Page 38 - FINAT Yearbook 2019

#LABELicious Competition
CONNECTING THE FUTURE WORKFORCE
After #LABELicious opened for competition entries in January 2019, there has been a lot of buzz around this project initiated by FINAT and supported by an industry-wide European partner alliance. During Labelexpo Europe 2019, the first edition of the #LABELicious project will reach its climax when the winning young talents for all three competition categories will be announced on Wednesday 25 September.
HOW IT STARTED:
‘TAKING AIM IN THE WAR FOR TALENT’
Let’s rewind to the end of 2017. One of the strategic priorities for FINAT for 2018 was to address the increasingly important issue of demographic changes in the label industry’s workforce. Obviously, this topic covers a wide array of challenges: knowledge transfer between generations, supporting the existing and ageing workforce in its process to adapt to changing work technologies, culture and processes, innovating the organisational structure to adopt new technologies and align with new business models, and of course, last but not least, attracting next generation talents for the label industry.
The annual FINAT Radar Survey demonstrates the importance and urgency of attracting a newly skilled next generation workforce for the label industry. It is ranked as one of the top three priorities for the industry. As the average age of the current workforce mathematically leads to an increase of vacancies in future years, the question presents itself how the label industry can be successful in competing with other industries that are pitching towards the next generation of talents.
Nominated entries in the category “Smart Labels”
Freya Claes Lucas DeBock
MOTIVATING NEXTGEN TALENT
Research shows that the next generation of creative and technical talents has different motivations and considerations than previous generations as they can choose from many attractive employment options. Understanding both the changes in leadership style preferred by this generation and the criteria that make a job attractive in the eyes of this generation is key in positioning ourselves for the so called “War for Talent”. As hi-tech innovation enters our industry rapidly, we are at par with many other industries that use the most advanced technologies to create added value for customers. In this context, the next generation label printing industry offers more opportunities than ink stains at the fingertips of fresh creative minds and technical talents. Time to let the next-gen workforce, meet the next-gen label industry. Time to up our game.
This led to the development of the #LABELicious competition for next generation label and packaging talents in 2018, announced at the European Label Forum 2018 and introduced to education partners and industry partners in the autumn of 2018.
Yoeran Saenen
38 | FINAT YEARBOOK 2019