"Freedom is the key" – Berner Group honours colleagues from Poland for exceptional support of Ukraine

This time everything was different. Actually, things are always very businesslike at the Berner Group Autumn Meetings for the approximately 140 managers from all over Europe. But when a visibly touched Managing Director of Berner Poland took to the stage to report on the situation in Ukraine, the aid efforts of his team and the solidarity among the people, the room became very very quiet. "We must not let up, we must not get used to the situation," Andrzej Wasiak appealed as he accepted the Engagement Award on behalf of his team from the hands of CEO Christian Berner. "Freedom is the key," Wasiak called out to the participants.

"We can see how much we live the values at BERNER by the great support for the suffering population in Ukraine," emphasised Christian Berner. "As CEO, this commitment makes me incredibly proud." The employees of Berner Poland were awarded a special prize for their outstanding help. In close cooperation with colleagues from France, Italy and Caramba Chemie from Duisburg, they have collected tons of goods worth more than 1 million euros (including clothing, food, medicines and dressing materials) since the beginning of the war. The donations are distributed directly to refugees and needy people or institutions in the crisis region – from schools and doctors' surgeries to children's hospitals and care facilities.

The so-called Engagement Award was only one of seven awards presented at the conference. The Berner Group sees itself as a value-based family business. In order to honour employees who, with their performance and behaviour, are a role model for the six guiding values* that apply throughout Europe, the B2B wholesaler has offered a "Value Award" across all brands for its 8,000 employees.

"Those who exemplify our values in a special way should also be recognised in a special way," says CEO Christian Berner. "Our values hunger for success, courage, honesty, responsibility, the will to cooperate and pride are anchors and drivers for us. They determine our thoughts and actions, give us support and orientation. This applies to strategic decisions as well as to day-to-day work."

The award winners were identified in the past weeks in a multi-stage process - first at regional, then at group level. The special feature: The 8,000 employees had both the first and the last word in the internal competition. Employees at all subsidiaries were not only able to submit their own nomination suggestions for each value category at the start, but also to vote for the "best of the best" from among the 28 finalists at the end via online voting.

The winners received long-lasting applause. The most diverse achievements were honoured:

• Adrian Isenegger from Switzerland, for example, received the award in the category "be hungry" because as a sales representative he managed to achieve top sales in a completely new sales territory.
• Tiago Sykes, on the other hand, regularly commuted between his Portuguese homeland and the Netherlands for months to actively support the logistics in the European central and import warehouse in Kerkrade. For this he was honoured with the award in the category "be responsible".
• The award in the category "be connected" went to Francisco Tejera, who produces product and service videos for social media with great success. The Spaniard's clips are clicked on millions of times on the TikTok platform, among others.
• Ricardo Santos from Portugal ("be brave"), Alberto Diniz from Luxembourg ("be real") and Timo Loos from Schöntal-Westernhausen ("be proud") also received awards for their commitment and exemplary behaviour.

*More detailed information on the corporate values can be found online at www.berner-group.com/en/culture/our-values.

The Berner Group
The Berner Group is a family-owned European commercial enterprise. Our vision is: “We keep the world together and moving.” This means we are the central B2B trading partner for all materials in the maintenance, repair, and production segments for our customers in the building, mobility, and industry sectors. With more than four channels we create an integrated omni-channel purchasing experience for our customers. In the steel and C materials as well as chemicals segments we are also an innovative manufacturer. We are represented in over 23 countries for our customers with more than 200,000 items and 8,000 employees.

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