{"id":23499,"date":"2022-03-08T15:54:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T14:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/de\/?p=22504"},"modified":"2024-09-05T10:44:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T08:44:59","slug":"a-woman-among-men-im-not-your-typical-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/press-and-media\/newsroom\/stories\/a-woman-among-men-im-not-your-typical-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"A woman among men: \u201cI\u2019m not your typical boss.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Logistics remains a very male-dominated field. Nevertheless, Verena Hammer has quickly risen through the ranks. Having trained in retail sales management, she began assuming leadership roles within PENNY\u2019s Norderstedt warehouse in 2013; first as a head of department in logistics and, since 2019, as operations manager. To date, she is the only female operations manager in the REWE Group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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When you started as head of the goods staging department in Norderstedt in 2013, you were the only woman on the warehouse leadership team. How did you find that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Verena Hammer:<\/strong> At first it was a bit difficult to gain the trust and acceptance of the ten male team leads. But with conviction, honesty, loyalty and transparency, I was able to win them over fairly quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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How did you react when you were offered the position of operations manager?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Verena Hammer:<\/strong> I was surprised, happy, incredulous and a little bemused all at the same time. But with the encouragement of the regional and logistics heads and the support of my husband, I decided to give it a go. And I haven\u2018t looked back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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About:<\/h2>

\n Verena Hammer <\/p>\n\n \n

\n is operations manager at the PENNY store in Norderstedt – the first female operations manager at REWE Group. <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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And how did your colleagues react?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Verena Hammer:<\/strong> Their reaction made me so happy. I received so many kind emails and calls, which made it so much easier to jump into the new challenge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Did anyone seem resentful or express misgivings? And if so, how did you respond?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Verena Hammer:<\/strong> When I started out as the head of goods staging, there were 130 men and two women working there. There were some prejudices stemming from experiences with my predecessors, but I didn\u2019t let them put me off. When I took over as operations manager, there were no more prejudices to overcome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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There were some prejudices stemming from experiences with my predecessors, but I didn\u2019t let them put me off.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/div>\n

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Verena Hammer<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

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Verena Hammer<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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What challenges come with the territory of being a woman in a male-dominated area such as logistics?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Verena Hammer:<\/strong> For me, it\u2019s completely normal to be pretty much the only woman among men. At the start, I\u2019m sure I had to fight harder and make a solid case in any arguments to gain the trust and acceptance of my colleagues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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What sort of arguments were those?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Verena Hammer:<\/strong> I\u2019d make my rounds of the warehouse several times a day and whenever I found something amiss, I would point it out immediately. If I got pushback, I was usually able to provide the proof I needed to get my point across. And that gained me the necessary respect. I don\u2019t think a man would have had to do that. But it worked out well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s also important to me to communicate fairly and treat everyone as equals.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/div>\n

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Verena Hammer<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

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Verena Hammer<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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What is your key to success when working with your team members?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Verena Hammer:<\/strong> When working with my team, the most important thing is to know my stuff. It\u2019s also important to me to communicate fairly and treat everyone as equals. I want my colleagues to know that I take their concerns seriously. It is absolutely essential to be a good listener when working with others. And I am a good listener. I\u2019m probably not your typical boss.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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    Join the discussion on <\/h2>\n
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    Verena Hammer has found success in the otherwise male-dominated field of logistics. She tells us how honesty, tenacity and professional expertise helped her become an operations manager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":16836,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","nl_adhoc_sent":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"sales_line":[19],"focus_theme":[142],"class_list":["post-23499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-company","sales_line-rewe-group","focus_theme-undefined"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23499"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23504,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23499\/revisions\/23504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23499"},{"taxonomy":"sales_line","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sales_line?post=23499"},{"taxonomy":"focus_theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rewe-group.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/focus_theme?post=23499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}