The Talent Scout
Through her talent incubator, Andrea Wedel wants to help ensure that the advertising industry invests more in people than in pitches and hardware.
With her talent factory, Andrea Wedel wants to help ensure that the advertising industry invests more in people than in pitches and hardware. "It's a shame every day that you can't work in an inspired way. It's a shame for the employee and a shame for the company." This insight from Andrea Wedel is not just a philosophy that she uses to coach clients in her talent incubator today. It was also her personal decision to leave a senior position after 16 years in advertising and start something completely new from the bottom up.
In 2003, the strategy planner at Fisch Meier Direkt and manager of Switzerland's most successful DM agency felt "tired of advertising" and announced to her husband and agency manager Gilbert Fisch that she was leaving the agency after twelve years. This was "no problem" for the two of them. However, she had a bit more of a headache when she realized that it was not so easy to find a new professional challenge that suited her.
What lucky women have at such times is a good friend. She knew what was slumbering inside Andrea Wedel and came up with the right tip: "You have to get into HR." Since then, Human Resources has been the challenge that has allowed Andrea Wedel to fill her time with inspired work again. She first "apprenticed" as an assistant in a management consultancy, where she supervised "hundreds of assessments" in the HR department over three years. She continued her psychological training and, as a former executive, also learned to coach managers. "Some of them were people who had slipped into a management position and were leading more intuitively than consciously," says Wedel, explaining her work, from which she has also benefited a great deal herself. "You learn how we humans 'work' and why we behave in certain situations in a certain way and not differently."
After three years, these experiences from countless management meetings led to the consultant feeling accepted in her new profession and also specialized enough to want to realize her own ideas even more in the future.
In spring 2006, Andrea Wedel founded her Talent-Schmiede in an office partnership with her good friend, who also runs a recruitment agency on Zurich's Bleicherweg. Unlike an established recruitment agency, however, Wedel's consultancy aims to do more than "just" place talent. Her USP: "I have worked in the communications industry for 16 years and have experienced all stages myself, from young advertising assistant to consulting group leader to strategist and 20-man/woman unit manager. I also have a second career in personnel selection and development. I would now like to combine these two areas of experience."
Advertisers invest in pitches, PCs and creative minds. Wedel believes that "much more would be possible". Creativity and entrepreneurial success in all areas could be multiplied "if you have the right people in the right environment". With her Talent-Schmiede, she would therefore like to advise agency owners, managing directors and executives on how they can create an environment in their team where talent can best develop. In addition to general personnel recruitment, Schmiede also wants to provide advice and coaching on personnel development. The agency's name says it all, as Wedel is convinced that "everyone has talent. The only question is which one." The second important analysis: is someone with this talent in the right place and are they already making full use of it?
Together with the client, Wedel considers "what can be done specifically to ensure that employees can contribute all their talents and thus want to stay with the company". For Wedel, staff turnover in the industry is far too high. "Those who don't feel supported and valued try another agency," she says. And currently, the upturn in the economy has led to more people wanting a change. Is this also increasing the need for the services she offers?
"The advertising industry is still doing far too little. When an employee is hired, he or she is still 'an investment in the future', but afterwards is usually just a cost factor. This tendency is strong in advertising," Wedel has observed. Hardly any agencies have a specialist department for personnel strategy and personnel development. And if they do, then only for personnel administration. The situation is similarly poor in the area of training. Nothing is done that goes beyond the practical and purely technical. Other service industries are much further ahead in this respect, investing specifically and systematically in the personal and leadership development of their key employees.
Wedel can present Spinas Gemperle as an example of how the Talent Forge was able to support the growth of an agency in a meaningful and successful way. The specialists for communication in the NGO sector have grown from two to twenty people in a short space of time. Many of these employees originally came from the creative department. Together with Lorenz Spinas and the management team, Talent-Schmiede has therefore introduced an organizational form into the agency, structured processes and used an "employee barometer" to analyze how processes can be optimized, how efficiency can be increased and how they can contribute to inspired work.
In other consultations, Wedel can also come to the conclusion that a company has filled key positions with the wrong people. And time and again, she finds that "the number one reason for dismissal is still the line manager", which is also statistically proven. However, intelligent owners are slowly realizing this and, in sparring with her, are realizing "that you can't just demand more and more from employees, you also have to think about the environment so that people are motivated and can give their best". After just one year, the talent incubator is already very well utilized. Nevertheless, it is still the norm for many agencies that the "level of suffering must be very high" before the help of a coach is requested.
However, "suffering" can also mean fun for Andrea Wedel. That's when she completely disconnects from advertising once again. Like this week, for example. The enthusiastic triathlete will be running, swimming and cycling across the country for seven days in the longest Gigathlon in Switzerland, from Basel to Chur to Nyon to Bern. Otherwise, she still likes to relax by painting. - After all, everyone has more than one talent that they sometimes have to live out.
Andreas Panzeri
In 2003, the strategy planner at Fisch Meier Direkt and manager of Switzerland's most successful DM agency felt "tired of advertising" and announced to her husband and agency manager Gilbert Fisch that she was leaving the agency after twelve years. This was "no problem" for the two of them. However, she had a bit more of a headache when she realized that it was not so easy to find a new professional challenge that suited her.
What lucky women have at such times is a good friend. She knew what was slumbering inside Andrea Wedel and came up with the right tip: "You have to get into HR." Since then, Human Resources has been the challenge that has allowed Andrea Wedel to fill her time with inspired work again. She first "apprenticed" as an assistant in a management consultancy, where she supervised "hundreds of assessments" in the HR department over three years. She continued her psychological training and, as a former executive, also learned to coach managers. "Some of them were people who had slipped into a management position and were leading more intuitively than consciously," says Wedel, explaining her work, from which she has also benefited a great deal herself. "You learn how we humans 'work' and why we behave in certain situations in a certain way and not differently."
After three years, these experiences from countless management meetings led to the consultant feeling accepted in her new profession and also specialized enough to want to realize her own ideas even more in the future.
In spring 2006, Andrea Wedel founded her Talent-Schmiede in an office partnership with her good friend, who also runs a recruitment agency on Zurich's Bleicherweg. Unlike an established recruitment agency, however, Wedel's consultancy aims to do more than "just" place talent. Her USP: "I have worked in the communications industry for 16 years and have experienced all stages myself, from young advertising assistant to consulting group leader to strategist and 20-man/woman unit manager. I also have a second career in personnel selection and development. I would now like to combine these two areas of experience."
Advertisers invest in pitches, PCs and creative minds. Wedel believes that "much more would be possible". Creativity and entrepreneurial success in all areas could be multiplied "if you have the right people in the right environment". With her Talent-Schmiede, she would therefore like to advise agency owners, managing directors and executives on how they can create an environment in their team where talent can best develop. In addition to general personnel recruitment, Schmiede also wants to provide advice and coaching on personnel development. The agency's name says it all, as Wedel is convinced that "everyone has talent. The only question is which one." The second important analysis: is someone with this talent in the right place and are they already making full use of it?
Together with the client, Wedel considers "what can be done specifically to ensure that employees can contribute all their talents and thus want to stay with the company". For Wedel, staff turnover in the industry is far too high. "Those who don't feel supported and valued try another agency," she says. And currently, the upturn in the economy has led to more people wanting a change. Is this also increasing the need for the services she offers?
"The advertising industry is still doing far too little. When an employee is hired, he or she is still 'an investment in the future', but afterwards is usually just a cost factor. This tendency is strong in advertising," Wedel has observed. Hardly any agencies have a specialist department for personnel strategy and personnel development. And if they do, then only for personnel administration. The situation is similarly poor in the area of training. Nothing is done that goes beyond the practical and purely technical. Other service industries are much further ahead in this respect, investing specifically and systematically in the personal and leadership development of their key employees.
Wedel can present Spinas Gemperle as an example of how the Talent Forge was able to support the growth of an agency in a meaningful and successful way. The specialists for communication in the NGO sector have grown from two to twenty people in a short space of time. Many of these employees originally came from the creative department. Together with Lorenz Spinas and the management team, Talent-Schmiede has therefore introduced an organizational form into the agency, structured processes and used an "employee barometer" to analyze how processes can be optimized, how efficiency can be increased and how they can contribute to inspired work.
In other consultations, Wedel can also come to the conclusion that a company has filled key positions with the wrong people. And time and again, she finds that "the number one reason for dismissal is still the line manager", which is also statistically proven. However, intelligent owners are slowly realizing this and, in sparring with her, are realizing "that you can't just demand more and more from employees, you also have to think about the environment so that people are motivated and can give their best". After just one year, the talent incubator is already very well utilized. Nevertheless, it is still the norm for many agencies that the "level of suffering must be very high" before the help of a coach is requested.
However, "suffering" can also mean fun for Andrea Wedel. That's when she completely disconnects from advertising once again. Like this week, for example. The enthusiastic triathlete will be running, swimming and cycling across the country for seven days in the longest Gigathlon in Switzerland, from Basel to Chur to Nyon to Bern. Otherwise, she still likes to relax by painting. - After all, everyone has more than one talent that they sometimes have to live out.
Andreas Panzeri
