2. Stories
  3. Story 05Living social responsibility: “MAPAL Hilfe”
Living social responsibility: “MAPAL Hilfe”

Living social responsibility: “MAPAL Hilfe”

1960

MAPAL establishes a provident fund long before there are any corresponding legal regulations. It helps employees in the event of special circumstances and establishes a company pension scheme. The “MAPAL Hilfe” forms the basis for supplementary social benefits that still exist today.

A “PLEASANT MESSAGE TO OUR EMPLOYEES”

Company founder Dr Georg Kress is aware of his social responsibility as an entrepreneur. Certainly, in direct contact he can appear strict, unapproachable and occasionally even authoritarian. Nevertheless, he sees his employees not simply as cost centres or workers, but as valuable capital and, above all, as people. It is part of his self-image to see himself as a patriarch and his company as a “family” for whose well-being he bears responsibility.

On the occasion of the company's 10th anniversary in 1960, Dr Georg Kress surprises his workforce, which now numbers 130, with a welcome announcement: In order to further strengthen the feeling of togetherness and working together, a company pension scheme for old age, invalidity and surviving dependants had been set up and a considerable amount had been allocated to this provident fund.

In the following year, the support organisation is institutionalised and made permanent with the founding of the “MAPAL Hilfe” association. The purpose of the association is to provide “voluntary, one-off, repeated or ongoing support” to active or former company employees, including sales representatives. One-off assistance is provided for births, marriages, illnesses or deaths as well as in “special emergencies”. And for employees who have been with the company for at least 10 years, there is a 20 German Marks retirement pension, which can rise to 50 German Marks depending on years of employment. The articles of association of “MAPAL Hilfe” also provide for the old-age pensions to be adjusted for inflation every five years.

Two decades after its introduction, “MAPAL Hilfe” is history again. New laws create regulations which - as Dr Georg Kress says in a speech to the workforce - are “no longer in line with the original ideas”. Together with the works council, it is therefore decided to take out direct insurance for employees to replace the “MAPAL Hilfe” scheme.