Key person

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Key persons are central personalities with special attitudes, skills and important competencies who have a decisive, formative or leading influence on a group, organization or company. The term “key figure” is used synonymously, in particular to identify central protagonists or the main characters in a novel, play, opera, etc.

meaning

A key person or key figure is generally used to describe people who are important and influential in a certain matter or whose actions and work provide the key to explaining certain relationships. Such key persons exist in practically all areas of society, whether in sport, in politics, culture and history (see e.g. Company Walküre ), in business (see e.g. Henry Ford Company # Ford '999' and 'Arrow' ), in companies, in administration (see e.g. Chief Secretary for Ireland ) and communities of all kinds (see e.g. Pedro Zerolo ). The term is often applied to people who shape an area particularly or are particularly important for the success of a group. Social and historical developments as well as epochal change are often associated with certain key persons or key figures, such as E.g. the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg for the youth climate protection movement Fridays for Future Many threads come together with key people.

In a positive sense, key people are active designers, key players and top performers, top executives and top people in their respective fields. In team sport it is the key player, but z. B. also experienced players who can weld together and motivate a team.

In the negative understanding, the key figure or key person takes on the role of the " wire puller " acting in the background , the gray eminence or the manipulator in a scandal or in a crime (see e.g. Lavrenti Beria and surveillance state

In addition, key people are employees who hold strategic key positions in companies , such as B. have a leadership role. However, there are also key people independent of the hierarchical company organization. This includes employees who e.g. B. have special technical expertise that gives the company a competitive advantage, or senior scientists who are instrumental in the development of a new type of product, of which a lot is expected for the company's sales and income. According to studies, innovations are mostly shaped by key people

Independent of the hierarchy, key persons are also employees who act as opinion leaders, are well networked among colleagues and B. can positively promote change processes or block them.

Special meanings

In a narrower sense, key employees in companies are a term used in the insurance industry. Based on the knowledge that key people in the company are often irreplaceable and play an important role in the company's success, there are attempts to protect against financial damage through the failure of such key people through appropriate insurance policies. The question of who is the key person has to be clarified individually in each company.

Additionally, the term plays a role for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a U.S. government agency responsible for collecting taxes and enforcing tax laws. Here "key employees" are defined in connection with company-financed, qualified pension plans, depending on the amount of their income or shares in the company.

Key people as an object of human resource management

The role, characteristics and identification of key people are an important area of ​​responsibility in the area of ​​human resource management. Which is why the topic is systematically examined and scientifically analyzed here. The background is the knowledge that key people make an essential and indispensable contribution to the company's success. Conversely, wrong decisions with regard to key people are a risk for the company's success. Accordingly, it is of great importance for companies of all sizes to identify the right key people, to win them over to the company or to develop such people in the company (talent management) and to keep them in the company. The associated tasks are one of the critical areas of human resource management.

Identifiers of key people in companies

According to the scientific definition, key persons or “key workers” in companies are “unique persons who have company-specific experiences and implicit knowledge, who contribute to the creation of physical and intangible assets from internal and external customer perspectives, who are characterized by extraordinary scarce abilities and skills and who have management skills Achieve improvement in dynamic processes and structures. "

In detail, the following characteristics of key persons have been defined in the specialist literature. Key people in companies:

  • are people with extraordinary capabilities, disproportionately productive and show above-average work results.
  • have “valuable” and “unique” skills.
  • radiate a high degree of organizational and personal commitment and bring a high degree of affective commitment to the organization.
  • are the source of competitive advantage and defend gained competitive advantage.
  • are of great importance for the development of strategic core competencies in the company.
  • have a high value added orientation and make a high contribution to the value chain.
  • permanently influence the company's results through extraordinary skills and experience.
  • generate the highest performance to increase the company's success.
  • represent the most important resource for increasing the company's success.

literature

  • Armin Trost: Talent Relationship Management. Recruiting in times of a shortage of skilled workers. 1st edition, Springer Verlag 2012, ISBN 978-3642170775
  • Matthias T. Meifert: Strategic Personnel Development. A program in eight stages. 2nd edition, Springer Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-3642043994
  • Uwe D. Wucknitz: Personnel Rating and Personnel Risk Management. How medium-sized companies improve their ratings. 1st edition, Schäffer-Poeschel 2005, ISBN 978-3791023021
  • Uwe D. Wucknitz, Volker Heyse, Developing and retaining key workers, Waxmann Verlag Münster, 2008
  • Raimund Birri: Human Capital Management. A tried and tested approach with a strategic focus. 1st edition, Springer Verlag 2011, ISBN 978-3834929006
  • Siegfried Neubauer, Stefan Rankl: Order leadership. Handbook and tool kit for newly appointed managers. 1st edition, Springer Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-3642117244
  • Meik Führing, Risk Management and Personnel, Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 3-8350-0555-3
  • Dirk Wölwer, identification and evaluation of key people and their influence on the success of small and medium-sized enterprises, dissertation Bergische Universität Wuppertal, 2017 (available online via the electronic publications portal of the University of Wuppertal [1])
  • Andreas von Schubert, Excellent customer service through new management methods, 2009 in the manual: PersonalEntwickeln 134th Erg.-Lfg., 7.43, ISBN 978-3-87156-116-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See e.g. B. Article on Welt.de Greta Thunberg receives Golden Camera: Greta Thunberg receives Golden Camera. Welt online, March 19, 2019, accessed December 31, 2019 .
  2. ↑ See e.g. B. Article in Süddeutsche Zeitung online: Lahm as a key person. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung online. June 19, 2010, accessed December 31, 2019 .
  3. ^ Meik Führing: Risk Management and Personnel . Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-8350-0555-6 .
  4. ^ Will Kenton: What Is a Key Employee? Accessed December 31, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Tim Bauer: Innovations in Family Businesses: An Empirical Study . Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-658-00804-8 ( google.de [accessed December 31, 2019]).
  6. ^ Arnold Weissman: Successful in a family business - incl. EBook and work aids online . Haufe-Lexware, 2013, ISBN 978-3-648-04724-8 ( google.de [accessed December 31, 2019]).
  7. ↑ Who is a key person anyway? Accessed December 31, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Protection for key people. Accessed December 31, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Key employee . In: Wikipedia . December 21, 2019 ( wikipedia.org [accessed December 31, 2019]).
  10. ↑ a b Dirk Wölwer: Identification and evaluation of key people and their influence on the success of small and medium-sized companies. In: Dissertation. University of Wuppertal, accessed on December 31, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Copyright Haufe-Lexware GmbH & Co KG - all rights reserved: Implementing employee loyalty successfully / 1.2 Target groups | Personal Office Premium | ... Retrieved December 31, 2019 .
  12. ↑ a b Uwe D. Wucknitz, Volker Heyse: Developing and binding key forces . Waxmann Verlag, Münster 2008.
  13. ↑ Summarized and quoted from Dirk Wölwer, Identification and Evaluation of Key People and Their Influence on the Success of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, page 89f, available online at https://d-nb.info/1124477527/34