Author: Elisabeth Gläser

A visit to a manufactory is an important component of training our next generation of watchmakers. Every year, we visit one of the large watch manufacturers in the city for brand training. This lets us intensify and expand our knowledge about the various brands of watches.
This year, we had the chance to gain fascinating insights into the brand world of Glashütte Original. Glashütte Original was founded after the German reunification out of the East German VEB (publicly-owned business) Glashütte Uhrenbetriebe, so it is the official successor of all watch companies existing before 1990.

A member of the marketing department welcomed us in the company’s impressive atrium and gave us a tour through the manufacturing plant. In the past, the atrium was often used as a venue for concerts and lectures, evidence of the fact that Glashütte Original supports music and film. For example, they are a partner of the Dresden Music Festival and the Berlinale Film festival, and donate a prize for both events every year. After our greeting, we started out on the carefully designed education tour through the facility and were given insights into the manufacturing process of a Glashütte Original watch, from raw material to mounting of the movement and ultimately the finished watch.

We were particularly impressed by the high level of precision and traditional craftsmanship that goes into the timepieces. Here we experienced first-hand what the term manufactory really means. Glashütte Original achieves a very high added value right here in Glashütte and produces wheels, plates and even the tiniest screws on site. A wide range of milling machines, lathes and eroding machines is at the watchmakers’ disposal. For the most part, the movement parts are finished traditionally by hand. The movements bear the typical Glashütte features like hand-engraved balance cock, blued screws and swan neck fine adjustment. The individual departments, such as development, milling, assembly, etc. work in close coordination with one another to guarantee the best possible product. This is watchmaking in action. The visit definitely turned us into big fans of Glashütte Original. 
The apprentices are looking forward to sharing their exciting new insights with our customers during their next work assignments at one of our showrooms. Many thanks to the colleagues at Glashütte Original for making the visit possible.

Incredible how time flies. Julian’s trainee year is nearly over already. He is looking back on an exciting and eventful time.

After completing his watchmaker’s apprenticeship with excellent results, Julian began an individually tailored trainee programme with Wempe. During this trainee year, he has worked through different stations to further improve his watch servicing skills and ultimately start his career as a promising next-generation watchmaker in one of our showrooms.

During the first two months, he supported our Rolex Boutique in Stuttgart. His responsibility was to establish the watch service there, meaning to set up our IT system for processing repair orders, training the local colleagues and solving any related problems. He also used the time to expand his knowledge of Rolex watches and actively supported his colleagues in sales. It was an exciting time for him, as he had a chance to experience the process of establishing a watch service department, which gave him a brand-new perspective. Moreover, Julian was able gather valuable experience in customer communication.

After the Rolex Boutique, he moved on to the Glashütte workshop. Here he focused on repairing watches made by Tag Heuer, Breitling, Glashütte Original, Omega, Panerai, Wempe Zeitmeister and Chronometerwerke, as well as Chopard. Learning how to do the repairs, which will be his responsibility later at the store, was particularly important. In addition, Julian gained insights into our administrative processes and our parts stocks. Here Julian excelled with his high level of precision and quality work.

The highlight of his first six months was his assignment to our largest showroom – Maximilianstraße in Munich. Here, no fewer than five watchmakers and master watchmakers advise our customers on the best possible repair of their watches. Julian was deeply impressed with the great variety of brands, which no other store can match, and the extraordinarily high number of watchmaking masterpieces customers can be shown here. These include a wide array of tourbillon, perpetual calendars or even minute repeaters. He was also inspired by the professionalism of the watch service team. He knew he was learning from the best in the craft.

But there is more excitement ahead for Julian. In the coming months, he will support our team in London with his excellent service skills. Of course we will keep you up to date on his experiences and adventures during that time.

For me as an instructor, it is always exciting to see how Julian and our other former apprentices develop their personal and professional competences after their apprenticeships.

Yours, Elisabeth Gläser

It’s incredible how fast three years can fly by. I still remember the day when I first greeted Chris, Alina and Karl in our training centre for watchmakers on the first day of their apprenticeships. All three were excited and full of expectations about what was to come. Now, three instructive years have gone by and I have to say goodbye to our 3rd-year apprentices. These were three wonderful years marked by the high motivation of our apprentices, a lot of new knowledge to be learned and a great team spirit.

The high point of every apprenticeship is the journeyman’s exam. For a whole week, the apprentices must prove their skills by repairing a quartz and mechanical watch, and manufacturing components. The test is rounded out with an oral exam and a written theoretical exam. All three apprentices passed their tests with flying colours and above-average results. For example, the overall scores were 88 and 91 percent. We are especially proud of the excellent practical scores – Chris’ 95 percent result speaks for itself. Once again, our apprentices are among the best watchmakers in the state of Saxony!

We all celebrated the great results at our annual finals celebration with all apprentice watchmakers. This year, we stormed a trampoline hall and then finished the evening at dinner together.

The dignified conclusion of the apprenticeship was the “liberation” ceremony of our apprentice watchmakers. As part of a festive event at the Dresden Congress Centre, a great venue situated right on the Elbe river, the journeyman’s certificates were handed out and the apprentices were congratulated on their successful exams.

We are very pleased to be able to offer all apprentices a position in our company after their training years. Alina will be repairing top watch brands like Rolex or Patek Philippe in our workshop in Hamburg. Chris is taking on the challenge of becoming a service watchmaker in our Leipzig store, and Karl is taking a position in our service studio in Glashütte.

As their training manager, I would like to thank them for three wonderful years together, filled with mutual trust and very pleasant cooperation, and wish our three journeyman watchmakers all the best for their future.

Yours, Elisabeth

How is excellence created? I am certain it is the combination of our talented, committed apprentices, our unique training facility and the supportive environment.

We as a training team are very concerned with individual support for our apprentices. This is why we work in small teams or even in one-on-one coaching sessions. A rigid curriculum that is the same for every apprentice would contradict our philosophy. Because individual support tailored to each person’s unique strengths and weaknesses requires unconventional formats and time. Our goal is to allow every apprentice to develop his or her abilities and skills through targeted coaching and by determining the individual training focus.

Especially during the third year of the apprenticeships, we aim to provide individual support for the time after the training course, depending on the apprentice’s chosen line of work, in order to give the new watchmakers the best possible career start after they have completed their training. After their apprenticeships, apprentices can choose one of three career paths: Service watchmaker in one of our showrooms, watchmaker at our production site, or watchmaker in our watch repair workshop. They become familiar with all three areas during their apprenticeship programmes.

We share our knowledge. For instance in the field of brand trainings: Every trainee is an ambassador for one brand of watches that we carry in our range. We get together in casual meetings regularly to exchange information and news about the watch models and history of the brand. These brand trainings are augmented with talks and visits to the different local manufactories. Thanks to the knowledge acquired in these events, our trainees find it much easier to work with watches made by different manufacturers.

We communicate openly and directly. Regular feedback is very important to us. It is the only way the apprentices and we as instructors can all continue to grow. It is how we can get better together. And it is the only way to build a trusting relationship between training management and our apprentices.

We are very proud of the many great achievements of our apprentices. For the fourth time running, apprentices of our company have won the Saxony State Watchmakers’ Competition, and in 2016 they took first place at the national level. For us as a training company and me as training manager, those are distinctions and an affirmation of the work we are doing. But above all it is our incentive to keep improving our training a little bit every day, to keep in tune with the times.

The environment of the city of Glashütte, which is known for training watchmakers, allows us to concentrate fully on the training. The free lodging we provide to our first-year apprentices allows the young people to learn together and make new friends quickly. The shared lodgings also let them build team spirit.

Moreover, Glashütte has what we feel is the best watchmaking school in Germany. Superbly trained specialist instructors using excellent equipment teach our apprentices the key theoretical foundations. Our one-of-a-kind training centre is equipped with the latest technology and all the tools one could need. This too is a key factor for good training.

These many building blocks taken together make for excellent training quality and lay the foundations for the top performances of our watchmaking apprentices. We will continue our quest for improvement, so we can be sure to maintain this kind of quality into the future.

This year, the nationals of the practical performance competition (PLW) of the watchmaking trade takes place in Würzburg. Before that, the winners of the state competition were honoured by the Dresden Chamber of Trade. In total, our apprentice watchmakers took first through third place in Saxony.
We had been invited thanks to the excellent performance of Hanna Steffen. Another of our fully trained apprentice watchmakers who would also have taken the state title was unfortunately not permitted to participate in the PLW (Praktischer Leistungswettbewerb der Handwerksjugend or Profis leisten was) because of his age. I want to share with you the pictures and the certificate we received as the training company.

This is why Hanna represented us and the state of Saxony at the federal competition. She took fifth place. Unfortunately, we were not able to place among the top three apprentices this year. That’s a shame, but nevertheless, it is still a success that for four years in a row, the winner of the Saxony state competition has been one of our apprentices. It is one more affirmation for us to keep up the good work and a worthy conclusion to our efforts and commitment during this past year.