Germany is desperately trying to get the skilled worker problem under control – so far without success. Fast-growing Finnish IT consulting company Solita with 1600 employees in six countries does not worry about qualified personnel. Last year, the workforce in Germany grew by 70 percent. Scandinavian countries have always broken new ground “to make work creative, useful and effective,” says Germany boss Florian Disson ntv.de.
ntv.de: As a fast-growing young IT consulting company, which is not only in Germany, but in Denmark, Belgium and Estonia is expanding, your company is looking for young talent in a highly competitive skilled labor market. How well does this work?
Florian Disson: Very good for us. But it is true that our industry is probably one of the most competitive markets. Medium-sized and large companies have well-stocked coffers, including the automotive industry, manufacturing industry and mechanical engineering. And all need good data professionals. The biggest argument of our competitors is money. A large pharmaceutical company can pay substantially more than our company to a senior consultant specializing in such an important topic as master data management. Because of this, we need to offer something different.
What could draw better than lots of money?
We want to give our employees meaningful work. They should also be able to develop further. I actually think that’s why there are so many vacancies in IT overall – especially in industry – but not here. The IT market is becoming more and more global. In Estonia you know what you earn in Germany. That means people go where it’s best for them. During the Corona period, they also understood that not only money but also other things are important. That’s why you have to offer more than money: exciting projects, good working conditions and a culture that makes it possible to have a good time.
Games, fun, excitement – that’s how they fish the rare workers out of the job market?
It’s more than that. It’s important to give employees the opportunity to make their own decisions. We say you can make all the decisions that are good for me, for you, for our customers, for our company and for the world today and tomorrow. If you can answer all of these criteria, you can do anything without asking. This also means that employees can shape their careers themselves. They decide whether they want to take on managerial responsibility or develop further as a technician. There are no linear decisions or careers.
And everyone can do that right away?
That’s not easy for everyone. Many who are new need guidance. That is why there are parallel processes and tools.
In which form?
This refers to tools through which one learns self-leadership. So how can I become someone who makes decisions confidently and autonomously? Employees can book coaching for this. There is a lot of continuing education. We also have our own academy, where we train and raise our junior staff ourselves.
More and more companies are trying to find employees with new working time models, such as the four-day week. Does that matter to you?
The consulting industry is special. After all, we sell the hours that employees work to the customers. That’s why we have the classic 40-hour week. But overall, we control goals rather than time. There are other advantages as well: For example, we have set a utilization of our employees between 70 and 80 percent work and 20 percent further training. In addition, they are legally allowed to work from anywhere within the EU.
A phenomenon that labor market experts are currently observing is that employees are becoming more and more willing to change jobs. Can you confirm?
This willingness to change comes in waves. Because of Corona, people stayed in their jobs and waited. After Corona, when the connection to the company was somewhat lost, many considered going somewhere else. Right now there is again uncertainty because of the Ukraine war and the banking crisis. People want to go back to where they feel comfortable. For us, the longer we’ve been here in Germany and the more network we have, the more people come to us through recommendations and word-of-mouth propaganda.
How long do people stay with you on average?
Headquartered in Finland, Solita is the Nordic leader in data-driven digital transformation and enterprise design. The focus is on big data, AI and advanced analytics. The company’s goal: creating value from data in the networked world. Solita brought the Finnish Parliament to the cloud, built a Finnish Corona app and an app that helps to find the right gate at the airport. She even reveals how long the line at security is.
In the Finnish market we have the lowest turnover in the entire IT sector. People stay on average for three to five years. However, there are also some who have been with us for 20 years. Of course you have to realize that two and a half years ago we were only 800 people, now 1690, so we’re growing fast.
They also have an employee share program. How does this work?
The private equity investor Apax, which owns Solita, gives all colleagues the opportunity to acquire shares in the company, i.e. to become an investor themselves and thus to participate in the company’s value development. We are not on the stock exchange. But assuming Solita went public and the value went up, the employees who participated would benefit.
And how many do that?
There are currently 667. With this, we also want to increase loyalty to the company. Those who leave lose their shares and only get back a fixed interest rate.
There is the thesis that there is no real shortage of skilled workers, but that employers simply pay too little or have too little to offer overall. How do you see it?
Florian Disson, Managing Director DACH at Solita
It is important to understand that companies grow when employees grow. If we offer people jobs that suit them and allow them to develop, then they will come. You see, we also give people a chance to learn who aren’t 100% IT yet, if we really think someone wants to learn it. That’s what we have the academies for. That’s another reason why we don’t have a shortage of skilled workers. We raise our own offspring.
So you’re saying there would be more skilled workers if companies made more of an effort to pick up workers?
Naturally. If you offer more than money, you will also find skilled workers. In Scandinavia, people always come first. We conduct an employee survey every three weeks. A question we always ask is: If you were paid more money anywhere for the same job, how likely is it that you would leave Solita? Usually the answer comes: everyone has their price. But someone added this week: “This price has gone up a lot. I would have to be offered a lot more money than I have now to do this job.” I think that was the best answer I’ve seen so far.
And that’s what Finland understood first?
I have been working with Scandinavian companies for 20 years. They were always much further along in finding approaches and breaking new ground in order to make work creative, useful and effective. I am convinced that this approach is deeply rooted in Nordic societies, more so than ours.
Diana Dittmer spoke to Florian Disson