People on The Move - From Trainee to Quality Lab Group Leader

August 21, 2017

Jasmin finished her Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Engineering in March 2013 at University of Siegen in Germany before she started at Kautex within the scope of the Kautex Development Program for Engineers in October 2013. As part of this Development Program and also after finishing this 24month program, Jasmin has spent her last 4 years with Kautex living and working in 5 different countries. Besides that, she also visited several more plants including Barcelona, Spain; Leer, Mallersdorf and Duisdorf in Germany; Liversedge, UK as well as Troy, MI in the US.

Working as a "Trainee" within the Development Program gave her the opportunity to gain insight in the work of different departments, areas and countries. This was exactly what she wanted after her graduation, to figure out which position might be the best fit for her and Kautex in the end. 

"I was able to plan my rotations together with HR and my supervisors and could influence what I was doing the next 6 months.", Jasmin said.

In her first rotation, Jasmin attended a Trainee shopfloor camp in Mallersdorf together with other Trainees, where they had to experience the hard work their colleagues on the shopfloor are doing every day. After one week full of manual labor and teambuilding activities, Jasmin was prepared to start her traineeship in the Logistics department of the Small Series Production in our Headquarter in Bonn. ​After 6 months she moved on to the Quality department in Tessenderlo, before she spent further 6 months as a Launch Manager in Czech Republic. Her last rotation within the Kautex Development Program was in the Quality department in Lavonia, GA in the US. From then she took over her first permanent position as Quality Lab Group Lead in Coventry, UK.

Jasmin gained plenty of new experiences during this time.

"I especially like all the opportunities Kautex provides to me. There are not many employers that would have made all the moves and changes possible that I have gone through until now. And I see the same for my colleagues that have been working with Kautex for years.", she said.

Especially her stay in Czech Republic has left a mark on her. Being her "biggest challenge and at the same time career highlight", she found it hard not to be able to communicate properly, as she was often misunderstood or misunderstood someone, due to her missing knowledge of Czech language. Not being able to find ways to directly solve an issue with her colleagues and a resulting lack of vital information made the execution of her projects very hard to achieve. At the same time, exactly this challenge and therefore the great teamwork and the help of her Czech colleagues in supporting Jasmin with her project and integrating her in the Czech team made it a very successful stay and even her career highlight in the end.

What Jasmin especially appreciates about working for Kautex is, that you will never be stranded in one department, if you are interested in new, maybe cross-departmental tasks and experiences.

Also, in all the locations she has been to so far, she was overwhelmed that all employees live our Company Culture at the heart of its values. 

​"I have yet to find a location were my colleagues aren´t nice or friendly and were people weren't accepting. It has always been easy to get integrated into Teams – which makes work a lot more fun!"

With all this experiences Jasmin has made while working for Kautex, we were wondering which advice she would give to her colleagues and also to current trainees. This is what she said:

​"Be proactive about what you are doing and don´t be afraid of trying out new things. Use the chances you have to see other countries, work in different departments or with other cultures and get out of your comfort zones. And don't forget, if you need something, sometimes you have to ask and push for it!"

We want to provide employees with a variety of opportunities and growth - and encourage our employees to look at Kautex and at the Textron family of businesses to gain those experiences.