Top talents, satisfied employees and plenty of space for innovation
Giving talented young people a successful start to their careers is important to Kuraray. Now the business magazine Focus Money and the consumer platform Deutschland Test have ranked this speciality chemicals producer as one of Germany’s best companies for vocational training. Kuraray scored 100 out of 100 points, placing it at the head of the chemical industry this year.
Kuraray Europe has also received top scores from its employees in other areas, such as career development and training opportunities and combining work with family life. As in the past, Kuraray did very well in the “Top Employer 2021” ranking by Focus Business and the employer review platform Kununu. A third accolade shows that Kuraray offers a working environment with space to develop ideas and technologies for the future: the F.A.Z. Institute, which is part of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung media group, and market research company Prognos have named this speciality chemicals company among Germany’s innovation leaders.
“I’m delighted that Kuraray was once again able to convince Focus Money in this year’s ranking of companies’ vocational training and that we came top of the chemical sector with 100 points,” says Dominique Buono, HR Training & Development Partner at Kuraray. “It’s great that our apprentices feel happy with us. And of course the award testifies to the outstanding work of the colleagues involved in all aspects of vocational training.”
Focus Money uses artificial intelligence to determine the quality of training
For this ranking, Focus Money and Deutschland Test evaluate Germany’s 20,000 biggest employers in 90 sectors, including the chemical industry. Factors evaluated include how successful apprentices are in their training courses, their remuneration and additional offerings. Positive reviews of vocational training also play a part. Artificial intelligence is used to analyse texts and comments, for example, in social networks and online media, and calculate a score for each company. The top vocational training enterprise in each sector is awarded 100 points and is used as a benchmark for the other companies.
Family-friendly working conditions and career opportunities
Employees’ assessments also play a key role in the “Top Employer” ranking. For this, Focus Business analyses employee reviews of their employer on Kununu using a multi-step process. To enhance comparability, the 1,000 best companies in 36 sectors are subdivided into two groups: mid-sized enterprises with up to 2,000 employees and large corporations with more than 2,000 employees. Kuraray once again achieved a very good position among the Top 5 chemical companies with up to 2,000 employees thanks to family-friendly policies such as flexible worktime models, its modern working environment and wide-ranging career development and training opportunities.
A workplace that fosters tomorrow’s innovative materials
“We want to offer Kuraray employees a modern working environment and an atmosphere where they feel happy and there is space for innovations to develop,” says Karl-Heinz Michel, Head of Human Resources at Kuraray. “Thanks to our employees’ commitment and excellent ideas, we can offer industry solutions that help them shape the future. Many of our materials already make an important contribution, for example, in enabling 5G technologies and driving forward sustainability.” A further accolade shows how successful Kuraray’s future-oriented philosophy is: the F.A.Z. Institute and Prognos once again included Kuraray in their ranking of Germany’s innovation leaders in 2021 in recognition of its research and development work on future technologies.