Siemens: 75 Years of Production of Electric Motors in Frenštát (2. strana)

Today‘s labor market is very tense. How do you get new employees and how do you manage to look for technical experts? Do you work with schools in any way? You are right that you will not find free capacity on the labor market. However, I am not a supporter of agency employment. For me, longevity, the satisfaction of regular employees, their ideas and creativity and good performance based on the relationship to both the company and our electric motors are important. This is the only way to keep not only existing employees but also to hire new people. This strategy has paid off for us in recent years, and I am glad that we are mainly employing people from our region. The strategy of cooperation with schools is very important for obtaining new experts. We cooperate with both high schools and technical universities. We have built our own training center, where high school students practice in our country. Five years ago, we opened the so-called Student Office in Ostrava for students of technical universities. Here, students work on real projects and connect their studies with practice. At present, we are cooperating in this way with more than fifteen students from the Technical University of Ostrava’s Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, and we are also beginning to cooperate with students of economics. Most students stay with us after graduation and become members of our core teams in either development or engineering. The student office and good cooperation with VŠB-TUO were also the basis for the decision to build a European development center for electric motors and generators in Ostrava. This fact helped me to convince the German leadership and transfer a large part of the competencies from Germany to the Czech Republic. Now Siemens has significantly participated in the construction of the Testbed for Industry 4.0 at VŠB-TUO, which will serve, among others, small and midrange companies as a laboratory in which they can try out the latest technologies, including digital twin methods and other advanced digital solutions. You have been running the company for six years now; the last two years have been quite challenging for most managers in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic and the tense situation on world markets. How do you manage to rest? Do you have any advice for others? I have no advice for others. Everyone has to find a balance between work and rest. But I agree with you that those significant and very fast fluctuations are very demanding on the flexibility and management of most companies. We had the advantage that industry did not close during the pandemic and, despite very difficult conditions, we did not have to reduce or even close down production. The company‘s crisis management has been taking its toll for so long, but it is necessary to keep a cool head and be able to relax even after work or on weekends. My big hobby is photography. With a camera in hand, I forget about the daily work carousel and behind the lens I enjoy the beauty of our region for several hours at a time. I am all the more pleased that there is interest in my photographs, which adorn many households in my area. Mr Director, thank you for the interview. POSITIV 4/2021 ǀ 13