12. September 2023
3 Minutes

Arineo wins the German HR Management Award

The Göttingen-based IT service provider has won the German HR Management Award in the Leadership and Culture category. The company impressed the jury and the audience with its employee-owned company business form and its innovative management and decision-making model, which does without traditional hierarchies. The German HR Management Award is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the HR scene.
Ariane Mühlethaler, Wibke Jellinghaus und Ralf

[Göttingen, Sept. 12, 2023] “This company inspires. Here, something is lived that can otherwise only be experienced and learned in books. This model engages, this model motivates. It’s impressive, it’s worthy of imitation – and it’s worthy of an award,” said Roland Hehn, Chief Human Resources Officer of Schwarz Dienstleistungen (SDL), in praise of the Göttingen-based company at the award ceremony in Cologne on Monday. The combination of a new type of corporate structure, culture, and organization stood out in the jury’s review of the nearly 100 applications and was also able to hold its own in the public vote.

Banner: 1. Platz in der Kategorie Leadership & Kultur vom Personalwirtschaftspreis 2023

“We have collectively put many hours of work, countless considerations, and tons of passion into our organizational development. We are all the more delighted about the award and the jury’s commendations – especially since the competition with almost 100 top-class projects was not to be underestimated,” explain Wibke Jellinghaus and Ralf Mackowiak, who accepted the award in Cologne on behalf of the entire Arineo staff. Dr. Marko Weinrich, management spokesman for the Göttingen-based IT service provider, adds: “We want to pass on our knowledge to interested companies and contribute to innovative entrepreneurship – this award, with its unique appeal, helps us in doing so.”

Arineo is entirely focused on promoting the highest possible level of employee well-being and keeping them as motivated as possible. This is achieved through the corporate construct of the employee-owned company, developed by Arineo with the help of experts in foundation and association law, as well as the Arineo model of cooperative organization. The idea behind the employee-owned company: the company is owned by a foundation whose governing bodies are controlled by employees. As a result, the company cannot be sold and the profits can be completely invested in employees, the expansion of the range of services, and the continuous improvement of service quality. This brings stability to the company – just as it should be possible with the planned, but not yet implemented, legal form of the “limited liability company with a tied company” (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung mit gebundenem Unternehmen, abbreviated as GmbH-gebV).

The cooperative organization is characterized by distributed leadership based on strengths, working in various roles within dynamic teams, and decision-making based on consent. Unlike the consensus process, which focuses on maximizing agreement, the consent process aims to minimize objections while ensuring that all participants are heard. In this way, the company strengthens the self-efficacy of its employees and contributes to their psychological well-being. The result: low turnover compared to the competition, above-average growth, and successful recruiting. Last year, the company generated €40.9 million and attracted 73 new employees. The Göttingen-based IT service provider currently employs 372 people.

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Press images

Ariane Mühlethaler, Wibke Jellinghaus, and Ralf Mackowiak are delighted with the award

Wibke Jellinghaus, Ariane Mühlethaler, and Ralf Mackowiak at the award ceremony

Insight into the award ceremony

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More Information

The Arineo success model

Employee-owned company

We founded Arineo as an employee-owned company to make the company unsellable and to ensure that the earned capital stays within the company.

Learn more here.

Cooperative organisation

We have developed our own model of collaboration: the Arineo model of cooperative organization.

Learn more here.

Organizational development

We want people to want to stay with us – this is a meaningful guiding principle for our company, not only in times of skilled labor shortages.

Learn more about the topic here

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