When commitment pays off: Denis Grgic

From machine operator to team leader: Thanks to his dedicated approach to his work, one door after another opened for Denis Grgic at the Coroplast Group. In his employee story, he tells which jobs he had mastered over the years – and reveals his personal secret to good leadership.

A respectable career path

Denis Grgic started his journey in 2014 as a young machine and plant operator at Coroplast Tape. Back then, he already impressed his superiors with his conscientious work ethic and exceptionally high dedication – and it would be rewarded: around two years after starting at the company, the Wuppertal local was offered the position of continuous shift team leader. Denis Grgic exceled in that role too, meaning it was not long before he was promoted again to shift manager.

Following a short detour to the directly adjacent production area, where he worked as a foreman for around two years, the qualified machine and plant operator returned to his roots – and accepted his current position as assembly team leader for Coroplast Tape, where he manages around 70 employees. Denis Grgic proactively expressed his desire to build his career to his respective superiors – but his enthusiasm had already been noticed earlier: “I always had in mind that I want to develop further and am ready to learn, and I repeatedly expressed that.”

Portrait, Denis Grgic — Denis Grgic has been part of the Coroplast Tape team for 10 years now.

Leadership means giving and taking

One thing is important to Denis Grgic in his position as a manager: communication at eye-level. He wants to signal to his employees, with whom he once stood side by side at the machines, that his new position has not changed his values – despite the challenges of going from colleague to superior. As well as structure and precision, Denis Grgic also values empathy paired with plenty of appreciation. Whether it’s in the form of a cold energy drink, lending an ear or honest feedback – he demonstrates what good leadership means to him on a daily basis. He can’t imagine working anywhere else but production: “A fully office-based job isn’t for me. I need to be close to my team and the machines, because that’s my background.”

On top of managing employees, Denis Grgic’s daily work also includes process optimizations, order management and production reports. In his role as team leader, he is responsible for ensuring that production runs smoothly, so that deliveries to other departments and ultimately, the customer, are made on time. “Every minute that a machine is not running costs us money. This means I spend a lot of my time planning my resources as efficiently as possible to prevent downtimes,” explains the team leader at Coroplast Tape.

Denis Grgic in the production environment — Communication with his team is extremely important to Denis Grgic.

I am convinced that employee satisfaction is a decisive factor in the quality of their work. That’s why I attach great importance to a positive atmosphere and pleasant employee relations – both within my team and in interaction with other business divisions.
Denis Grgic | Team Leader Production

Time to switch off

It doesn’t take much for the Wuppertal local, who lives in nearby Sprockhövel, to unwind from his busy work life: when the weather is nice, Denis Grgic likes to relax on the veranda with a coffee or cycle along the Nordbahntrasse and reflect on his day.