Comment: What makes employers really attractive

First and foremost, it is a management and corporate culture characterized by trust and a sense of responsibility. This means that employees must have the feeling that they are taken seriously and listened to. In a working environment characterized by communication that ignores typical hierarchical levels within the company, ideas are encouraged and not blocked from the outset. An open-door policy, recognition of achievements and openness to everyone are essential to ensure that people enjoy coming to work every day.

If these points are correct, companies should offer their employees the opportunity to develop professionally and personally. adesso, for example, has a comprehensive, internal training and further education programme with more than 130 courses in its programme. This ranges from technology topics to project management and courses such as the "adesso Master of Software Architecture", which can be completed either as classroom training or via our e-campus. The approximately 4,000 employees of the adesso Group participated in a total of almost 5,000 courses in 2019. In addition to education and training, an expansion or adaptation of the personal field of activity also makes a company interesting for employees. It is important to have this permeability so that ambitious specialists do not switch to the competition at some point.

Nowadays, the compatibility of family and career is also a basic requirement for many employees before taking on a new job. Adaptation to changing life circumstances and more flexibility in general with regard to working hours are coming to the fore. Employers should take these needs to heart and have flexible workplace and working time models ready, whether home office, flexitime or sabbatical. In-house childcare is still relatively rare, but is also high on the wish list of employees. As part of our family@adesso program, for example, we offer parent-child offices and regional part-time work, which means that employees work less and only locally. In addition, it is easy to take time off when needed.

An attractive employer is also concerned about the health of its employees. A fitness room or discounts at the local gym are welcome options; alternatively, companies support sporting events - or even organize them themselves. It doesn't have to be a big deal; it can also be a small group of colleagues who meet every week to play badminton or football. The list of possible criteria that make a good company could go on and on. However, there is not the one killer application, thanks to which a company is considered an attractive employer, it is rather the overall package that has to be right. adesso takes a lot of effort in this point:

This is also the reason why we won first place in the competition "Germany's Best Employers 2020" of the Great Place to Work Institute - for the first time since our participation in the competition, both in the cross-industry ranking and in the special competition ITK. The evaluations are based on extensive anonymous surveys on workplace issues such as appreciation, identification, career development opportunities, salary and work-life balance.