Kienbaum Blog

Kienbaum consultants are distinguished not only by their expertise and experience in countless customer projects, but also by their diversity. They come from all regions of Germany and the world, have passed through various training and further education stations and have decided on their career path with individual focal points. What unites them all is their deep interest in people, organizations and the resulting topics. In the Kienbaum Blog they report on the latest HR trends, special customer projects, innovative event formats or scientific studies.

Featured Article

Focus study

Performance management: Lever for more equal opportunities

By Sven Herzog, Julia Bockermann, Hans-Carl von Hülsen

1. September 2022 – Sustainability is gaining central importance in the social and corporate context: employees demand not only sustainable corporate management and development, but also safety and fairness in the workplace. In light of this, the aspect of equal opportunities is also particularly relevant for many companies. The Kienbaum focus study "Performance Management 2022" investigated which design variants of performance management pay off in terms of greater equality of opportunity and what companies can do to position themselves proactively in this area.

Making the Difference – Conversations with Top Leaders

“Don’t play it like the boys!”

By Andreas Venzke, Klaas Bovenhuis

7. April 2022 – “Leadership needs to be authentic and humane”, says Eva van Pelt, Co-CEO of Life Sciences company Eppendorf. In conversation with Klaas Bovenhuis, Managing Partner in Executive Search & Leadership Development and Andreas Venzke, Director in Executive Search & Leadership Advisory for Life Sciences & MedTec and Consumer & Retail, she shares her take on (dual) leadership, the company’s people-oriented value system and vulnerability as a strength.

MAKING THE DIFFERENCE - CONVERSATIONS WITH TOP LEADERS

“I must not remain emotionally attached”

By Maarten Dose

10. March 2022 – Lots of passion, little holding on: Stefan Scholle lives change and constant transformation. Why the CEO of roastmarket and manager of the Melitta Group is not afraid of VUCA and does not like the word leadership.

Guest article in COMP & BEN Issue 1/February 2022

Spot bonus – fad or serious alternative?

By Moritz Kinkel, Selina Gampe, Hans-Carl von Hülsen

28. January 2022 – Rewarding employees spontaneously during the year promotes their intrinsic motivation. For issue 1 / February 2022 of COMP & BEN Magazine, our compensation specialists have compiled some rules for effective success.

Making the Difference – Conversations with Top Leaders

“The basic prerequisite is trust”

By Maarten Dose

27. January 2022 – In conversation with Kienbaum Principal Maarten Dose, Frank Gemmrig talks about the art of realizing when change is necessary and when it is not. And why trust is so important for the Managing Director of Cavendish & Harvey, especially in today's VUCA world.

A new hope?

6 People Management Trends in 2022

By Prof. Dr. Walter Jochmann, Frank Stein

21. January 2022 – This year everything will be better – or so we thought last year. The chances that everything really will be better this year are not bad at all. A forecast for people management in 2022.

Kienbaum HR Business Challenges

Interview with Jan Willem de Cler, Carl Zeiss Meditec

By Alexander Mischner

6. August 2021 – Jan Willem de Cler is Member of the Management Board and CHRO at Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, a leading medical technology company dedicated to helping doctors improve the quality of their patients’ lives. In conversation with Alexander Mischner he shares both current challenges and ideas for the future of HR at Carl Zeiss Meditec.

Interviews on Performance Management

Between system solution and individuality

By Nils Prüfer, Hans-Carl von Hülsen

7. May 2021 – Together with our customers, we have addressed various questions concerning the characteristics of an effective performance management system and the needs for a successful implementation in organizations. Our answers profit from the perspectives of an agile tech company, a start-up in the midmarket phase and an international corporation.

People Analytics at HelloFresh

Interview with Timo Schönenberg, People Analytics Manager at HelloFresh

By Yannik Leusch

22. March 2021 – How can People Analytics help organizations to stay agile, to reach People OKRs and to grow and retain talent? Our People Analytics Lead Yannik Leusch discussed this question with Timo Schönenberg, People Analytics Manager at HelloFresh SE. He provides insights on how the use of data can, for example, aid the reduction of employee fluctuation and the identification of talents in his company.

Applying People Analytics in Performance Management

Price’s Law and the Trouble of Operationalizing Performance

By Carolin Katzera, Yannik Leusch

2. December 2020 – Do You Believe in Superstars? In recent months several discussions have emerged about the use of people analytics in performance management. In this blog post we would like to discuss some of the underlying assumptions of performance management. Moreover, we would like to point out shortcomings in the traditional approach of how most organizations deal with performance management today.

People Analytics and diversity at SAP

How SAP Leverages People Analytics to Drive Diversity

By Yannik Leusch

15. October 2020 – Interview between Yannik Leusch (Kienbaum), Dr. Sarah Zelt (Head of People Analytics, Intelligent Data & Analytics at SAP) and Dr. Judith Williams (Head of People Sustainability and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at SAP)

The end of the expat?

How COVID-19 is changing companies’ traditional “divide and conquer” model

By Thomas Straessle, Felix Bischoff

30. June 2020 – Even though the world of business travel is currently drawing a lot of attention due to its COVID-induced hibernation, there is another, far more strategic element of developing an organization’s worldwide network which is also showing symptoms – the traditional expatriate model.

Digital Ways of Working

Leading a Virtual Organization

By Klaas Bovenhuis

28. May 2020 – As the whole world is undergoing a shock, we all have to adjust our ways of doing business, accelerating digital ways of working and leading teams and organizations at a distance. And although there is physical distance, these trying times can bring us even closer together. We would like to share with you …

Danger and opportunity

Asia – how the pandemic could be “chance” rather than “threat”

By David Liendgens

8. May 2020 – Asia’s experience with previous crises proves to be beneficial during the outbreak Certain businesses might emerge stronger post crisis A new digital era is driving human resource agendas The impact of the current market turmoil – a glimpse into the pas…

Advantages and takeaways

Building agile teams in times of crisis

By Florian Schnitzler, Yannik Leusch

23. April 2020 – Enabling agile collaboration requires more than rolling out Slack or Microsoft Teams: Now more than ever, organizations are in need of enabling their workforce and teams to be agile. People Analytics and social network analysis can help. Across the globe millions of white-collar workers ar…

People Analytics

Organizational Network Analysis – Case Study

By Yannik Leusch

2. April 2020 – Even though Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) has been named one of the biggest trends in people analytics, the amount of use cases available is surprisingly low. Used right, ONA can be a scientific method to measure previously hidden organizational KPIs and at best, provide a completely new persp…

What the current crisis will not change

Why people remain key to success

By Felix Bischoff

31. March 2020 – Even though we see ourselves confronted with a daily increasing number of predictions ranging from simple “what we will learn from this crisis” to rather science-fictional visions of the future, in most cases, it is simply too early to tell what will have changed once this storm is over. The growing prese…

Digital Leadership

Managing the crisis with digital leadership skills

By Lukas M. Fastenroth, Prof. Dr. Walter Jochmann

30. March 2020 – Digital work requires more than mere structural and technical know-how Shared leadership offers an ideal approach to remote leadership Building trust and visibility despite of spatial distance as well as enabling employees proved as best practices After having …

Equal Pay?

Pulse-Check on the Gender Pay Gap in Start-Ups

By Dr. Michael Kind, Dr. Katharina Wauters

11. March 2020 – The so called gender pay gap is a strongly debated topic in Germany. Among political parties, interest groups, investors and companies, it is more or less accepted, that the gender pay gap exists and must be closed in the future. As a matter of fact several studies show that a closing of the gap ha…

Business opportunities & employer attractiveness

Internationality as a key success factor for the German Mittelstand

By Felix Bischoff

9. March 2020 – More than half of „large“ SMEs are active outside their home country A decisive factor for a company’s success is the filling of key positions in remote markets Internationality makes SMEs especially attractive for young, inte…

Operating in a highly-open economy with liberal labor laws

The opportunities and challenges of Switzerland’s interconnectedness

By Thomas Straessle, Felix Bischoff

27. February 2020 – Known for its breath-taking nature, high mountain tops and picturesque cities, Switzerland is also a globally admired economic powerhouse, strategically positioned at the heart of Europe. The country manages to sustain an impressive balance between a strong local identity and…

Diversity as an economic advantage

Why doing business in Singapore is special

By David Liendgens

29. January 2020 – With one of the highest GDPs per capita in the world as well as excellent economic and diplomatic ties beyond its borders, Singapore is Southeast Asia’s economic powerhouse and a beacon of social and political stability. As one third of its population are expatriates or foreign workers, it embodies a unique…

An HR perspective

Doing business in Brazil

By Fausto Alvarez, Axel Werner

14. October 2019 – Embedded in Mercosur, the Southern Common Market, and as a member of the BRIC countries, the world’s eighth-largest economy has almost always been considered the “land of the future” – a future, some argue, that has not yet materialized. Despite all challenges, Brazil’s vast natu…

Specifics, challenges and strategies

Securing appropriate human resources for international companies in Japan

By Etsuji Suzuki

1. October 2019 – After more than six years since the introduction of Premier Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic reform package “Abenomics” and with the Olympic Games in Tokio coming up, it is time to take a closer look at the 6,852 islands encompassing East Asian state of Japan. As the world’s third largest market and one…

E-commerce in Russia: Challenges and Opportunities

By Malgorzata Cyganowska

8. May 2019 – Companies in Russia have been facing a number of challenges and questions when it comes to a successful implementation of e-commerce. First of all, even though digitalization (“the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producin…

Three questions for Fabian Kienbaum

Made in Germany – Made by Vielfalt

By Kerstin Wandt

2. April 2019 – Kienbaum is part of a Germany-wide promotional campaign by family-owned companies titled: “Made in Germany – Made by Diversity”. We are proud to take part in this campaign and to make this public commitment. But exactly what is it about? We posed a few questions concerning this to Fabian, our Chief…

Low unemployment in the Czech and Slovak Republics – Danger to economic growth?

By Petr Hruska

31. August 2018 – The Czech and Slovak economies have been in great shape for several years now and still continue to improve with companies reporting record results year after year. Today, the two are among the largest manufacturing bases for the automotive industry in Europe. Countless car parts are manufactured there and hu…

Compensation in the United States versus the rest of the world

By Michael Otte

27. July 2018 – Compensation in the United States is different from compensation in most countries. Just like pay scales in Sweden differ from pay scales in Italy. Within the country, there are salary differences between Mobile in Alabama, Aspen in Colorado, New York City, and San Francisco in California, but generally speak…

Say on pay in France

A path towards more fairness in compensation strategies?

By Sofia Sefrioui

25. June 2018 – Since the “Loi Sapin II”’ came in force in March 2017, a major change in France on the "Say on Pay" has been introduced, with an even stricter framework for executive compensation than the EU Shareholders’ Rights directive. During the 2017 annual general meetings in France (SBF 120 companies), 88% …

Candidate Experience Matters

By Malgorzata Cyganowska

29. May 2018 – Candidate Experience continues to be a hot topic in talent acquisition, and with good reason. In brief (and brevity is very much called for considering the many definitions of the term that can be encountered), the concept of Candidate Experience refers to overall impressions and perceptions of the candidate …

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