That’s how I think it’s the best approach to have the best results for the global standard, but also for the countries itself.
Matt Alder [00:16:20]:
So final question. What kind of excites you about the future of talent acquisition? Where do you think we’re going over the next 18 months to 3 years?
Kerstin Wagner [00:16:33]:
My passion is talent acquisition. What excites me? First of all, talent acquisition is a really business critical function. In my opinion. We have to make sure that the competencies, the people are in the company to do a successful business. And when I look into my company over the last five years, we have hired around about 60,000 people for the company, which makes a third of the population in the company. And think of that, you have a big lever to do a big transformation. Hiring all these new people to really change the company, to be ahead of the transformation, that is an important lever. And when it comes to trends and technology, I think data plays an important role. I think automation robotics plays an important role on the one hand side, but on the other side, it’s still the human factor. And work better on in truth, enthuse people and give them a good idea of what is unique about your company, what’s unique about the job. I think that will be the big trend in the future.
Matt Alder [00:18:06]:
Kerstin, thank you very much for talking to me.
Kerstin Wagner [00:18:08]:
It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Matt Alder [00:18:11]:
My thanks to Kerstin Wagner. You can subscribe to the show on itunes, on Stitcher or via your podcast app of choice. The show also has its own dedicated app which you can download at your app store. Just search for recruiting future. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me.
Matt Alder [00:18:39]:
Thanks very much for listening.
Matt Alder [00:18:41]:
I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
