When the Working Day Is Done
When you work as part of a successful team for many years, celebrating your achievements and overcoming challenges together, at some point your workplace becomes an extension of home, and your colleagues become your friends. Just take a look at KNF! For us, the KNF brand is about more than innovation: A real sense of team spirit and active involvement is central to our ethos in the whole Group, and that doesn’t stop at the end of the workday.
It all starts back in the wild days of the 1970s, when KNF – still in its start-up phase – enjoys its first significant market success with its diaphragm pumps. The working days are often long and production continues even on the weekends. Everything is new. KNF is unknown and employees have to battle hard to get the company established. As a result, they grow very close as a team. “Loyalty was, and still is, extremely important for us. We worked really hard all the time, including on Saturdays and late into the evening. That’s how we all played an active role in establishing a name for the company,” explains Frank Deichmüller, who oversees production at the Freiburg-Munzingen location in Germany for more than 35 years, right up to his retirement.
In addition to his ideas, company owner Erich Becker brings his own management style to KNF. In the run-up to May 1st (Labor Day and a public holiday in Germany) every year throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he personally gives every employee a small monetary gift. And at Christmas there are always a few festive rounds of cigars and beers. Long-standing employees have fond memories of summer festivals and fun Christmas parties, as well as pictures of trips with colleagues in their own family photo albums. These perks are Erich Becker’s way of building trust and making his employees feel valued. Friendships are born, groups are organized to pursue shared interests and many employees remain with KNF right through to retirement – and even beyond, for example as members of the Munzingen seniors’ club.
Today, the values of respect, loyalty and commitment are all firmly enshrined in the KNF Leitbild and expressed in a multitude of ways across the KNF locations around the world. In the USA, a dedicated committee for social action organizes regular initiatives to help those in need, including food drives. Many other KNF locations also run similar initiatives to help their local communities. Some programs have even been established to support the employees’ volunteer work. At KNF Germany in Freiburg-Munzingen, a great tradition of staff ski trips and motorbike rides has been born, and the Freiburg Marathon has been a firm fixture in the company calendar for many years, with staff from Germany and neighboring France and Switzerland all taking part.
For CEO Martin Becker, this focus on people is central to the KNF brand and a key factor in the company’s success. “A drink after work or a weekend trip as a team make it much easier to resolve problems.” After all, just as in the wild days of the 1970s, great innovation still requires a great team.
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