One year late, the district's business award 2020 was awarded on Thursday evening.
In addition to the winner, Progress GmbH, ten other finalists were honored.
In the opinion of the jury, all of them have found exemplary solutions to the Corona crisis.
Pöcking / District
- It was undoubtedly the longest awarding of the award in the history of the Starnberg district's business award. The eleven finalists had been determined since August 2020, and the winners were chosen from among their number on Thursday evening. It is the progress gGmbH from Pöcking, which now has 470 employees and looks after 1,500 children in 37 integrative and curative educational crèches, kindergartens, day-care centers and day-care centers. At the beginning of the Corona crisis, the company had already done innovative things "with a lot of commitment and brains", emphasized District Administrator Stefan Frey in the Pöckinger Beccult, where the award ceremony took place and where, in addition to progress, ten other finalists were honored (see box).
"Crisis as an opportunity - what remains of Corona?" Was the motto that the business development agency gwt, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the district and other participants had already specified in June last year. "We thought the motto would be enough for 2020," said gwt boss Christoph Winkelkötter now. “But it would have been a good motto for this year.” What excited him were the more than 40 applications. Company bosses and workforce reacted to the challenges posed by the virus with innovation and courage. "You can really be proud of what great entrepreneurs we have in the region," said Winkelkötter.
Stefan Frey also emphasized the importance of a strong partnership between entrepreneurs and the district. There are more than 10,000 companies with more than 50,000 employees in the district - from craftsmen to world market leaders. The trade tax they pay makes up 37 percent of the municipalities' income. And Frey wants it to stay that way. "We acknowledge that entrepreneurs will find good working conditions here," he emphasized. This also includes “continuing to offer commercial space”. He is confident that he will be able to reconcile requests for expansion with the preservation of the landscape.
Before the certificates were awarded, the jury members reported how Corona had shaken up their areas, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. The most difficult thing was to record and implement the constantly changing regulations, said Frey. The former head of the Employment Agency in Starnberg, Dirk Dieber, described how the authority had been "turned inside out" within a week so that people could get their money. IHK governor Martin Eickelschulte and the head of the UWS employers' association, Michael Padberg, praised the "excellent cooperation in the district", for example in providing information for entrepreneurs. Pöcking's mayor Rainer Schnitzler explained how public administrations had also managed to become more digital. And Thomas Vogl,Chairman of the Board of Directors of VR Bank Starnberg-Herrsching-Landsberg, dared to look into the future: "I believe that many companies in the region will emerge stronger from the crisis."
Like the Progress gGmbH. "The Corona ban on contact with inclusive crèches makes things really different," said IHK boss Eickelschulte. But because the name says it all, progress has achieved an "incredibly high entrepreneurial achievement". The employees set up their own YouTube channel, read books to the children on video, played and did handicrafts online. There were handicrafts and morning circles live on the Internet, an online puppet theater, an animated film with Playmobil characters at Easter and Skype meetings for parents.
"We have given a lot of thought to what we do with the children at home," said managing director Tatijana von Quadt and pointed out that children in a day care center would have to train their skills every day in order not to forget anything.
A lot has also changed internally, she said after the award ceremony.
Rigid hierarchies have been broken up in favor of smaller teams.
The work now is more dynamic than before Corona.
