25th German Personnel Consultants’ Day by the BDU

On June 11, 2024, the 25th German Personnel Consultants Day organized by the Federal Association of German Management Consultants (BDU) took place at the Steigenberger Hotel in Petersberg, marking its 25th anniversary. 

For the IT-Personalberatung this has been an inspiring event for many years, with exciting lectures and plenty of food for thought, perfectly organized and in a beautiful atmosphere. 

This year we were represented by our long-time consultant and partner Viktoria Roenick. 

The excellent lectures by Thomas Sattelberger titled “Is Today’s Leadership Unsuitable for the Future?” and Dr. Michael Trautmann’s “On the Way to New Work” provided insights into the fact that convincing leadership skills remain important, but have changed. This includes the importance of self-reflection among managers and their awareness of the importance of trust in their leadership. One conclusion: Employees and teams who trust their senior management feel safe and act on the basis of a positive working environment, team spirit and the certainty that their opinions and actions are valuable and important. They are noticeably more productive! Felix Maximilian Ohlhauser from Pawlik Recruiters GmbH gave very exciting insights into AI in recruiting and the best ways to implement administrative processes. The reassuring conclusion, according to Sam Altman, is that personnel consultancies cannot be replaced by AI. 

The IT-Personalberatung is even seeing clear indications that human values and personal and emotional commitment will become even more important when recruiting employees. “Impersonal IT” alone will not fix it! 

There was also an exciting lecture by Dr. Franziska Frank on “The Power of Humble Leadership,” which is based on various studies she conducted with around 35,000 employees and managers. Their statements led her to the following recommendations, among others: As a manager, you need to recognize and become aware of your own strengths and weaknesses in order to systematically incorporate them into your leadership approach. Openly appreciate your employees‘ contributions and strengths. Demonstrate authenticity and openly show willingness to change and learn. 

Wolfram C. Tröger moderated an exciting discussion with Stephan Löw, Heinrich Schaible & Lodowing Insiun with many insights on the topic of “Successful Strategies for Executive Search Companies in an International Context”. At this point, as a listener, you become awestruck when you are shown the long road you have to go to build an international network with trustworthy partners. The IT-Personalberatung has such a network: the Continental Search Alliance, or CSA for short. 

A big thank you goes to the organizers and speakers for this unforgettable experience!