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“STRENGTHENING GLOBAL THINKING“
Motivated and qualified employees are the basis of ALTANA’s sustainable growth. The company’s pioneering talent management for young staff and managers generates the required added value for our stakeholders with specific human resource development programs.
FROM TALENT
TO LEADERSHIP
The ALTANA Group’s employees are its most important resource. In order to ensure the lasting success of our company, we promote their professional development and prepare them for leadership positions. A special focus is on young talent, specialists, and managers.
In keeping with the objectives of our Keep Changing Agenda, by 2020 around 70 percent of all of our management positions are to be occupied internally. Also, we aim to further strengthen the internationalization of our management. To achieve these targets, we have developed a systematic talent management concept. At the center of the concept are our employees. They are developed optimally and expediently based on their abilities and interests. ALTANA’s integrated human resource development programs are geared to this purpose. They offer employees further training possibilities and the opportunity to enhance their personal development.
Project work with colleagues across three continents and three time zones? Project meetings at midnight? “That was a remarkable experience,” says Ka Lai (Mandy) Lam. “But a positive one,” she adds. The head of Finance, Controlling & Supply Chain Management at ECKART Asia in Hong Kong participated in ALTANA’s Management Development Program (MDP) and is impressed by its structure and content. “The intensive program helped me to improve my knowledge and my abilities, to learn new things, and also to find out a lot about myself,” says Mandy Lam. During the program, she visited sites of ALTANA’s four divisions across the globe. “The personal contact at the sites opened my eyes to the possibilities that exist.” She is fascinated by the opportunity to cooperate with people from different cultures.
Boosting Competitiveness
In order to work efficiently and successfully in a global company, it is extremely important to establish a worldwide network of good contacts and to gain an understanding of special cultural, professional, and country-specific features. And this is one of the main goals of ALTANA’s talent management concept. The MDP is one of the measures geared to young managers who are particularly willing to change. They are prepared for global leadership roles – individually and at the same time specifically for their future tasks.
“To this end, we have to strengthen their global perspective and global thinking and to harness our promotion activities in an integrated yet need-oriented way,” explains Anne Gradl, the head of Leadership & Talent Management at ALTANA. Fostering global thinking and working is a special focus of the MDP. Participants complete six modules in a period of 18 months. Annette Lampe, the head of personnel development at ALTANA, explains: “We at ALTANA have to convince young talent of the merits of our company to ensure that we remain competitive in the long run in a globalized world.” The talent management approach therefore encompasses a wide range of specific programs for both future and existing managers.
Practice and theory – MDP participants experience production close up, for example at the ECKART and ELANTAS plants in Zhuhai, China. They work together on projects right on site.
Leaving One’s Comfort Zone and Going the Extra Mile
The need for managers is high. ALTANA set itself the goal of occupying some 70 percent of its leadership positions internally by 2020. “Suitable candidates for the MDP are personalities with great flexibility, openness, a performance orientation, and a willingness to leave their comfort zone and go the extra mile,” stresses Annette Lampe.
The employees also have to want and be able to push forward changes as entrepreneurs. For the human resource development programs are an important investment in
ALTANA’s leadership culture. “They form the basis of our corporate success. And they enable us to achieve the necessary added value for our stakeholders,” says Annette Lampe with conviction.
