After an exciting visit to Neuschwanstein Castle in the middle of the mountains we made our way to steelcase. Steelcase is an American company that specializes in office furniture. Unlike most business visits, steelcase showed us their innovation center that focused on the productivity of their office environment.
The visit started off with some refreshments and snacks followed with an introduction to the company.
Our tour guide Klause focussed on how their product developed an environment to promote the best workplace and work ethic. Steelcase originally focused on integrating technology into the workplace but now focuses on integration of technology and communication. He talked about how large spread out businesses resulted in a segregation of employees. The mission of steelcase was to connect all employees. Informal information exchange is a really important aspect of business. This means that a lot of information is passed along employees when they are passing or brief encounters. Our tour guide used a metaphor of a get-together in a kitchen. If everybody is close in a business they will be forced to interact with each other and information will be passed much faster and more efficiently. Steelcase recognizes costumers as business partners and after extensive information and talks, tries to provide a floor plan that best suits their company.
A main priority of steelcase is to incorporate both creative thinking and decision making rooms in one. Some examples of how they do this is through round tables, hands on communication and media platforms like microsoft workplace. 1/3 of the employees in the world are highly engaged in their work and steelcase focuses on making employees more engaged in their workplace and company.
Throughout the visit, it was interesting to see how a company that specializes in office furniture can improve work ethic and productivity in a company
