Mindsets versus skill sets

Interest in the topic of sustainability has been consistently high for several years and has continued to grow. A look at Google Trends on the "Sustainable Development Goals" provides a clear picture. A fun fact about this: Interest in the topic always drops sharply at Christmas and during the summer holidays.

Despite the continuing interest, real answers have been postponed in many countries. There is no other way to explain why an average car in Switzerland still emits 120 g CO₂/km or why 75 per cent of Swiss buildings are still heated with oil or natural gas. At least electricity in Switzerland is still clean as far as CO₂ emissions are concerned.

The situation in Germany is even more absurd: almost 40 percent of electricity there is still produced using coal or natural gas and it is still considered hip to speed down the motorway at 200 km/h and burn 20 litres per 100 kilometres. Although being green is the order of the day, it is often expected that the neighbours would rather take care of it - not just in Switzerland or Germany, but throughout Europe. Except perhaps in Denmark, but more on that later.

What has often been missing so far is a real impetus to drive the topic of sustainability forward.

Corona as an impetus for Digitization

A similar trend is already evident in another area - Digitization. An example from HR: many companies had expensive, inefficient processes and high staff turnover. But nobody really cared because the costs were hidden somewhere in the overheads. Then came corona and it suddenly became clear that employees could not simply be sent home, even though it was necessary.

All of a sudden, investments started pouring in. Processes were digitalised in a flurry of activity. Nobody asked whether the employees in HR and beyond had the skills for this. The consequences were accepted: high project costs, suboptimal purchasing decisions, excessive demands and much more. But this was not necessary. It had long been clear that something had to be done.

It is difficult to predict what the trigger or impetus will be in terms of sustainability. There will probably not be a single trigger, but different ones depending on the industry. But these will come. There are already many examples: a ban on the sale of combustion engines, oil heaters or plastic packaging, or massive price increases. It is already clear that these impulses will be strong and could turn entire branches of industry upside down.

The question is what you can do today to prepare for this. It would be presumptuous to give a comprehensive answer from a company-wide perspective. From an HR perspective, however, the answer is relatively clear: focus on the right employees and prepare them - with the right mindset and skillset.

Mindset: A person's way of thinking, beliefs and attitude, such as openness to new things.

Skill set: A person's competence profile, such as expertise in combustion engines.

Mindset versus skill set

It is often difficult to say exactly which skill set is required in which Industry and which company. If I were the CEO of VW, the most important question for me would be: How do I get the best software developers in the world as quickly as possible? And preferably yesterday.

The positive thing for CEOs is that skills can be learnt or, in some cases, bought like a commodity. Mindset is a different story. One example: Last summer, a nursing initiative was launched in Switzerland to improve the working situation of carers in hospitals. This was actually a welcome move, but at the same time it was sad to see the mindset in which many parts of the Industry are stuck. One sentence from the text of the initiative reads: "They ensure that a sufficient number of qualified nurses are available to meet the increasing demand and that those working in nursing are deployed in accordance with their training and skills."

That sounds like resource planning. A mindset in which employees are managed and deployed like production material. This way of thinking is omnipresent in Switzerland. With such a mindset, it is unlikely that the work situation of carers will really improve. During the coronavirus crisis, this rigid system of resource planning and hierarchies collapsed completely in many Areas. With a different mindset - such as sharing employees across hospitals, self-organisation and more Appreciation - some effects could at least have been mitigated.

Focusing exclusively on skills to make a company sustainable is therefore not necessarily the right approach. Martin Winterkorn, former CEO of VW, could have hired as many electrical engineers as he liked at the time - they would not have stood a chance against Tesla with the "petrol in the blood" mindset of the management.

This has changed with Herbert Diess, the new Chairman. He is also a mechanical engineer, but his mindset is different: he is a rebuilder, not a procrastinator - someone who wants to say goodbye to combustion engines. Shareholders are delighted (+55% in five years), even if there is still a long way to go to catch up with Tesla. At BMW, on the other hand, a different wind is blowing: the company is continuing to focus on platforms that are designed for all drive types. Shareholders are less enthusiastic (+9% in five years), even though Oliver Zipse, the current CEO of BMW, is actually a trained computer scientist and would have the necessary skills.

Holidays in Denmark

And now back to Denmark. There it is clear that culture or mindset can really make a difference. Denmark has come through the pandemic comparatively unscathed, particularly thanks to its low mortality rate. A study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, which examined the hospital structures of various countries during coronavirus, confirms this: "It should be emphasised that the definition of specialisation in the Danish healthcare system is not static, but adapts to technological change and the knowledge acquired by staff."

The result speaks for itself: Denmark was able to quickly expand capacity and later quickly return to regular operations. This enabled the "operational backlog" to be quickly cleared.

Denmark is also leading the way when it comes to climate change and is even turning it into a business model. Gigantic wind farms are being built in the North Sea at a cost of 28 billion euros to satisfy the energy hunger of its southern neighbours.

Not entirely serious, but perhaps an exciting idea: how about sending your employees on holiday to Denmark to prepare them for change?