Personalmanagementkongress in Berlin
Helping me understanding the zeitgeist of German HR a little better.
Despite having worked with many leading HR departments in Germany, I’d never actually attended the flagship HR Professional event, Personalmanagementkongress. (PMK). This year I attended the event, in part, because I was a jury member of the German HR Tech Start up award. I was also on a panel discussion about the current state of German HR tech.
The event was brilliantly organized, it was very much an HR event, not a HR-Tech event. There were a vast variety of sessions, often led by practitioners. The agenda was clearly set by HR leaders, rather than technology vendors, and this is a good thing. Inga Dransfeld-Haase and her team did a remarkable job in pulling the event together.
A highlight for me was seeing Dr. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann present. I’ve seen many politicians present over the years, and this was up there with the best of them. When the friendly banter with the journalist turned slightly awkward, she dispatched him with a mic-dropping one liner and a smile. A true professional. A theme throughout the conference was the role of organizations and HR in supporting democracy, which given the recent election results, seemed rather appropriate.
“We must sensitize our employees to democratic values. Without the European community and its freedom of movement, we will not be able to maintain our prosperity.” (thanks Deepl). See also this write up from Ninjo Lenz of Porsche Consulting.
The session I wished I’d attended was from Heike Prinz at Bayer. It seems Bayer are making a remarkable effort to obliterate unnecessary corporate bureaucracy, and I need to learn more about this.
The start-up competition
About 9 months ago Michael Kramarsch asked me to join the jury for the German HR Start up award with Jens Bender, Dennis Blöcher, Inga Dransfeld-Haase, Elke Eller, Anna Kaiser, , Åsa Lautenberg, Erika Rasch, Michala Rudorfer,Marie-Eve Schroeder, Dr. Jochen Wallisch and Christian Gärtner The team ran an excellent process, and we reviewed over 60 entries, getting down to three finalists and a special award. Michael and Elke have built this award up over the years into something rather special. It was a honour to join the jury. Michael has been one of the most important angel investors in Germany HR tech, and his commitment to fostering startups is deep.
The finalists were Flip, Empion and Likeminded. Annika, Luke, Steffen and Kimberly presented. All the presentations were excellent. Likeminded took the award, the votes were all within a couple of % of each other, and any of the three could have been a worthy winner. Congratulations to Kimberly Breuer and her team.
Onuava won the special award. Check out Julia’s write up here. I’ve been following this company closely. They are solving a genuine problem, that of access to fertility and menopause services.
Panel discussion
The panel discussion was a bit daunting for me as I did it in German. I’d not spoken German in a public setting for ages, and my grammar is completely off-script. It seems though I got my points across. Michael, Julia and Erika were insightful and supportive. Michael is knowledgeable and deeply engaged in AI ethics at a board level, Julia knows what it means to build a start-up in Germany, and Erika brought the large enterprise perspective. (See Julia’s write up here)
On the panel I raised similar points to what others in the VC community are saying.
In 1960, Germany was the best place to do a start up. The banks of the time were well set up to fund companies, the education system was aligned to the needs of emerging industries, and labour practices1 encouraged workers to come to Germany.
Today the bureaucracy to set up a company and reward employees in Germany is brutal. In some countries one can form a company in hours, in Germany it takes months and has significant admin costs, and I can’t see the benefits of the German process. Rewarding employees with stock needs to simple and fair (There has been some recent progress here, but there is a way to go). Allowing employees to participate in the company is a fundamental part of the German social contract, so you expect it to have the best employee stock programme on the planet, but it definitely doesn’t.
While funding arrangements like EXIST are useful, my request is that the German government makes the structural reforms to enable pensions and other institutional investors more easily participate in early and growth stage private investments. We need capital to help Series B and beyond companies, otherwise will seek funding elsewhere, and leave.
Large German corporates need to develop effective methods to work with startups. I was pleased to hear from Erika (SVP HR) about the work Bosch are doing here. I’m looking forward to learn more about this when I next visit Stuttgart.
The German state needs to look to startups a key means to obliterate the bureaucratic burden. There is so much opportunity to make processes better for citizens, and entrepreneurs. Germany could show the world how to transform government for the better, instead of being bogged down in wet ink signature nonsense. AI for government could be built in Germany, but it will need the German government to step up.
Founders need to think big. The term “hidden champions” may work well in the manufacturing industry, but in software and AI it doesn’t work that way. We need founders that want to change the world of work, at scale.
And finally, Germany needs to celebrate its entrepreneurs again. In every town there are streets named after Diesel, Bosch, Benz (more Bertha please), Daimler and so on. I look forward to one day seeing streets named after today’s generation of founders.
I’m convinced that Germany can build awesome companies and keep them, but it will need structural reform, focus and courage.
There was an excellent evening event too, was lovely to catch up with old friends and make some new ones.
I learnt a lot about the German HR community at the event, and I’m rather embarrassed that I’d not actually attended it before. I’ll have it in the calendar for 2025.
I usually put a song at the bottom of my posts, I forgot so here goes, better late than never. As the evening event was at the Palast, here is the one and only Max Raabe.
I’m not condoning the labour practices of the 1960s. I merely note that industry and government were aligned.