We attach great importance to giving our employees opportunities for personal development, because attracting, promoting and retaining qualified skilled employees and young talents is a key factor for BLG LOGISTICS’ corporate success. Our central HR department therefore coordinates these tasks as a priority issue and supports employees at the locations in consultation with human resources managers, training managers and site managers should questions or conflicts arise. Staff can also seek the advice of the works councils in these matters.
Promoting young talent: a win-win
Behind every service that we provide for our customers every day are employees whose commitment guarantees our high quality and reliability. Our success confirms our approach: We closely support our junior staff from the very first day of their training, equipping them with the right tools from the get-go and imparting our values to them. We offer different apprenticeships, including mechatronics engineer, professional driver, industrial or HR services clerk. In addition, there are three dual Bachelor’s degree courses in Freight Forwarding, Transport and Logistics as well as Information Science. In the reporting year, we filled 96 new apprenticeship places, bringing the total number of trainees to 172 – 40 in technical/trade and 132 in commercial professions. This represents a trainee ratio of 1.9 percent.
Number of trainees at BLG LOGISTICS*
Against the background of the challenge posed by the shortage of young talent for society as a whole, we are striving to achieve an annual trainee ratio of at least two percent by 2025 as part of our new sustainability targets.
We are endeavoring to raise our attractiveness as an employer and get young talent excited about working at BLG LOGISTICS through recruiting campaigns via various social media channels aimed at specific target groups, participating in high-school career fairs, organizing training days and offering student internships. In line with our company guarantee, we again made all qualified graduates an offer of employment in 2023, thus transferring 67 percent of our trainees at the Bremen location to permanent employment contracts or, for example, to dual degree programs within BLG LOGISTICS.
Furthermore, we continued the already established support program offered to existing employees, enabling them to qualify as a warehouse logistics specialist. A total of 24 employees took advantage of the opportunity in 12 weeks of full-time training to prepare for the exam, and it was gratifying to note that 23 of them passed at the first attempt. We will offer this 12-week full-time course sponsored by the German Federal Labor Agency again in 2024. Active Sourcing as a means of directly approaching candidates, which was launched as a pilot project in 2021 and initially only targeted IT specialists, was also further extended. A new colleague was hired to work with the newly purchased LinkedIn Recruiter, enabling us to now target suitable candidates for our vacancies on both the Xing and LinkedIn business platforms. In addition, we used the “Get in IT” platform in a pilot project to find suitable candidates for IT.
Job opportunities in logistics
In the reporting year, we participated for the first time as a practical partner in the “Fit for Logistics” project. In cooperation with ma-co maritimes competenzcentrum GmbH and the Bremen Chamber of Commerce – IHK for Bremen and Bremerhaven, BLG LOGISTICS supported refugees from Ukraine with targeted measures to help them enter the logistics industry and in so doing offers them concrete job prospects. In ten-day courses, the participants could expect not only a comprehensive skills assessment for work in logistics, but also individual job application coaching and practical job speed dating at BLG. Two runs of the information event and practical course took place in March and June and met with great demand. The courses were accompanied by interpreters so that all participants could also learn the helpful content in their native language. Afterwards, 41 promising candidates were selected to receive targeted support with further developing their German skills and making them fit for employment.
Flexible professional development
We offer our employees further development opportunities throughout their career – regardless of where they are on the career ladder. In the reporting year, we conducted 5,616 centrally organized training days – in person or as webinars and blended learning to give participants more flexibility in terms of time and location.
Training hours per employee
Thus the number of training hours once again increased. By 2025, we are aiming for at least 5.5 centrally documented training hours annually per employee. This figure does not take into account the additional training offerings at our individual locations that are not documented centrally.
Our central Tutorize learning management system now has around 2,200 registered users, an increase of 19.5 percent year on year. Users can choose from among 125 e-learning courses as well as 32 courses from the central training catalog.
Together with our cooperation partner ma-co as well as the ver.di trade union, the Central Association of German Seaport Operators (Zentralverband der deutschen Seehafenbetriebe – ZDS), Hamburger Hafen und Logistik GmbH (HHLA) and an IT partner, we launched the “PortSkill 4.0” joint project at the end of 2021. The focus is on the transformation in port operations and the associated changes with regard to required skills and qualifications. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport and aims to develop new learning concepts and methods to impart the necessary skills. In the first two years, new digital learning environments were designed within the scope of the project, and a digital test and training center (DTTC) is currently being set up. The research project will run until the end of 2025 and forms a good basis for future developments in port operations, directly related administrative tasks and the ensuing adjustments with regard to qualification requirements.
In 2023, we continued to advise and support the SMA-LO – Smart Learning in Logistics project launched in 2022 through our involvement as a member of the Advisory Board. By drawing on AI-supported methods, the project, which will wrap up in 2024, aims among other things to create a learning ecosystem that enables individual learning based on flexible learning paths.
Developing young talent
Alongside our established Junior Management Program (JMP), we launched a second trainee program in 2023 entitled “Specialist Program.” The program focuses on specialist career paths and offers students the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills in the fields of finances/management accounting, human resources, project and process management or IT. In the course of the two-year program, the candidates spend time in different areas within BLG LOGISTICS and also gain valuable insights from workshops on topics such as communication and conflict resolution. The new cohorts of both programs started at the beginning of May 2023. Four participants are enrolled on the JMP and five on the specialist program.
To ensure consistent management development, our qualification programs for operational managers were also continued: In the reporting year, 14 shift supervisors and six operations managers successfully completed the program. We also held our “TAKE THE LEAD” management training courses again, with the fourth management workshop under the motto “Reflection” taking place in a new digital format in the reporting year.
Further development through individual feedback
In order to support our employees in their individual development, our managers conduct annual employee appraisals in which, based on defined criteria, they review performance and discuss potential. These serve as the starting point for drawing up individual development plans for suitably qualified employees. These form the basis for selecting participants in our qualification programs. If desired, Tutorize can be used to conduct and document the interviews – an option that had already been used in over 1,000 cases by the end of 2023.