Mini-Masterclass Episode 5: Stop Searching for UNICORNS!

Stop Searching for Unicorns: Empowerment Beats Recruiting

Many maintenance departments are desperately searching for new employees. But a look at some job ads shows: They are not just looking for a good maintenance worker, but for a practically impossible combination of disciplines and skills.

The ideal candidate should master mechanics and electronics, be able to program, analyze data, operate digital systems, and of course, have many years of professional experience.

In short: Companies are looking for unicorns.

The problem is not just the shortage of skilled workers. The problem is also the expectations of individual employees, which are hardly ever met.

You will not find the perfect specialist

Modern production facilities are becoming more complex. Mechanics, electronics, automation, and software are increasingly intertwined. At the same time, the requirements for documentation, data quality, and error analysis are rising.

Many companies respond by formulating increasingly extensive requirement profiles. They are looking for an experienced maintenance worker who covers as many technical disciplines as possible and also takes on digital tasks.

But this exact employee is hardly available on the job market. And if they do exist, you are competing with numerous other companies for them.

The search for the perfect specialist does not solve the shortage of skilled workers. It even exacerbates it because suitable applicants fail due to unrealistic expectations.

Your existing employees are the greatest leverage

Instead of continuing to search for the perfect candidate, you should ask another question:

How can you make the people who already work in your company more effective?

Your technicians bring valuable expertise. They know the facilities, understand the production processes, and know which solutions work in practice. What they often lack is not technical competence, but the right digital support.

This is where the decisive leverage lies: Turn your existing horses into racehorses.

This does not mean that every employee suddenly has to become a programmer or data analyst. It means that digital tools take over tasks that previously required additional specialist knowledge or a lot of time.

Good technology complements humans

Digital systems should not burden employees with more input forms, tables, and documentation obligations. They should relieve them of work.

A platform like ADAM can, for example, support analysis and documentation. The technician provides their expertise and describes what happened to the facility. The system helps to capture the information in a structured way and make it usable for future cases.

This creates a meaningful division of labor:

The human observes, evaluates, and solves the technical problem. The software assists in processing, structuring, and documenting the information.

Your employees do not have to combine all competencies in one person. They can focus on what they do best: solving problems.

Documentation should not be an additional qualification

A good maintenance worker is not automatically a good documentation specialist. Nevertheless, the quality of the available information in many companies depends on how thoroughly a technician writes after a repair.

In the worst case, the report reads:

"Facility defective."

And the feedback:

"Facility back in order."

The problem was solved in the short term, but hardly any knowledge was created for the organization. The search starts again with the next comparable error.

The classic reaction to this is often: Employees need to be better trained and document more thoroughly. But this turns a process problem into an employee problem.

It is better to make documentation so simple that it actually works in everyday work. Digital assistants can ask targeted questions, recognize missing information, and generate structured feedback from natural language.

This improves data quality without every technician having to become a technical editor.

AI democratizes specialized knowledge

Artificial intelligence can help make skills more widely available in the team. It does not replace technical expertise. It complements it.

For example, an employee does not have to conduct complex data analyses themselves if a digital system prepares relevant information. They do not need to know every previous malfunction if the existing knowledge is available facility-specific. And they do not have to write perfect reports if an assistant guides them through the feedback.

This allows even less experienced employees to become productive more quickly. They gain access to documented experiences, previous solutions, and relevant information from the facility context.

This not only strengthens individual technicians. It increases the performance of the entire team.

Empowerment is more than a software project

New tools alone do not turn an employee into a racehorse. What matters is how they are integrated into everyday work.

Digital empowerment therefore requires three elements:

1. A specific problem

Do not start with the question of which technology you want to introduce. Start with a task that unnecessarily burdens your employees today.

This can be the documentation of repairs, the search for information, or the analysis of recurring malfunctions.

2. Easy access

The tool must fit the reality of maintenance work. If operation requires additional training, complicated forms, or long process steps, it will hardly find acceptance.

Natural language can be an important bridge here. Employees can enter information as they would explain it to a colleague.

3. Available knowledge

Digital support is particularly valuable when it does not work in isolation. Reports, feedback, documentation, and previous experiences should be available in the context of the respective facility.

This gradually creates a shared knowledge base from which the entire team benefits.

Recruiting remains important – but it is not enough

Of course, companies will continue to need new employees. Digital empowerment does not replace sensible personnel planning.

But recruiting alone cannot close the growing gap between available skilled workers and increasing demands. Those who focus their strategy solely on new applicants make the success of maintenance dependent on an increasingly difficult job market.

Companies therefore need both: new talents and systematic empowerment of the existing workforce.

The crucial difference lies in the perspective. Instead of asking what skills a new employee must already fully possess, you should consider what competencies your company can provide through processes, knowledge, and digital tools.

The most important insights from the episode

The central message is: **Empowerment beats Recruiting.**

The most important key takeaways:

• Unrealistic job profiles shrink the applicant market. Mechanics, electronics, programming, and data analysis cannot be naturally combined in one person.
• The greatest potential already works in your company. Existing employees know your facilities and processes.
• Digital tools should complement skills. Technology takes over analysis and documentation tasks, while humans solve technical problems.
• Not every technician needs to become a data analyst. Good systems make complex functions easily usable.
• AI does not replace expertise. It makes existing knowledge more accessible and supports employees in their daily work.
• Empowerment reduces dependency on the job market. Your team becomes more efficient without having to wait for the perfect new hire.

So stop focusing your entire personnel strategy on the search for unicorns.

Provide your existing employees with the right tools. Simplify their processes, relieve them of unproductive tasks, and make existing knowledge usable for the entire team.

This way, good specialists do not become unicorns.

But maybe real racehorses.

• Identify potentials in your maintenance team
• Simplify documentation and analysis with ADAM
• Specifically empower employees with AI and digital tools