Schmale Maschinenbau GmbH from Altena has been awarded the title of "Family-friendly company" this year.

For Managing Director Andreas Schmale, the award is about more than just a strategic competitive advantage on the labour market.  For him, people and their families must not take a back seat at the expense of company profits.

"This is a rather unorthodox entrepreneurial attitude, but I believe that employees with healthy families also do a good job. I believe that healthy families, in which parents are present and are not replaced by childcare services so that they can work more, also produce healthy children, teenagers, trainees and the future of Germany," says the entrepreneur.

Schmale therefore has a whole range of measures in place that have led to an increasingly family-friendly working culture in recent years. In addition to flexible flexitime arrangements with working time accounts, these include the option of working from home and short-term leave, for example to care for relatives. Bike leasing, celebrations with family members, parental leave for fathers and allowances for private pension and healthcare schemes are further benefits for the company's employees.