The People Hive

The People Hive GmbH & Co. KG is an owner led Personalberatung boutique in Germany specialising in the People, Performance and Culture space. It is the right address, in its own words, for a company looking for experienced and qualified specialists or managers, or one that sees challenges, problems or untapped potential in its HR ecosystem. The company argues that the market for personnel services is crowded and opaque, with thousands of providers all promising to be the right partner, and it works to earn a client's trust on the grounds that a Personalberatung also acts as an ambassador for that client's brand as an employer.

Its core competence is the entire HR world. Three groups of mandates are named: HR leadership, covering CHRO, director level, HR management and team leadership roles; generalist HR functions such as HR business partners and Personalreferenten; and specialised HR functions including talent acquisition, Personalmarketing, total rewards and compensation and benefits, learning and development, personnel and organisational development, payroll and systems, HR transformation and centres of excellence. The company works across all hierarchy levels and the full employee life cycle, starting at an annual salary of around EUR 70,000. Executive search projects, billed on a thirds basis, are reserved for business critical positions where the executive earns at least EUR 100,000 a year.

The office is at Eifelstrasse 23 in Recklinghausen. Mark Brenner is Managing Partner and Tobias Krähahn is Partner and Prokurist, and the two are named as the founders of The People Hive. Projects are always run in tandem, a consultant and a research consultant splitting the work so that the research consultant brings depth and market intelligence to the search while the consultant handles pre screening, interviews, candidate profiles and the client relationship. The search itself is horizontal and vertical, mapping the full breadth of the target market before approaching candidates top down by priority. The internal target is four suitable candidates within four to five weeks, and the company assesses the likelihood of filling a role before it accepts the mandate at all.