This year’s Trainee Starter Week took place from 23 to 26 October 2023 for the trainees of our Hammer retail sales division. Of our more than 90 trainees from all over Germany, 63 from the areas of retail, sales, interior design and floor laying took part.

Fully prepared for day-to-day operations at Hammer: that was the aim of this year’s Trainee Starter Week. The focus was on strengthening team spirit amongst the new colleagues and gathering a detailed impression in order to make an ideal start to their training and new working lives.

The Trainee Starter Week took place at the “Haus Neuland” conference centre in Bielefeld. At the outset, trainees went through various stations in a round robin format. In addition to introducing the departments in our company administration, such as legal and compliance, health management and HR training, there were also lots of games for getting to know each other. “We were so pleased that 11 colleagues from the Hammer speciality stores were on site to help supervise and support the trainee groups,” said Kaja Velten, employee of the Group’s personnel training programme. After etiquette and sales seminars, the management and divisional managers of Hammer Specialist Stores and future colleagues of the new trainees, came together and brought the last evening to a cosy close with a burger buffet and rounds of pool. On the final day, the trainees once again had the opportunity to strengthen their team spirit with a game of laser tag.

“The Trainee Starter Week was a complete success. Many of our new arrivals were able to participate and get to know each other as well as their new tasks better. The feedback was consistently positive, everyone had a lot of fun and were then able to start their apprenticeships with the knowledge they had gained,” says Kristin Heine, employee in personnel training.

We wish the new trainees every success on their journey and an exciting training period.