The control center behind the scenes.
2021: A Look Back
Sebastian Schaffstein, radio and TV presenter, interviewed the board about the past business year. The setting was somewhat unusual: since the original plan to celebrate the kickoff with the entire workforce in the mountains had fallen through, plans were quickly changed and the board was relocated, at least virtually, to a mountain cabin.
Lars Rückemann, Rainer Vehns, Sebastian Schaffstein and Uli Kühn sitting in the virtual mountain cabin.
Board member Uli Kühn looks back proudly on the past year, as codecentric AG has grown by 70 colleagues when accounting for arrivals and departures. "As of today, we have around 520 colleagues across Germany – I find it incredible how we manage to bring so many people on board!" says Kühn. Lars Rückemann, who joined the board last year, is particularly proud of the colleagues at cc cloud GmbH and their positive figures in their first year, as well as the Gitlab and IONOS partnerships.
When Sebastian Schaffstein asked about the codecentric highlights of 2021, Uli Kühn immediately thought of the event "Accelerate Scaling", which is intended to mark the launch of an exclusive series of events. "We want to establish something where we can stay in ongoing dialogue with decision-makers and managers," Kühn emphasizes. He is still impressed by the dedication of colleague Sarah Dürr, who has been in contact with the company Ritter Sport since Easter 2021 to organize a vegan chocolate advent calendar for the entire workforce – a format that was a first for the manufacturer.
Rainer Vehns' personal highlight was the location tour, which he was largely able to carry out in person: "Finally getting to see people again and experience the spirit – and not in front of a green screen!" he laughs. For Lars Rückemann, what stood out was the great collaboration between locations: "Like with the colleagues from two units who worked together on SHERLOQ and launched a fantastic offering!" This is only possible by pooling competencies: "That's how 1 + 1 becomes more than 2," says Rückemann.
Remote Work and New Work
The board also sees itself on a good path in the area of remote collaboration. Lars Rückemann: "This has been working very well for us so far, and now we need to look at how we can professionalize it even further. That also includes the question of what the future collaboration model will look like, both with colleagues and with clients." He is aware that it is also necessary to encourage colleagues to continue meeting in person. "We need to find a new mode – the world after COVID will simply look different from the world before COVID," adds Uli Kühn.
Musical Entertainment
But the kickoff wasn't just about talking! A wonderful surprise for the workforce was singer/songwriter Kate Rena from Düsseldorf, who provided musical entertainment throughout the day from her flying carpet.
Kate Rena during one of her performances at the kickoff.
Looking Back at the Lighthouse
At the last kickoff, too, the focus was on codecentric's desire to stand out as a lighthouse in the IT industry through competence and passion. This naturally applies to 2021 and the future as well, emphasizes Rainer Vehns. This can be well summarized by the cover image of the current Softwerker, an IT magazine that codecentric launched in 2013 and which now has around 5,000 subscribers.
The cover of Softwerker Vol. 19
Interests Within the Company Model
Rainer Vehns looks to the future and the values that have driven codecentric in the past and that the company wants to pursue and strengthen more intensively going forward.
"We want to give employees a high priority, just as we do clients. We want to be sustainable, we want to be diverse and become more diverse, we want to be climate-neutral," explains Vehns. And it was precisely these topics that shaped the rest of the kickoff day. Lars Rückemann looks back on the founding of the Diversity Initiative and the Climate Group, which emerged in a self-organized manner from the workforce and are driven by employees. "These may have nothing to do with our core business, but they make codecentric better as a whole," Rückemann emphasized.
To make the efforts that codecentric wants to pursue even more deliberately in the coming period more tangible, the board invited Marcel Pietsch-Khalili from PNZ to deliver the keynote followed by an interview. In his engaging talk, he provided a firsthand account of the efforts his company has undertaken to become, among other things, more sustainable, more diverse, and more environmentally friendly. "A company of the future must engage with ecological and social issues and must develop a moral compass to do so!" Marcel Pietsch-Khalili is convinced.
Marcel Pietsch-Khalili and the board during the keynote.
For him, climate protection and a low CO₂ footprint are just as important as high product quality and customer centricity. After sharing insights into his company's journey, Pietsch-Khalili was available to answer questions from colleagues, which employees had submitted via Slack.
During the lunch break, Kate Rena and "Alois" from the improv theater "lauter" took turns entertaining colleagues.
"Alois" at lunchtime.
The afternoon was then entirely dedicated to the various initiatives through which codecentric aims to pursue its goals for the future. First, the working groups "Customer Relationships", "Diversity", "Compliance", "Employees", "Climate" and "Corporate Social Responsibility" introduced themselves. Afterwards, all colleagues were able to join breakout rooms to discuss the most recently achieved milestones and future steps together.
Blog Awards 2021
After the group work, there was a celebratory conclusion that no codecentric kickoff would be complete without: the annual Blog Awards, where the bloggers of the codecentric blog are duly celebrated.
The award for most successful author (by reach) was won once again by Jonas Hecht, as in the previous year. Daniel Kocot claimed the title of "Most Active Blogger" with nine blog posts. In the final category, "Best New Kid on the Blog", Daniel Henneberg took home the coveted award. All three winners sent a brief acceptance speech to their audience of colleagues, which surely motivated more than a few of them to write their next blog post.
Closing of the Kickoff
Last but not least, the kickoff ended with a welcome announcement: codecentric would like to come together in person again in the summer of 2022, circumstances permitting, and celebrate a summer party together.