"As the world's leading manufacturer of drive solutions for horticulture and agricultural technology, we are increasingly committed to the highest quality standards," says HR Manager and Co-Managing Director Jeannette Lock. This is also the reason why the company, which employs 115 people, is constantly being put to the test to become better, looking for innovative solutions to benefit customers, optimizing products and processes, and investing in modern production facilities, according to Managing Director Frank Lock. "To do this, we take our employees with us, as we did with the anonymous survey in the Great Place to Work competition. We then also use the survey results and employee impulses for the further development of our company," says Jeanette Lock.
More than 800 companies of all sizes and sectors and over 100,000 employees throughout Germany took part in the employee survey conducted by the international research and consulting network Great Place to Work in Cologne in March 2021. Among them was the Ertingen-based company, which achieved an in-house participation rate of 89 percent. The questions posed to employees focused primarily on key workplace issues, trust in managers, quality of cooperation, and appreciation of and identification with the company, as well as remuneration and health promotion.
However, management and the executive board also had to take a stand during the culture audit. Facts and figures of the company were demanded, measures and offers of the personnel work were queried - among other things it was a question of "What do you do for your employees to make them happy, is employee satisfaction queried?" also the workplace environment came into play.
These two investigative tools, culture audit and Great Place to Work employee survey, resulted in Ertingen-based Lock being ranked among the "Top 100 Best Employers" nationwide.
For the first time, the survey included another initiative by the research and consulting institute. This was about "Best Employers Manufacturing & Industry 2022". Here, too, the Ertingen-based company took part in the survey. Among other things, this additional module was about "Performance & Customer": "We want to be the best here in everything we do", "We systematically improve quality and work here" were questions that had to be answered.
The "Feedback and error culture" was about getting feedback from superiors and colleagues about the quality of one's own work, or how conflicts are resolved quickly and constructively, as well as mutual feedback. Important in the "Innovation & Agility" survey were the topics: "How does the organization react flexibly and quickly to changes?" or "We allow ourselves radical ideas in order to be innovative?"
"This," says Jeannette Lock, "also involved all the organizational and operational processes in manufacturing in our company. I knew that we are well positioned here, which is also confirmed to us time and again by other companies during plant visits, but that we would also perform so successfully here was something we didn't expect."
A total of 90 companies of all sizes and industries nationwide took part in this new module. Lock Antriebstechnik ranked among the eleven best employers in Germany "Great Place to Work 2022". "A success that makes us and also all employees proud," said the personnel manager and co-managing director. "The employers honored here for the first time show that attractive working conditions can also be implemented in manufacturing and that there are individual solutions for different areas of activity. Respect, fairness, credibility and team spirit apply to all employees," said Frank Hauser, Managing Director of Great Place to Work Germany.
Source: Schwäbische Zeitung, Riedlingen edition, June 11, 2022