Sustainability Report 2020
« We are a service provider. Therefor the focus of our work and actions is naturally on the people who provide these service and those who use it. Our employees are our capital, to whom we are deeply thankful and whose well-being is very important for us. »
An investment in our employees is an investment in the future, which benefits not only us as a company, but also our customers and other affected groups.
The sustainability report was mainly written by Desiree Szöky (backoffice and accounting), Katharina Kloiber (innovation manager and statutory authority) and Nikolaus Dürk (CEO and founder of the company) in the period from 11.09.2019 to 22.06.2020 as part of a peer audit process. Design and typesetting was created by Karin Mülleder.
Extract from the prefaces
X-Net has been founded 20 years ago and from the very beginning we have been inspired and driven by different values than many companies pursue today. The focus has always been on what we have in common, the exchange with each other and a considerate approach even beyond company boundaries.
Learning from each other, facing challenges together and being able to shape together a system, a society within the society, is something that many of us sense beautiful and useful, especially if it causes a benefit in the common good. [...] At this point I would like to thank you very much. Thank you for your trust in us! We are very much looking forward continuing to support you in the digitalization process. But behind each company there are people, who arrange and form the company and so also the common good report gives only an excerpt of our association. At this point, therefore, a big thank you to all of those who have contributed in recent years.
[...] In recent years, the information technologies (IT) have led us into dependencies and partly turned us into transparent people. The complexity and the technical possibilities can no longer be overseen by one single expert alone and unfortunately this circumstance causes a strong exploitation without our notice. X-Net sees its tasks in using its knowledge to strengthen the sovereignty and European values exactly in this area again, to enlight as many people and companies as possible and to provide them with the necessary knowledge to become autonomous and independent. [...] We want to provide opportunities for companies to focus on long-term global goals (SDG) and to present their affected groups (customer, supplier, partner, government and banks/investors) "on demand".
Nikolaus Dürk, CEO
When I came to X-Net in 2008 via the detour of the Upper Austrian Innovation Assistant Program - not I found the X-Net, but the X-Net found me - one thing was immediately clear: The atmosphere within the team, this motivation and the enthusiasm that each individual employee radiated (at that time I was the only woman in a team of technicians and cultural and social IT experts) were something special. [...]
In my opinion, openness and the willingness to pass on and share knowledge at any time are basic prerequisites for the functioning of X-Net. Every employee is free to express his or her own opinion and to influence decisions. In the small group this was still easy to handle and happened almost by itself. With increasing size it turns out that not all information reaches all employees and not all opinions are (can be) heard. But here too the motivation and enthusiasm is still noticeable: the willingness to participate; the willingness to learn and develop; the active approach to each other and the contribution of knowledge and of what has been learned (partly also in leisure time). [...] Without the enthusiasm for innovation, for solutions and for the new, which is supported by the entire team, we would not have implemented and achieved as many things.
This sustainability report is accompanied by a big THANK YOU to the team, the solidarity and the chances - thanks to the flat hierarchy, not in terms of the much-cited career ladder, but in terms of personal development - which X-Net offers. Another THANK YOU is for the way we deal with personal circumstances. I am now a mother of two children and have not only changed the amount of work several times, but have also been able to arrange my working hours and location (presence in the company and home office) from the very beginning [note: since 2014] in a way that was best compatible with childcare. So I could return to work immediately after maternity protection of both children and at the same time take an additional responsibility. This is not a matter of course and is a further argument in favor of X-Net as an employee-oriented company.
Katharina Kloiber, CFO
The two little seeds on our homepage are characteristic for member companies of the Association for the Funding of the Common Good Economy, which have drawn up the common good balance sheet within as part of a peer group.
Peer Audit
The balance sheet of X-Net was prepared in a peer audit process with the following companies:
Sabine Lehner (one of the Common Good Economy certified advisors) supported and accompanied the upper-Austrian Peer Group in the preparation of their Common Good Economy reports and balance sheets.