TAYSAD President Saydam: The balance in the business world has been disrupted

The Talent Management Conference, organized to showcase new approaches and different examples of performance management in a changing world, was hosted by the Automotive Suppliers Association of Turkey (TAYSAD).

At the conference, which was held for the sixth time this year with the main theme of "Sustainable Employee Engagement," numerous important topics were addressed, ranging from human resources to wage management, and from sustainability to employee engagement and the rate of women in employment.

TAYSAD Board Member Hakan Konak posed a question to the participants: What would happen if the employees themselves—the very people who will realize the goals—set those goals? Konak stated that they wanted to learn whether employees would be more motivated when they set the goals themselves.

Explaining that they tested this in their company of 1000 people in Turkey to find out, Konak said, "After determining our medium-term strategic plan, we shared this strategy with everyone from my operator colleague to the general manager. We gave them all an A4 sheet of paper. And we said, 'We have a strategic priority regarding competition and competitiveness. What should we do this year, and what should our goal be?' We received files full of answers from everyone, one by one. We read them all, one by one. You won't believe it; 80 percent of them matched the goals set by the managers. Actually, great minds think alike. And what was the result? Those goals were met. Every single one of them was truly met. Because I didn't set the goals. They did. They are the ones who are going to achieve them anyway. They are the ones who will take the steps necessary for those goals to be met," he stated.

Emphasizing that they reached a much more important conclusion as a result of the study, Konak reported that engagement increased very noticeably in the employee satisfaction survey, and pointed out that when employees feel valued, their performance increases, as does their commitment to the company.

TAYSAD Board Chairman Albert Saydam also touched upon how the technology age in automotive has distanced companies from simple solutions, stating: "Connectivity, autonomous driving, vehicle sharing, artificial intelligence, and electrification are our agenda; we have all concentrated on these, and 3 years ago we looked and saw that one of the most abundant materials in the world had become our biggest problem; sand. That is, the shortage of silicon or chips. Of course, describing the technological development of centuries as a chip or sand might be a bit of a simplification, but perhaps we sometimes fail to solve issues because we approach them in a very general and sophisticated way. The efficient use of resources and the preservation of the balance in the world and the universe. Unfortunately, this balance has been disrupted. How was it disrupted? We disrupted it. We are consuming resources, and ethical rules have become things we look at and criticize from time to time. We need to take a look at ourselves. I am not saying there is a risk of the balance being disrupted; the balance has been disrupted, and sustainability is under serious threat. So, how can you determine the value of something? There is a very simple rule. Value exists in the supply-demand balance, and this balance has been disrupted."

Saying, "Just think, there is a limited number of vehicles in the world right now, and the companies renting them are also limited. In that case, is its value determined by the correct price, or by the price of that vehicle?" Saydam continued his words as follows: "No, whoever pays the higher price is the one who determines the value. Unfortunately, the balance in the job market is currently disrupted due to a lack of supply. What kind of disruption is there? Unemployment figures in Turkey are 9.3 percent. That is very good, but participation in the workforce is 31 million out of 85 million. The same figure in Germany is 45 million. Participation among women is 50 percent; women's participation in the workforce in Turkey is 30 percent. As long as we do not change this, we can neither know the value of worth, nor can worth know its true value, nor can we ensure balance and sustainability."

News Source: 12punto