
Today, Dirk Schneider, Employee Development Testing, joins us in our Snack Box, a team member with many years of experience at Thomas. In fact, Dirk has been part of the family for 18 years now. It doesn’t take long to realize which topic is particularly close to his heart: working with vocational trainees.
The trained toolmaker is a practicing Christian and offers pastoral care on a regular basis. Helping people is important to him – and this includes at a professional level. At Thomas, he is responsible for supporting the development team in the design and optimization of metering pumps, actuators, and valves. With the help of his test setups, our engineers can expose valves and other components to high and low temperatures, thus simulating realistic operating conditions. In addition, Dirk supervises our trainees, i.e. apprentices, who are able to familiarize themselves with the entire company as part of their training and also „stop off“ at his department. It is here that occupation meets vocation.
He has been performing these duties for 14 years. And it is a role he enjoys, partly as he still remembers his own time as a career entrant. He, too, had experienced people at his side to guide him. “Textbooks don’t provide you with everything you need, and I think the human element is very important,“ he says. Especially when transitioning from school to working life, it is important to bring young people on board and show them that it is normal to „start small“ and not be in a position to do everything yet – to show them that life is about learning. Dirk is convinced: “I believe the best way is to communicate and have confidence. And to identify where each trainee has their individual strengths.“
And when Dirk is not working? He enjoys traveling and cycling. Embracing the values of Thomas in his private life, he is committed to ensuring that people take more care of one another, rather than being indifferent to each other. As Dirk points out: „It is then that we can achieve so much.“
If you’d like to know what advice Dirk gives to young people starting out in their careers, how he developed what he refers to as his “helper syndrome”, what brought him from the Ruhr region to the Siegerland decades ago, and what his favorite ice cream is, tune in to this episode for all the details. One thing is certain: we can learn a lot from Dirk – and not just professionally!
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