The family-owned software company CIM GmbH is in transition, with sisters Friederike Kammann and Hannelore Mayr representing the new generation of management at their parents’ company. Friederike Kammann is responsible for personnel at CIM and favours new forms of organisation coupled with lean hierarchies. We met to discuss how it is to work in a family-owned company, finding the balance between work and family, and what the future holds for the PROLAG®World warehouse management software.
Part 1 – work and family
Friederike, you’ve been working at CIM for a while now, haven’t you? When did you start at your parents’ company?
It’s not been so long. I started here about 10 years ago. After finishing my studies, I worked in recruiting at Allianz. I did two or three years there and then came to CIM. My first stop was marketing because the need was greatest there. A colleague had just left, so I took on marketing tasks and looked after personnel issues.
My education in business studies included business psychology - occupational and organisational psychology to be more precise. I specialised in applicant selection, recruiting, personnel management, employment law and so on.
What influenced your decision to work at your parents’ company?
While I was studying, I already knew that I’d work in the family company after a few years of experience elsewhere. I always saw this as a huge opportunity to shape things and continue everything my parents have built up.
What were your first impressions when you started at CIM?
Back then there were about thirty or forty people at the company. Now we have almost a hundred employees. In the early days there wasn’t much to do on the personnel front. The company really was completely different. It was much smaller and we didn’t have our offices in Münster or Berlin. The only office was our main one in Fürstenfeldbruck. Everything was more centralised, you could almost say more family-like, although we’re still one big family today. But back then, the marketing office was a canteen, where two tables were reserved for CIM employees. We all ate lunch together. That’s how the company was structured. Very family-oriented. Very small. Very manageable. But even then, we’d already started taking on sales staff for the north of Germany. They were here for six months and then moved on to Münster and Berlin. That’s when we started to get decentralised. Now we have a total of seven employees working in the Münster office. Things really have changed.
How has your work changed over the years?
In the beginning I worked very much on the operational side of the business, writing website texts for marketing and presentations for sales and so on. There were two of us in marketing but essentially it was one job that we shared. We worked together very closely and in consultation. This changed over time. Now my work focusses much more on the company, structures and organisation. Transitioning to a new generation is major challenge. The biggest step in this context is to create structures so that we can go down this road. This is a big part of my work. My approach is very much coordination-based, going across various levels. Because I’m now working on organisational development, I’m involved in meetings held by project managers, the support team, and essentially all areas. This is a fairly recent development.
You’re a mother of two and have worked part-time in the past. How do you manage to keep the balance between work and family right?
I don’t know if I do it well. It’s certainly a challenge to manage both. As a mother, you can’t just park your responsibility. There are countless tasks to take care of. Organisational stuff for the kids and their environment, school, kindergarten and so on. And of course I’d like to do a good job: Time management and organisation are essential if you want to make space for the kids and family between work and household chores, in particular if you don’t want to fall back on all-day support options to the extent that you can avoid it. Time with the kids has a high priority for me and I really enjoy it. But don’t forget that everyday family life can also be really demanding. When I arrive at the office at 9 a.m., I generally feel like I’ve already been on the go for half a day. There may have been several dramas about cleaning teeth and putting on shoes, or tantrums at the door of the kindergarten because someone’s lunch package hasn’t been packed the right way (laughs). The switch from being a parent to the working world is sometimes difficult. The workplace is no stranger to conflicts and they have to be taken seriously too. They may be different, but they are there.
What practical things does CIM do to help people balance family life and work commitments?
Well, the main thing is that families have a high priority at CIM. I think that this is extremely important because it means you can be sure that your colleagues will be understanding of your situation. It’s not something you can take for granted but it does make space for possibilities. We currently tailor part-time working options to individual needs, and our flexible solution for working remotely means that travel times are a fraction of what they once were, which can be an enormous benefit for families. Of course, the pandemic had a massive impact in terms of the acceptability and do-ability of working from home – even if you sometimes catch a glimpse of someone’s daughter or son running across the room in the background. In the past that would have been an absolute no-go but now it’s really okay in most situations.
Has family life changed your work?
I took parental leave when I had my first child. That meant that we had to fill the vacant position in marketing, which in turn meant that the focus of my responsibilities shifted significantly towards personnel from there on. On top of that, the company has grown hugely so that it’s become increasing important to organise and steer that growth. I took on that challenge. The interesting thing is that the organisational skills you have to learn as a parent were a great help to me with my new activities in the company. For sure, you don’t manage a company the way you manage a family. But at the end of the day, you have to make sure that the measures being implemented sit well with the corporate culture. This is especially relevant when transitioning to a new generation. It’s similar in the family. However you organise yourself as a family, you have to do it in a way that works for and not against all family members.
