Can you have a lunch break together, including walking the dog, even though you don’t work in the same company or at the same location? Sabine (left), Kristina (right) with her dog Coco (middle) show us that this is possible!

Due to our flexible home office arrangements within the HERMES Group, the two colleagues, who have now become friends, regularly meet up for lunch break walks together in the Wolfratshausen area. Coco the dog is not the only one happy about it.

Can you tell us about your personal career path?

Sabine: I completed my training as an industrial clerk in a chemical company and had the opportunity to write my thesis for the final oral exam in the HR department. This was the start of my HR career.

I then worked for an automotive supplier in HR and also gained insight into the areas of project controlling and management assistance. In 2011, I got the chance to learn everything to do with payroll from the bottom up in the HR team of a supplier to the aviation industry. This position showed me that the subject of “payroll accounting” is not as dry and boring as many assume, and that I have simply found exactly what I really enjoy doing. In 2017, I spotted the vacancy within the HERMES Group and applied straight away. I was able to impress Kristina, an HR business partner, in the interviews, so that we became HR colleagues in December 2017, and now we accompany each other on walks.

Kristina: I studied the book trade and publishing in Leipzig. It is a course that I would choose again at any time, because working with books is just great. After that, I worked as a bookseller, management assistant and later as a personnel specialist in various publishing houses. In order to get to know a new industry and to develop myself further, I joined the HERMES Group in the HR department in 2014. As an HR business partner, my biggest challenge here was understanding what our Head of Drug Regulatory Affairs tells the applicants in interviews. The applicants definitely knew more than I did.

What have been your personal achievements at HERMES so far?

Kristina: That’s easy to answer. I am happy about every colleague I have hired who has now found a job at the HERMES Group that they enjoy.

Sabine: When the salary payment arrives in my bank account at the end of the month, I know that everything worked again this month with the payroll run and that all employees can now pay their bills thanks to our daily work.

What is special about HERMES?

Sabine: The collegial interaction – whether in your own team or in the entire HERMES Group – makes for a pleasant working day and a good atmosphere at work. The fact that colleagues became friends speaks for itself and the great cooperation.

Kristina: What is special about HERMES for me was and is the working atmosphere, the variety in the activities and the responsibility for tasks and projects. It has never been boring. I have exciting and not so exciting tasks, and have just had the opportunity to take on a completely different position at another group location. The personal development of employees is a top priority at HERMES. And last but not least, pay and social benefits at the HERMES Group are very well suited in my eyes.