Suzana Bernhard in an interview with Personalwirtschaft

Corona crisis: How do you experience the personnel policy at client companies? In which sectors has temporary work been cut back particularly sharply?

Suzana Bernhard: Our industry has always been a kind of early indicator of economic development. Particularly in times of crisis, we can usually recognize very early on which sectors or regions are most affected by changes in personnel on the customer side. However, in the coronavirus crisis, this picture is highly distorted, as the pandemic turned the lives of all people, companies and industries upside down almost simultaneously. It was therefore more of a collective scaling back or scaling down, depending on the lockdown phase and the current degree to which individual regions, companies or supply chains were affected.

However, if there is one thing that can be emphasized with regard to our customers' HR policy, it is the overwhelming cooperation and strong cohesion in this exceptional situation.

Opportunities: Where is there increased demand for temporary staff? Will the crisis increase awareness of a flexible personnel policy?

Suzana Bernhard: Of course, there are also sectors or companies that are experiencing a crisis-related upturn. In times of pandemic, this applies in particular to the systemically important sectors that were there for us all even during the lockdown and kept things running. Be it in healthcare, the food trade, the production of important goods or in transport, warehousing and logistics, which represented the greatest demand for us as the DEKRA Arbeit Group. What people used to procure or transport themselves is now being ordered, shipped and delivered. This includes increased personnel costs for all transport and logistics service providers.

This is exactly where we come in and provide a fast, needs-based employee solution. This is added value that our customers have appreciated even before coronavirus - which is why it is not so much a matter of raising awareness among companies for more flexibility in everyday working life, but above all a rethink at political level. The increasing need for flexible working models must at least not be further slowed down by ever higher and often only party-politically motivated hurdles.

Qualification: How important is the qualification of employees and what role can personnel service providers play in this?

Suzana Bernhard: The fact is that the success of any company depends on the quality of its employees. And training plays an important role in this.

We are in the midst of social and economic upheaval and the everyday working lives of many people will change dramatically in the future. New technologies, new markets, new everyday models and advancing digitalization will completely redefine the labour market. The one-dimensional career path - from training to retirement - is becoming increasingly rare, which is why we need to rethink our approach as a whole. More flexibility, lifelong learning and the targeted promotion of personal strengths and life circumstances are the be-all and end-all here.

We can and want to accompany our customers and employees on this path in the best possible way. Through targeted qualification measures, which in our case can even be provided from a single source within the DEKRA Group. But also beyond the question of training and further education. For example, we have been offering our customers professional behavioral profile analyses for many years, which focus on the individual strengths and weaknesses of each person. After all, just because someone has a certain professional qualification does not automatically mean that they are the best in that field.

Perspectives: Where will temporary staffing be in 2021?

Suzana Bernhard: I can only speak for us here, as an overall forecast currently depends on too many uncertain factors. However, we as the DEKRA Group are optimistic about the future, have always focused on opportunities, have continued to implement our digitalization process throughout Germany despite coronavirus, have opened up new markets and have recently added modern, future- and solution-oriented offerings and partnerships to our HR portfolio. Nobody knows how 2021 will develop in general. But we are ready and full of drive.