The company also sets high standards in its recruitment of new staff, with all newly appointed professional staff expected to have:
• a good education;
• strong analytical skills;
• good communication skills;
• an interest in, and openness to, other cultures;
• energy, to drive the business.
As far as developing people is concerned, ABB has a very simple approach: after recruiting talented people, give them early responsibility and subject them to a range of informal and formal development strategies. The line drives both sets of activities, with the personnel function supporting the line with leading-edge development strategies rather than with complicated models and elaborate processes. As the head of the corporate management resourcing function, Arne Olssen, is reported to have said (p326)
“Exposing talented people to demanding assignments and providing feedback and support – this is the key to management development.”
Olssen articulates ABB’s management development philosophy very clearly, when he states that managers develop:
• 70 per cent on the job;
• 20 per cent by the influence of others;
• 10 per cent as a result of courses and seminars.
Without it being explicitly stated, it is reasonable to assume that the same principles and philosophy also applied to the development of the company’s non-management employees.
Based on information from the book: The Dancing Giant, by Kevin Bareham and Claudia Heimer (1998).