Employer branding
The world constantly develops further. A family company like HORSCH, too, is marked by growth and change. In this respect, sustainability, social commitment and the satisfaction of the employees play a major role. To be able to continue to act according to their own mission statement, HORSCH together with all the employees is working on it to remain successful.
HORSCH is more than just technology
Our mission statement reflects what HORSCH as a company stands for:
“The protection of the environment and healthy human beings are our top priority. Therefore, we develop technical and digital solutions for state-of-the-art, innovative farming. Our actions are marked by our roots and are inspired by Christian values.”
This mission statement influences the organisation and the co-operation. It has been an important part of HORSCH since its foundation. “In my opinion, this is what makes HORSCH an attractive employer. It is the basis for the success of the company what is clearly proven by the strong growth of the past years”, Steffen Besserer, head of Corporate Culture points out.
But a strong growth often is accompanied by a lot of changes. The number of employees increases, the tasks become more complex and change. There are not only advantages if a company grows quickly and strongly. “It does something to a company. You notice that things that were quite easy with 200 employees suddenly become a challenge if there are approx. 2,700 employees. Among others, topics like communication and the transfer of knowledge. You cannot simply call a meeting, discuss and exchange with everyone“.
Changes are not easy for you have to take the people along, inform and support them. The members of the management, too, have to question themselves regularly. It suddenly becomes difficult to perceive tensions in the company and to work on them in an outcome-oriented way. The previous way of working simply reaches its limits and there is the risk of slowly veering away from the roots of the company.
“We realised that we have to act, and we questioned ourselves where we want to head. How do we want our company to be and how do we want to be perceived as an employer? Based on these questions we developed an objective. To facilitate the co-operation within the company, we want to transform the way we organise ourselves, communicate and work together. Everyone is to contribute his assets. Thus, everyone will be able to use his potential to optimum capacity. This is why it is important to encourage and support the employees with regard to their own development”.
Moreover, we want to reduce hierarchies. This is why the organisational structure of HORSCH is changing into a network structure. “We want more common leadership and networks but also more self-responsibility and self-organisation. This is the only way to really use all these potentials“. It is important that people enjoy what they do, can be how they are, feel connected to the company and therefore work reliably, efficiently and in an entrepreneurial way. According to Steffen Besserer it is very important to reflect and question oneself and to check where you stand and how you can achieve the objectives.
To successfully manage this transformation of the company, HORSCH defined core elements for leadership and co-operation. They are to act as a guideline and are based on three columns: “supportive leadership”, “develop efficient teams” and “encourage personal development”. The whole concept is accompanied by functioning networks and a good communication.
“We have to work on leadership, form efficient teams and encourage the personal development of all employees. However, we notice that this is not that simple. But we are convinced of our concept and we are intensely working on appropriate solutions – and on ourselves“.
Christian Kagerer
Christian Kagerer has been working at HORSCH for nine years in the electronics and software department at Sitzenhof:
“I started to work for HORSCH immediately after my training as an industrial electronic for equipment engineering and my electrical and information engineering studies. This was in May 2013.
Since that time, the share of electronics and software has been increasing rapidly. At first, I wrote software for the self-propelled sprayers of our crop care range. I then was one of only three software engineers. Over the years, more and more developments were added, mainly in the seed drill sector. And I took on the technical responsibility for software and hardware. Now the coding of software is only one part of my job, the other part consists of designing and planning individual software and software systems.
What I like best about HORSCH is the positive atmosphere in the teams and the team spirit. You can rely on your colleagues, especially on those you have already been working with for years. I have made many friends and we also meet off the job. Moreover, we have much freedom with regard to autonomy and decisions in our daily work. If you cannot make a decision yourself, it only takes little time due to the flat hierarchies – often within hours or a few days. Especially the freedom, the interesting and varied tasks, the great colleagues and also the proximity to my hometown are the reason why I like working for HORSCH so much.
The change of our company culture towards a network organisation is very innovative. Within the electronics department we have already been practising this on a smaller scale for quite some time. You know who to contact to initiate a knowledge transfer about a certain topic to use the knowledge that already is available in the department. I am very curious to see how this will work in the whole company.
At the moment, the biggest challenge is to “juggle” all the projects that are going on at the same time without neglecting the quality or the flexibility for future extensions. Due to our considerable growth, there are quite a lot of new developments.”
Michael Dunz
Michael Dunz started to work for HORSCH in September 2017. He is employed in the service and parts department and as a first level support is responsible for the final customers and dealers:
“I learnt about HORSCH from a previous colleague. I originally come from the two-wheel sector. I did not know the company before, and I just wanted to take a look. When I came to Sitzenhof, I immediately was impressed.
At first, my task was to support the customers and dealers with regard to service questions about our products and machines – similar to a telephone and e-mail helpline. This changed gradually and my responsibilities increased. Now I am the direct contact for our dealers, i.e. my phone number is shown in the portal and they can make direct contact to get support. We manage these tasks in a team. And even though it mainly is me who is responsible for the telephone support, my other two first level colleagues support me actively. You cannot handle all these inquiries alone. I also hold portal trainings etc. I enjoy my job very much and the team I work with is simply great.
Since I have been working for HORSCH, I also developed a great interest in agricultural topics and particularly in the different machines. So many people at HORSCH are so passionate about these topics that you simply are carried along. Despite the size you still feel that it is a family company. I very much like the working atmosphere and how people treat each other. And this makes work easier. Moreover, HORSCH is a safe and sustainable employer – this was particularly obvious during the pandemic. What could be improved is the transfer of knowledge between the departments respectively the documentation so that we could offer our customers an even better service. We are very fast to develop new technologies and if there are any questions, we, of course, want to answer them adequately. But we have already initiated some processes, e.g. a ticket system or Confluence to document information.”
Mirko Krell
Mirko Krell has been working for HORSCH in Ronneburg since 2015 and today is employed in the seed drill assembly department:
“I started to work in the production department, became deputy head of the Pronto 3 and 4 DC assembly line and then head of this line. When the assembly lines were merged, I became deputy head. Now I am the team leader of the assembly line H at Ronneburg.
Our new production hall now also includes a cafeteria. The working environment is state-of-the-art and the co-operation with my colleagues is great.
My tasks are very interesting, and it is great to see how the machines are constantly developed further. They are the basis for our food what becomes more and more important with regard to the current climate changes or the war in the Ukraine.
Working at HORSCH is exciting, and it means to have a safe job. HORSCH is an employer that is open to innovation and further development and encourages the employees to actively contribute their ideas and put them into practice.
But we have also reached a point where we have to become even more innovative – even the employees. Especially with regard to digitalisation, up to date ergometry and more automated tools.
I attach great importance to an open communication, a close and intensive co-operation and the transfer of knowledge across all assembly lines. There still is room for improvement and we could co-operate even more closely with the designers and engineers. This would also facilitate the handling of the many different nationalities and the resulting language barriers.”