This year, Anderson Willinger, executive search, recorded an increase in the total number of changes in top management positions. 551 top managers exchanged in the Czech Republic. Of these, 321 came to new positions from outside and 230 got to these positions thanks to promotions within their company. This is shown by new research conducted by Anderson Willinger, executive search experts.

There were 104 changes in CEO positions this year, 137 changes in Board members roles and 310 changes in senior management positions, which is a significant increase compared to 2017, where 57 managers were exchanged for CEO positions, 103 managers for Board members and 131 changes took place in senior management.

Compared to last year, the number of foreigners in the top management of Czech companies decreased by 8%.

“Czechs are actually replacing foreigners in the highest positions – the CEOs. A number of foreigners from Western Europe still come to us, but to lower positions without an expatriate package, both in the area of ​​digital, technology and so-called shared services, “says Lucie Teisler, Managing Partner of Anderson Willinger, executive search.

Another trend this year is the departure of CEOs when changing their careers to small and medium-sized companies, private equity or family businesses. This segment is attractive to directors because they add more time flexibility, freedom of decision and open up to more new opportunities. Although it offers interesting bonus schemes from a financial point of view, they are often not associated with increasing fixed rewards.

Despite the overall high number of transfers, fixed remuneration for changing jobs in corporations is growing by an average of 13.8%. The reason is the increase in internal promotions, which is often not associated with such a significant increase in fixed remuneration and also the abolition of a number of managerial roles.

When selecting new directors in addition to their employees, many companies are prepared to pay more for their new managers in roles than they were used to in the roles in the past, in the order of 30 to 40%. This is often related to increasing requirements for a new manager, such as the size of responsibilities, expanding the portfolio of products or services and, on the other hand, a small number of people who are able and willing to meet the increased requirements.

What can we expect in 2019?

The names of the positions remain, for the time being, but their responsibilities are changing fundamentally.

All positions are more and more influenced by new technologies and understanding of the overall process and links of the company from A to Z. Expert knowledge such as HR, Sales, etc., will have to be supplemented by unusually high IT literacy.

The success of expansion plans of companies entering new fields in connection with new IT opportunities is based on the potential and capabilities of employees and leaders. Therefore, our experience to date, which is often used and still the same style of leadership, behaviour and decision-making, will rather be just a good basis for our necessary further development reflecting the new situation.

The art of leaders is to combine their experience applied in many years of company management much more with their creativity and openness.

To be less afraid and play more.

They were more flexible in their expertise and also had a very important ability to implement their ideas in the organization. The success of leaders will depend much more on the art of selecting people with potential, how to ensure its recognition during recruitment and how to further develop it appropriately, how to develop your skills appropriately. It will be crucial to change attitudes towards selection, the recruitment process and work better with potential evaluation than to stick to stereotypical questions about past behaviour.