Human Capital

These changes include the following:

• the fast development of IT; 
• a demand for higher quality products;
• shorter product lifecycles;
• an increase of legislation;
• transition to a knowledge economy.

Why worry?

Chances are you are working in an industry or company that employs staff who have been there for ages. These companies have always performed at an acceptable level, so why would they worry? 

Well, change is coming to your doorstep. The older generation is starting to leave the company, taking with them their lifelong experience. As your product lifecycle is getting shorter, and all this ‘experience’ is leaving the company, you now realize that the long term value of your brand is in the knowledge embedded in your recipes, products and brands. So, how can you hold on to this knowledge and experience in your organization?

Invest

You have two choices: either educate your younger employees or find external experts and hire them on a project basis. In the short term, the latter option would seem interesting, but in the long run you need to invest in human capital. 

Define your company’s core competences, challenge your employees to master them and reward them for doing so. The younger employees are not planning to stay with you for the rest of their careers, but they do want to be challenged and continuously improve themselves. So use that motivation to your advantage!

Where do we stand?

So, as an industry, where do we stand in the development of human capital? General education on a mid-level and higher level is in place with universities and applied sciences institutes offering plenty of education opportunities. 

However, the practical aspects of education for working adults come with some difficulties, as it is inefficient to spend a big part of the organization’s education time and budget travelling to and from school. It may be better to stimulate your employees to go online and find sources of knowledge and experience that fit your and their demands. Online learning, or e-learning, has evolved greatly over the last few years, and several online education platforms have become successful recently. 

Pet industry specific education, however, is still hard to find. Even though diplomas from veterinarian, human food or product design study programmes are often sufficient to apply for a job in the pet industry, many new employees still need to go through an internal training process to be able to perform their job in the pet industry. 

Luckily, we are starting to see the development of several online courses and/or academic offerings for the pet industry as well. As online learning is finding its way, the industry as a whole needs to take the initiative to create the setting in which quality can be distinguished, certificates can be achieved and competences can be acknowledged. 

Sharing knowledge

The pet industry lacks a central knowledge hub, and we have gotten used to each individual business or brand re-inventing the wheel over and over again. What if we all came together and share our knowledge and experience, so that we all benefit and push the industry forward? 

It has now become important that the experts of the industry invest time and effort in preparing courses based on their knowledge and experience to offer to the new generation of pet brand employees. Fitted to their needs, using their preferred tool (internet, YouTube) and preparing them for a career in the pet industry. This would enable you to focus on your company’s key values, in which human capital will turn out to be one of the most important assets.