Our staff is more important to us than our customers. In our opinion, a company can only excel if its employees do what they do with joy and passion. So for us, customer care starts in-house, because only by treating our people right can we treat our customers right.
When you fill out an online form, eventually you’ll be asked if you are a robot. At APUS we are not robots! We’re unavailable in the evening, we go on vacations, we get sick, we make mistakes. We have families that we take care of and personal interests that fascinate us. But we still make great software, because one thing does not prevent the other! We live balanced.
We’re contagious. The culture that distinguishes us isn’t something we set out to create; it grew organically. It is the result of all our mistakes and all our lessons learned. We carry all of that with us. We infect other companies with our ideas for a better working environment, better treatment of each other and a better world. We don’t hesitate to talk about our mistakes in public, even on big stages.
APUS stands for a sense of coziness. We know this is not a word commonly used in business - and that’s exactly why we use it. It’s the feeling of being protected and appreciated and in comfort. We want to bring about this feeling in our employees and customers alike. Our oldest customer relationship is in its 24th year, and our longest-serving employee has been with us for 30 years. We’re very proud of it.
We’re not perfect; we’re very conscious of that fact. But that doesn’t mean we give up. We keep at it. We’re here to make a contribution. We try to make the world a little bit better every day with what we do. Naturally we can’t stop global warming, but we can all do little things that have an immediate influence on life around us. If we inspire many other people with this idea, little things can bring about big things.
We’re megalomaniacal! We’ve decided to grow. Not in order to increase revenue, but so we can continue to work the way we do. It takes a certain company scale to do all the things that set us apart that are described here.
We trust each other. We don’t control and are not controlled. If we criticize, we do it openly and in an affirming way. Envy and jealousy have no place here.
Errors are allowed. We understand mistakes and consider them learning opportunities. We talk about what happened in the team and share what we learn.
We look at abilities, not academic titles. Everyone is different, everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and there is a place for everyone.
We hate borders! The door isn’t just open inside the company, it’s also open to the outside. We don’t like company boundaries or national borders! We glady share our knowledge and experience with others.
We’re not a DIY store! “That’s not my department” is not something you’ll hear from us. Co-determination is a privilege here, and also a responsibility. If it turns out that something is boring or unnecessary, we change it or just drop it.
We aim for consensus. Wherever possible we try to avoid decisions by individuals. We make decisions as a team. We accept other opinions within and without APUS, including when we don’t share them. But if a team makes a decision that we as an individual do not agree with, we still support the team.
It’s OK to laugh! We enjoy our workday. Sometimes it might get loud, and you might run into people playing table tennis or goofing around. We actively encourage it! You can only do good work if you shake out your head once in a while.
We don’t like complainers. We believe that bad thoughts bring bad actions. So we believe in joy and a positive attitude. If we feel the need to complain, we know that it’s because we urgently need to change something, and it’s time to act.
Family and friends are part of it! We’re all embedded in social systems, and we take that into consideration in daily life as much as possible. A sick child is a very good and obvious reason to not have to show up at a meeting.
APUS is exclusively owned by private individuals:
Johannes Bardach, Gerhard Hammer, Anton Lackner, Thomas Pössler, Martin Rossmann
