How we started the fire and keep it burning?

von Irmgard Zirkler • Wednesday, 31. January 2024

Do you want to know how it all began 20 years ago? Back then, we were partners of wortwelt®, our sister company. One day, a customer approached us with this simple question: “Can you write a mission statement for us?” Our founding members Axel Ebert and Ralf Tometschek shared a look, smiled and explained: “It’s not that simple. You can’t just write a mission statement, you have to develop it – it is the soul of a company and should be a beacon for employee behavior.”

We knew from that moment on: We needed our own brand for this, because brand means focus. That was the birth of Identitäter® – our former name. We saw identity as the heart of a company and developed into the first employer branding and corporate culture agency in Austria. Naturally based on our own mission statement.

Customer questions have always been the trigger points for our further development. For example: Why don’t HR and communications experts talk to each other? Our answer: We founded the Corporate Culture Club back in 2005 – with the aim of bringing these two disciplines together in one event setting for the first time.

Another frequently asked question: What do job advertisements need in order for talented people to apply to us? Our answer: We developed our job profile sharpener so that job advertisements specifically reflect the working reality and culture of the respective company.

Today, the buzzword “work-life balance” triggers us. After all, do we really just want to keep work and leisure in balance or not rather create a work-survive balance – as Hans Rusinek puts it so well? In other words, to bring work, life and the world into balance.

A few questions that interest us in our anniversary year:

  • Are we not currently experiencing a time of misuse of purpose and values, where the promise of the meaning of work is often literally devalued as an employee optimization tool?
  • How do we manage to harmonize the current challenges from society to climate with productive and positive brand joy?
  • How do we manage to see AI not as a threat, but as a powerful tool that gives us time for the important things?

In summary: we are experts at turning “bad vibes” into Good WHYbrations.