Career portal of GEA Group

René Sagasser is an extraordinary employee. At the age of 29, he writes ‘manager’ on his résumé; a title not many of his classmates can compete with. His career took off at the age of 20, when he started as a trainee in the GEA Mechanical Equipment segment. This led to a trainee position within GEA’s Refrigeration Technologies Segment in the Netherlands and today nine years later, he is still in GEA working as HR manager in Germany for GEA TDS, a technology center in GEA Process Engineering. But how did he become manager so rapidly?

“I chose to work for GEA because I wanted to work in an international company with a strong business profile. GEA offered an exciting trainee program that combined both practical and theoretical knowledge, which appealed to me at the time.”

Like many others, René wanted to add an international perspective to his professional profile. In GEA Process Engineering, with just under 4,500 employees working within 50 companies in 40 different countries, the international dimension and teamwork is a natural part of everyday business. René explains: “Teamwork is a great value that is very important for us. We often work on international engineering projects, where we collaborate with other companies in the GEA group, since we all possess different knowledge and specialize in various fields.”

In the company there is a need for all types of people, not just engineers. With many career options, lots of freedom in how to perform tasks and good personal development programs, GEA Process Engineering has a lot to offer. ”The career options within the company are very good,” says René. “Take me for example. I started out as a poor student with little responsibility and now I am HR manager with the main responsibility for two subsidiaries. So everyone has the possibility to develop in our company.”

Company values

The company values: Customer focus, Excellence, Reliability, Teamwork and Respect are of high importance to René. He describes them as behavioral guidelines, a framework that helps him in daily operations and one he strives to fulfill by working deliberately to implement these values in his work. He recalls a big event they were hosting at the University of Lubeck, which suddenly had to be rearranged with a new date and location, because the customers – in this case 50 students – could not attend at the scheduled hour. So customer focus is not taken lightly!

René makes the value of Reliability tangible by never promising more than the company can fulfill. When interviewing potential employees for a job with a lot of travelling, he always explains the maximum number of travelling dates, instead of the minimum number. In that way the applicant gets a reliable picture of the position and the company. He adds: “When I interview people for a position, it is important that I treat all the different applicants the same, no matter whether they talk a lot or just a little. By giving them an equal amount of time for the interview, I show them Respect which is another value of ours, no matter what their personality.” So, in GEA Process Engineering we take our values seriously and strive to fulfill them every day in our relations with both internal and external stakeholders.