article review_ what makes an organization rank among the best employers

International Business School

What makes an organization rank among the best employers: A case study on Hilti Employer Training and development program

Prepared by:

NEDA MOTTAGHI GOLSHAN MR091241

DR MUHAMMAD MADI ABDULLAH HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

MRC 2033 SEM I 2010/11

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

Neda Mottaghi Golshan IBS- UTM

Sem 1- 2010/2011 1

What makes an organization rank among the best employers:

A case study on Hilti Employer Training and development program

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 2

2. Hilti at a Glance ............................................................................................................. 3

3. What makes a company a Best Employer? ..................................................................... 5

4. How Hilti have managed to become Best employer? ...................................................... 8

4-1. Successful company ................................................................................................ 8

4-2. Passion for people development .............................................................................. 9

4-3. Living the cooperate culture .................................................................................. 10

4-4. Independent and solid ........................................................................................... 13

4-5. Employer of choice ............................................................................................... 13

5. Hilti build product knowledge with passion and without pain ....................................... 14

6. Recommendations ........................................................................................................ 16

7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 17

8. References ................................................................................................................... 19

9. Appendices .................................................................................................................. 20


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1. Introduction

The Hilti Corporation has achieved the third place in the 2010 best employer in

Switzerland (Hilti ranks among the best employers, 2010). Among over 100 companies

which were assessed in the study less than 30 companies were short listed in the final

evaluation. In the study over 400 Hilti employees were randomly interviewed on the

topics of respect, fairness, and company pride and team orientation.

It have been observed while many companies offer monetary rewards and innovative

benefits, such as Yoga classes, Stock options and cappuccino bars to attract top talents to

their organizations it is still not enough to keep these great people. Being Best employer

needs an approach to a working environment in which the employees are engaged and

committed to business success.

Hilti started as wholly owned company in 1941, and since then have grown dramatically.

With the growth in its marketing and direct selling department, Hilti learned through all

these years to have satisfied customer it first needs to have satisfied employees.

Regarding that since 90’s it have worked intensively to make a corporate culture and

focused on training its employees to turnaround the organization. The implementation of

“Champion 3 C” strategy standing for Customers, Unique competency and Concentration

on market in 1997 was the first step for approaching the corporate culture (The 3 Cs

continue, 2006). But that only was not enough for Hilti to ensure employee satisfaction.

By 2001, Hilti started with a new people strategy and new foundations have been laid for

global training and development. They form part of the people strategy, based on the Hilti

vision and thus on the Champion 3C strategy. In 2006 Hilti signed the UN Global

Compact. The ten principles of this agreement applied to human rights, labor, the

environment and anti-corruption. These all shows the approach of Hilti to become a


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successful organization by focusing on its employee trainings and bringing a corporate

culture.

In following report is presented in three fold. First the Author will be giving some brief

information about Hilti Corporations, its Success history and the organizational structure.

Next a discussion on the key characteristics of Best employers is presented, where the

authors will emphasize on the training and development of employees in organization as

an important factor for becoming the Best employer. On the last part the Author will

elaborate more on how Hilti Corporation has incorporated all these characteristics with a

focus on training and development program for its employees to become the Employer of

Choice in 2010.

2. Hilti at a Glance

Hilti is a global company which provides leading-edge technology to construction

industry. Hilti does that through its innovative and value added solutions. Hilti’s

headquarters are located in Schaan in the principality of Liechtenstein.

Hilti has over 30,000 employees in over 120 countries worldwide, who inspire their

customers and build a better future. Hilti’s corporate culture is based on integrity,

courage, team work and commitment.

Hilti stands out by its innovation, high quality, direct customer relations and effective

marketing. Over two thirds of Hiltis’ employees are connected directly to the customers

in sales organizations and engineering which leads to more than 200,000 customer

contacts each day. Hilti has its own production plants as well as research and

development centres in Europe and Asia.

Hilti was founded in 1941 as a small family company and since then it developed to

become a global company. Hilti have remained a family company as since 2000 Martin


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Hilti Family holds all shares. This fact has been a positive point for Hilti to sustain

continues long term development (Hilti in brief , 2009).

Moreover, Hilti makes long-term success of the company by integrating the interest of all

company’s partners as customers, suppliers and employees into its strategy actively

honouring its social and ecological responsibility.

Hilti long term mission is to passionately create enthusiastic customers and build a better

future by:

� Fostering company climate in which every team member is valued and able to grow.

� Developing win-win relationships with its partners and suppliers.

� Embracing responsibility towards society and environment.

� Aiming to achieve significant and sustainable, profitable growth, thus securing its

freedom of action.

In addition Hilti is aiming to reach to this point by building a culture based on commitment,

responsibility, trust, tolerance and respect for others. The common values shared within Hilti

Corporation include:

� Integrity: Applying truth and honesty in the attitude and behaviour, which mean the

consistency in what you say and what you and meanwhile being accountable for your

action.

� Commitment: Strive for excellence and demonstrate the courage to accept risk,

celebrate success and reward achievement.

� Teamwork: Working together for building a better organization and foster an

atmosphere for open communication, sharing ideas and cooperation.

� Courage: Being open for breaking normality by innovation and taking risk. Exercise

the freedom of choice: love it, leave it, or change it.


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Hilti organizational structure is briefly illustrated in Figure 1.1 (Corporate Organization,

2009).

Figure 1.1- Hilti organizational Structure

3. What makes a company a Best Employer?

It has been observed that so many companies come up with the theory that we are not

too big or our work is not glamorous so we can not be a Best employer. The studies

(Ted Marusarz, 2009) have shown that there exist no relationship between company

size or industry and being Best employer, while on the other hand it have been proved

that high employee engagement is fundamental for being Best employer.

Best Employers create an environment in which employee’s needs are met, so they

are inspired to do their best work, motivated to stay with the company and promote

the company to their friends, family and customers. Five common characteristics of

Best employer are discussed below (Pi Wen Looi, 2005).


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Figure 2.1 – A schematic drawing of Best Employer

� Inspired Leadership: All Best employers have leadership teams that are an

illustration for commitment to their companies and their people. They do this

by maintaining visibility within their employees, providing clear direction of

the company and what the employees’ role is and also encouraging openness

and involvement of employees.

� Unique company culture: Best employers are known for their unique culture

and they hire people based on “culture fit”. They create a different and unique

employment experience for their employers and emphasize on the promotion

from within, which will attract people who see their success in the business

success. By making this unique culture Best employer benefit from superior

performance of their employees.

� Focus on Growing Talent: Best employers provide opportunity for their

employees to develop and grow personally and professionally. Best employers

have a focus on their talent pipeline and make sure that high potentials will

receive training needed for their development.


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Best employers make an investment on their talent management and spend

more time and money on training and development programs in contrast with

other organizations. This focus is realized through:

- Commitment to training: Best employers provide access to training

programs and channels, put more employees in job rotation programs for

developmental purposes, and provide the employees with individual

mentoring programs. The trainings are based on leadership and technical

aspects are delivered through classroom training, e-platform, mentoring

coaching and company libraries.

- Robust Talent Pipeline: Best employers mostly have programs that help

employees to plan their own career path through mentoring and

coaching. They mostly find the high potentials in the organization and

provide them with learning opportunities. Moreover best employers

provide managers information on how to manage their talent pipeline

and develop their employees.

� Strong sense of Accountability: Best employers mostly drill a strong sense of

accountability in their employees. They respect their employees by holding

them accountable for the results and recognize their achievements and success

with enthusiasm and celebration.

� Aligned HR practices and excellent execution: Best employers do not

necessarily have more HR practices than others, but their HR practices are

aligned with their business strategies and are executed effectively.

Based on the discussion above it is quite obvious that Best employers hire right

people, give them opportunities for training and development, get feedback from them

for farther improvement, involve employees in business decisions and keep


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employees updated about company direction and communicate clearly and effectively

with them to make sure they are aligned with business goals. The benefits of these

practices can be summarized as:

� Financial Performance: Best Employers have the advantage of revenue

growth, profits and total shareholder returns.

� Talent Attraction: Best employers usually receive more applications and

have higher employee retention rate, which leads to significant savings, higher

productivity and knowledge retention for the company.

� Employee Engagement: Best employers have more passionate and engaged

employees which will cause the company success.

4. How Hilti have managed to become Best employer?

As it have been discussed in previous section the main characteristics of Best

employers can be summarized as inspired leadership, unique company culture, focus

on employee training and talent development, sense of accountability and through

aligned HR practices which are executed magnificently. In this part of report we will

observe how Hilti have brought all these characteristics to its organization, with a

main focus on training and talent development. The Author has also demonstrated

some examples on how Hilti build product knowledge with passion and without pain

and stories shared by Hilti employee about their developments at Hilti.

4-1. Successful company

Close to customer: Hilti‘s innovative, unique worldwide direct selling model

results in more than 200,000 customer contacts per day. Being this much close to

the customers has helped Hilti to learn and react to customer needs. On the other


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hand this closeness requires high quality and competence and Hilti does that with

trained sale team and CRM software.

Groundbreaking products, systems and services: Hilti has been the first

company to introduce the unique DX direct fastening technology and the electro

pneumatic hammering principle deployed in rotary hammers. It also continues to

set standards in construction industry through introduction of innovative products,

systems and services. Some of the latest examples can be mentioned as fleet

management and the broad range of solutions that enhance health and safety on the

construction site.

Extraordinary design: Hilti have an outstanding level of customer orientation and

also clear added value of its products. Awards of international renown, such as iF

product design award or the red dot design award are some proof to it (What sets

us apart, 2009).

4-2. Passion for people development

Hilti invest in it employee development by providing them opportunities for

functional training, cross-cultural training and career promotion. This is proven by

the fact than 80% of the management positions are filled by internal candidates.

Moreover Hilti wants its new employees to be successful and therefore invest in

their integration into the organization. One of Hilti’s program named “Let’s Start

Together” is an illustration of how Hilti help new employees to gain an in depth

understanding of the company culture and values, while integration them in their

job and tasks (What sets us apart, 2009).

Hilti leverage its employee’s strengths and match them with the right career

opportunities. Each employee together with his/her team leader will define his/her

personal and professional goals and receives regular feedbacks on his/her progress.


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As it have been stated by Hannelie Strydom, Human resource manager (Strydom,

2009) the personal development in an organization is defined by giving the

freedom to employees to grow at each level of the organization. “To me, personal

development means allowing all the people in our company to grow – at any level

within the hierarchy. And I mean not only in terms of expertise, but also as a

person. Growth, after all, is the key to progress, as an individual or as an

organization in its entirety.

At Hilti we are convinced that diversity in the structure of our staff is a basic

prerequisite for corporate success. To achieve good results, we need a balance of

team members of both genders, from various cultural backgrounds and with

different kinds of experience. We actively promote the creation and maintenance of

this kind of variety in all countries – not only in places where this is required by

law as it is in South Africa.

The personal development process at Hilti is supported by various tools. These

include the company’s internal Assessment Centre, comprehensive feedback

sessions and personal coaching. The goal is to show each team member the way to

personal growth and development and how to reach their potential.

We put our own performance to the test at regular intervals by taking part

throughout the world in competitions to find the best employer in the country – and

we regularly gain top spots in the ranking lists.”

In Section 5 of this report illustrates an example on how Hilti builds product

knowledge with passion and no pain.

4-3. Living the cooperate culture

Hilt’s corporate values which were mentioned in previous section as integrity,

courage, team work and commitment are the guidelines for the way employees


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treat each other. Hiltis’s unique corporate culture is a fundamental of its long-term

success (What sets us apart, 2009).

Growing as a team: Hilti invests more than 35,000 working days per year to

prepare its employees for future challenges. At Hilti, corporate growth of

individual growth goes hand in hand.

Hilti continues to maintain its reputation as a “great place to work.” Hilti’s

corporate culture gives its employees the basis for success both personally and

professionally.

In Hilti people with courage to look at themselves and their work will grow day

after day and they also will help other people to grow, and in this way they will

come up with new ideas. In other words, courage leads to innovation and this is a

solid pillar of Hilti corporate culture.

Nearly all Hilti team members globally have taken part in at least on Corporate

Culture workshop since 2004, when the workshops were launched. By attending

the workshops, the employees think of the evolution of Hilti corporate culture as

their own evolution. These workshops also give the chance to employees to take a

pause to take stock, before continuing to work as part of a team with fresh

awareness and new goals. They also have the chance to think about their personal

development and think of their next developmental stages. Every employee has the

chance to meet with their own supervisor at least once a year to discuss and

evaluate their performance and make plans for next move (Courage and loyalty,

2007).


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Figure 2.2 – Hilti coporate culture improvement

Proud to work at Hilti: The employees’ voice is an important factor for Hilti.

Regarding that Hilti runs several employee opinion survey to gather all the

feedbacks to improve the company growth.

Being an attractive employer for 30,000employees is not only one of the four goals

of 2015 for Hilti but also the key objective of its personnel strategy.

Based on vision 2015, Hilti is looking to growth in its human resources. Regarding

this fact the Hiltis’ personnel managers globally have faced the challenge of

finding right people to recruit whom can accept the corporate culture easily and

will stay with Hilti for long term. The new employers are given six months to

adopt themselves to Hilti’s unique culture; meanwhile Hilti will also take an

appropriate position. As one example is Hilti’s motto in 2008 of “Let’s start

together”.

One other challenge for Hilti in growing its human resource is to increase the level

of employees’ commitment. Hilti is successful in long term only if it have satisfied

and committed employees. In a survey conducted by Hilti within its employees to

find they enjoy working at Hilti the following reasons have been highly valued:


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teamwork culture, international perspective, open door policy, flat hierarchies and

direct, open and feed-backed oriented communication.

In short words, what set Hilti apart from other employers are its diverse activities

and success in the area of people development. It is Hilti’s employees and its

unique culture which leads to success of the organization (Matthiesen, 2008).

4-4. Independent and solid

Martin Hilti founded the company in 1941 with only 5 employees in a garage in

the principality of Liechtenstein. While today Hilti has more than 20,000

employees in 120 countries on 5 continents and is a global leader in the

construction industry.

A family-owned company: All shares of Hilti are owned by Martin Hilti family,

which is a guarantee for the company independence and stability.

Hilti long-term vision: Hilti long-term vision can be summarised as high customer

satisfaction, being “a great place to work” for all team members and sustainable

profitable growth (What sets us apart, 2009).

4-5. Employer of choice

Employees’ voice is a fundamental for Hilti to improve its company. Hilti does that

with the use of annual surveys which is a channel for the company to take action

based on the feedback given.

Awards: Hilti team members are quite familiar with this aspect moreover this is

confirmed by the external studies as well. No matter of which country, Hilti is

popular and this shows the ambition of Hilti to be an employer of choice (What

sets us apart, 2009).


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5. Hilti build product knowledge with passion and without pain

At Hilti (GB) Ltd training center in Stockport, Cheshire, the training consisted of

classroom teaching and practical demonstrations. It focused on introduction of

company’s leading-edge technology for global construction industry.

‘‘The learning experience had to be enjoyable, of value and worthwhile,’’ said Nigel

Biscombe, develop and coach manager (David,2010). ‘‘A pro-active approach was

required to engage our new starters, to involve them in our business plans and to share

our values and business goals, as well as developing their product knowledge and

equipping them with the skills and ability to go out and passionately create

enthusiastic customers.’’

‘‘Trainers for the program come from within the company, bringing experience from

various areas of the business,’’ he continued. ‘‘They are committed to personal

development and attend the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Train

the Trainer external accreditation to ensure that they have a good understanding of

developing various learning approaches to engage learners and address individual

learner needs.”

One participant commented: ‘‘the way in which the course was structured made me

take product information in without even realizing it. Because it was so interactive,

with presentations and practicals, it made you learn in an interesting and energetic

way.’’

The induction training starts with ‘‘Our Culture Journey’’, which explores three

principles:

1. We do worthwhile work;

2. We take self-response ability to achieve our goals; and

3. We encourage one another and recognize results.


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During a ‘‘Welcome to Hilti’’ day, various areas of the business including material

control, HR and sustainability share their practices. There are presentations from

directors, product managers, regional managers, engineers and technical specialists.

Methods of delivery include classroom-based role-plays, quizzes and discussion.

Plenty of opportunity is offered to gain practical experience.

‘‘Field accompaniments take place, with new account managers and customer-service

representatives spending a day with an experienced member of the team and

observing their behaviour,’’ said Nigel Biscombe. ‘‘Also, experienced members of

the training team or a regional mentor will spend time with the new starters in their

role, coaching them as they develop their newly acquired skills. This is an ongoing

process.’’

The program’s effectiveness is measured by integration questionnaires at three and six

months. ‘‘The success of our new starters can be measured by our retention and

development figures and the success rates of our account managers reaching or

exceeding predetermined sales targets at six months into the business,’’ Nigel

Biscombe explained. ‘‘We are producing quality people who identify with our culture

and are able to develop successful careers within the organization.’’

Hilti works closely with all areas of business to make sure that its understanding of

business needs and product knowledge remains up to date (Pollitt, 2010).


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6. Recommendations

Nowadays becoming a best employer is a competitive advantage, not only because the

organization will be highly branded, but also the reputation it gained within the

potential employees and the easier process to find the needed talent. The following

recommendations can be made based on the presented case and lessons learned from

the progress of Hilti.

In first step it is recommended for the organization to conduct an assessment around

the five characteristic of best employer as stated in the First part of the report:

� Inspired leadership: where leaders are visible throughout the company, and

are easy approachable and are involved in talent development programs.

� Unique company culture: Where the organizations build a unique culture and

select employees that fit this culture.

� Focus on growing talent: Where the organization needs to invest in resources

for talent development, develop a talent pipeline and engaging managers in all

of these.

� Strong sense of accountability: Where the expectations of organization from

employees and vice versa is cleared.

� Aligned HR practices and excellent execution: Where employee practices are

relevant to the business strategies and executed effectively.

One important aspect in implementing all these evaluations is the communication

strategy which needs to communicate the value of your program within your people

and give them the chance to freely give their feedbacks.

The next step after evaluation is the review and action part:

� The assessment results shall be reviewed and improvements to become Best

employer shall be put into action.


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� Team members to implement shall be identified.

� Communication strategy shall be changed in the way that follows all these

improvements.

� Key outcome measures and milestone for measuring progress shall be

identified.

� Potential pitfall and barriers that may distract the organization to become the

Best employer shall be identified.

� A feedback loop to review the progress and follow up is also needed.

Moreover the organizations should consider, being best Employer is not an end state

but a continuous journey, and the path to become and stay Best employer is anything

but not an easy task. Although the result of being Best Employer, as the one Hilti is

already enjoying such as better consistent financial performance, attracting quality

employees and having engaged workforce, worth the effort.

7. Conclusion

Based on the discussion presented in this report it is quite obvious that best employers

succeed not cause of their size or industry, but by valuing their employees and

developing them. With a sustained commitment they capture the heart and mind of

their people and make sure that their employees’ aspirations and their company goals

are aligned.

For Best employers the recent economic difficulties have not altered their efforts to

maintain the relationship with their employees. In case of any challenges, they have

used it as an opportunity to renew their focus on employment relationship and build a

sense of loyalty which will overcome the current recession.


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For Hilti it also has been no exception. Ranking for the third time among best

employers, Hilti has put its efforts on building a corporate culture, where its people

are given the opportunity to develop themselves both professionally and personally.

As it have been illustrated in the report, Hilti runs different surveys, campaigns and

workshops not to only integrate its new members into its unique culture and facilitate

them with the knowledge and trainings that they need to boost their profession, but

also its designed in a way that all team members have the freedom to speak and be

given the feedback regarding their performance and their farther steps in their career

path.

At last but not least, it is important to mention that the road to become best employer

cannot be traveled over the night. It takes time and effort to build trustful relationship

with employees and change the culture to where people like to work and see their

success in organization success. However, the benefits of making the journey are

great for the organization, employees, customers and shareholders.


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8. References

Corporate Culture. (2009). Annual Report , p. 64.

Corporate Organization. (2009). Retrieved 08 20, 2010, from Hilti Online: http://www.hilti.com/holcom/page/module/home/browse_main.jsf?lang=en&nodeId=-8579

Courage and loyalty. (2007). Annual Report , pp. 18-19.

Hilti in brief . (2009). Retrieved 08 20, 2010, from Hilti Online: http://www.hilti.com/holcom/page/module/home/browse_main.jsf?lang=en&nodeId=-8555

Hilti ranks among the best employers. (2010, 4 28). Schaan, Liechtenstein: Hilti Corporate Communications.

Matthiesen, S. (2008). Proud to work at Hilti. Annual Report , pp. 30-35.

Pi Wen Looi, T. Z. (2005). What makes a best employer? Hewitt Associates.

Pollitt, D. (2010). Hilti (GB) Ltd builds product knowledge with passion and without pain. Human Resource Management International Digest , 24-26.

Strydom, H. (2009). Growth is the key to progress. Annual Report , p. 27.

Ted Marusarz, T. K. (2009). What makes a company a best employer? Hewitt Associates.

The 3 Cs continue. (2006). Annual Report , p. 16.

What sets us apart. (2009). Retrieved 08 20, 2010, from Hilti Online: http://www.hilti.com/holcom/page/module/home/browse_main.jsf?lang=en&nodeId=-8414


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9. Appendices

� Appendix A: The employee growth in Hilti during last 5 years (Corporate

Culture, 2009).

� The result of annual survey conducted in 2009, which received 91% replies

from employees on their willingness to work in Hilti (Corporate Culture,

2009).

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