HR strategy – translating theory into practice

ASB Hessen helps people in need, providing support in the areas of rescue services and civil protection, aid for children, families and elderly people, and integration and migration. Needless to say, the denser the network of helpers, the faster staff can reach the places they are needed. Skilled, knowledgeable staff are called for – and the HR department therefore has a vital role to play.

It must ensure the organization’s image across all regions and locations is both consistent and attractive. Consequently, staff development, employability, recruitment and training are all areas of top priority at ASB Hessen. As part of this strategic process, the organization wanted to completely rethink its approach to HR and fundamentally reorganize its human resources department.

The ASB management team considered it important to gain a fresh, external perspective. They were therefore seeking a partner who was completely at home in the world of HR and would be able to work with the ASB team to develop alternative HR scenarios, in the expectation that a concrete target image would then crystallize out of these blueprints.  

One of the first challenges involved was balancing conflicting priorities – centralized or decentralized, standardized or personalized, in-house or external service? For ASB Hessen, digitalization played an important role here. The project team wanted to start by identifying the potential for digitalization, independently of any particular tool – and only then develop suitable solutions on the basis of this analysis.

The tts team met all the requirements. There were two core competences that proved to be key success factors. The first was the tts team’s technical expertise, while the second was its intuition – a vital quality that enabled it to swiftly empathize with the ASB culture and the charity’s special requirements. 

Thanks to their experience, the tts experts were able to drive the project forward with confidence, ask the right questions and swiftly derive suitable solutions from the answers worked out in partnership with ASB Hessen. All in all, by means of thorough analysis and an agile approach, tts successfully kept the process of developing the HR target image streamlined.

For ASB Hessen, the partnership with tts has paid off in two respects – firstly because tts included the relevant stakeholders from the outset, impressing them with their technical expertise, and secondly because the digital collaboration method selected meant that work was target-oriented at all times.

The foundations of a future-proof HR system were created over the course of ten workshops. At the same time, weekly jour fixe meetings and seamless communication via the Miro board ensured the successful transfer of know-how.

The ultimate outcome is a clear HR target image and a roadmap – and, together, these point the way forward.  

Now, the next step is to implement the appropriate HR tool. In a parallel step, ASB Hessen is planning to enhance its HR expertise in two ways – by expanding its internal network and by forming expert clusters, with the HR experts from tts fully on board.