Grone School Foundation
| Grone School Foundation | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Non-profit foundation under civil law |
| founding | 1895 |
| Seat | Hamburg |
| management | Achim Albrecht, Marc Halledt |
| Branch | Initial and continuing education |
| Website | www.grone.de |
The Grone School Foundation is one of the oldest and largest private education and personnel service companies in Germany with over 200 educational centers nationwide and numerous state-recognized vocational schools . Over 3,500 employees and honorary lecturers qualify over 15,000 participants in numerous professional fields and industries every day. The core competencies include advice, education and placement. Grone offers training and further education close to the labor market.
Grone is decentralized and works with over 15,000 companies within the framework of broad regional networks.
History of the Grone Schools
Grone was founded in 1895 as a private business and language school by the business teacher Heinrich Grone in Hamburg . According to the will of the founder, Grone has had the legal form of a private non-profit foundation under civil law since 1964 . The purpose of the foundation is the professional education and training of socially disadvantaged people and their placement in the labor market.
Over the years, the working conditions for Grone have changed significantly over and over again. During this time, the Hamburg teaching institute from 1895 became a modern training company and a nationwide personnel service provider for companies and public institutions.
1895-1920
In the offices of the expanding trading city of Hamburg, young people with solid accounting skills were in demand. Heinrich Grone founded the "Writing and Commerce Training Institute Grone" in 1895, which taught shorthand, arithmetic, German and bookkeeping, as well as fine and fast typing. With his school he closed a gap in the training and further education of the next generation of businesspeople. As early as 1905, increasing numbers of pupils made it necessary to build their own schoolhouse. The lessons for the annual 3,500 participants were given in class. The first typewriters were purchased and the 10-finger system was introduced. From 1910, foreign languages supplemented the offer.
1920-1945
The Hamburg high school authority formulated quality standards for educational institutions. Heinrich Grone advocated "real offers" in the Association of German Private Commercial Schools in order to be able to shape the standards in the private school landscape in the future. While many private schools closed their doors from 1928 to 1930 due to the economic crisis, Heinrich Grone expanded his offer by opening a "Private Business School for Young People". Even after the National Socialists came to power in 1933 and during the war, teaching was continued. When Heinrich Grone died in May 1941 at the age of 73, his wife Helmine Grone took over the management of the school and the testamentary obligation to transfer the school to a foundation upon completion of her professional activity. Up until the end of the war in 1945, around 4,000 students attended the Grone Institute in Hamburg every year. When the school building was almost completely destroyed shortly before the end of the Second World War , Helmine Grone continued to run the school in the Schanzenstrasse branch school with restrictions.
1945-1970
After the end of the war, school operations continued. Immediately after the currency reform, Helmine Grone had the parent company rebuilt on Hermannstrasse. In 1950 Grone received state recognition as a one-year general and higher business school. In 1964, Helmine Grone converted the Gronesche Handels- und Sprachschule into a non-profit foundation under civil law. The previous "family business" was now under state supervision of the foundation and was accompanied in its strategic direction by a board of trustees. At the beginning of the sixties, further training in the office sector also included work on "modern office machines". From 1969 onwards, the Labor Promotion Act guaranteed unemployed people a legal right to vocational training. Grone designed appropriate retraining and advanced training courses and also worked for the first time on behalf of the public. Helmine Grone appointed her nephew Hellmuth Grone to the Board of Directors.
1970-1985
From 1974 onwards, Grone increasingly offered vocational rehabilitation courses. The training of young people was also resumed in the "Gronesche Handels- und Sprachenschule". Individual training for participants took place for the first time in the subject selection course. Grone expanded beyond the borders of Hamburg with non-profit subsidiaries in Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin. On behalf of the Hamburg Senate, the initial training for young people began in 1985. Hellmuth Grone died in August 1978. After his death, the foundation's statutes were changed. So far, the respective managing director (board of directors) was also the chairman of the board of trustees and thus also his own supervisor. This personal union has now been separated so that the management board and supervisory body (board of trustees) were no longer interwoven. Dietrich Oldenburg became chairman of the board of trustees . Hellmuth Grones wife Ursula was appointed to the board of the foundation. Helmine Grone died in January 1981.
1985-1995
In 1987 the foundation's new headquarters in City Süd was inaugurated. The existing commercial education offer was expanded to include the areas of health, social professions, gastronomy, nutrition, advertising, graphics and printing. In the course of German reunification, educational centers were created in the new federal states. In close cooperation between East and West, concepts for the special job market situations on site were developed. They ranged from commercial-technical qualifications in Thuringia to gastronomic training for tourism on the island of Rügen. In 1993 Ursula Grone resigned from the foundation's board and became an honorary member of the board of trustees. Her successor was the Foundation Director and State Councilor who had been in office since 1988. D. Peter Rabels.
1995-2004
From 1995 onwards the company became increasingly involved in the support and placement of job seekers. This was initially done through non-profit temporary employment, which often led to permanent placement. From 1997 onwards, Grone training centers for advice, support, leasing and placement of the unemployed emerged nationwide. In 2004, the private employment agency was added, which brought together temporary work and outplacement measures with transfer companies under the “Grone Human Resources” brand. As part of the EU expansion, Grone temporarily operated holding companies with local partners in Poland and carried out several EU Phare projects. Since 2001, Grone has also been involved in the “Work for Kosovo” project and also supervised training centers in Montenegro. The group of companies continued to grow through the establishment of new subsidiaries and the takeover of companies. Together with the Association of Hamburg Forwarders, Grone founded the Hamburg Transport Industry Academy. In 2004, Peter Rabels resigned from the board and moved to the board of trustees as an honorary board member. As his successor, Staatsrat a. D. Wolfgang Prill appointed to the Board of Directors.
2005-2010
The reorganization of the instruments of labor market policy changed the training market considerably. In addition to the employment agencies, the ARGEn (today: Jobcenter ) became new clients of the Grone companies. Long-term measures such as retraining and advanced training were replaced by short-term qualifications and training measures and supplemented by debt counseling, placement activities and employment offers for integration into the labor market of Hartz IV recipients. With the establishment of the “Grone Job Exchange”, an online job agency was created in which more than a million job advertisements were bundled and updated daily. “ One-euro jobbers ” and others have now also been qualified and employed . a. in work opportunities such as “Cantina” - school meals and lunch plus homework supervision. Grone Netzwerk in Hamburg carried out dance projects - "Making a Move" - under the direction of the internationally known choreographer Royston Maldoom and in spring 2010 opened the Grone social department store "WARENGUT". New workshops were created in the commercial and technical area. An institute for master craftsman training was established in Magdeburg, and other locations included geriatric care and educator training as well as further training for educators. In several federal states, Grone took on the qualification and placement of prisoners, built up the “supported employment in the rehabilitation sector” and carried out model projects for women, young people and the elderly on behalf of the federal government. In July 2009, Ursula Grone, the longtime honorary director, died.
2010-2014
As part of a Senate reception by the First Mayor of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Olaf Scholz , the change in leadership of the Hamburg Grone School Foundation took place in March. Council of State a. D. Wolfgang Prill handed over his office to Achim Albrecht after eight years. The businessman was previously managing director of the professional training center of the DGB (bfw) and its subsidiaries. Albrecht had already started his work as a new board member at the beginning of January 2012. Wolfgang Prill left the company at the end of April, but remained associated with the company as chairman of the board of trustees that oversees the foundation. Under the leadership of board member Achim Albrecht, Grone continues to bring to life the sentence of founder Heinrich Grone from 1911: “You are never too old to learn”.
2015-2020
As a partner for the Federal Employment Agency, the job centers and authorities, the Grone training centers carried out numerous language measures as well as other qualification and placement measures to get refugees into training and work.
At that time, the Grone School Foundation took over the INPA (Innovative-Privatakademie gGmbH in Berlin), the SGB II and III area of the ibs eV (Institute for Vocational and Social Pedagogy in Bremen) and the insolvent Fachwerk gGmbH , the supraregional educational institutions business. The Grone schools are now represented at over 200 locations - and thus almost all over Germany - and employ almost 2,500 permanent employees. In 2018, Mark Halledt was appointed as the new CFO. The previous sole director Achim Albrecht was appointed chairman of the board.
Since November 2019, the board of directors and the Grone service and administration company, which were previously located in Gotenstrasse, have also been at the headquarters in Heinrich-Grone-Stieg 1 in Hamburg.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Management: Decentralized responsibility. In: www.grone.de. Retrieved March 4, 2020 .