Open Access

Milena Beha

• The working world of industrial production has evolved greatly in the last decades due to advancing technologies, digitalization and globalization. Corporate learning has become an important part of organizational development, making it possible to better understand and adapt to changes in the future. In manufacturing, the competency standards have increased, especially for first line managers, who represent a highly heterogeneous group. The aim of this paper is to find out the current competence requirements for shift leaders, the most relevant learning methods nowadays and how these methods will be changed or expanded in the context of corporate learning in the future. Therefore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from human resources management and evaluated by using the qualitative content analysis. The subtle difference between good and very good shift leaders lies in their personal attitude, social and strategic competencies. Regarding the question of how shift leaders learn, the experts particularly emphasized coaching and mentoring programs. In the future, however, more emphasis will be placed on self-directed e-learning programs in production.