Today we went to Steelcase in Munich to see how they operate. I must say, it was vastly different than the work life I have seen in the US. They called their office the learning and innovation center. The office is totally tailored for innovative learning so that employees never feel stuck. Through research, Steelcase found that it isn’t possible to focus for 8 hours straight, and employees need to sit down and focus for an hour before relocating and doing something else.
Thus, they created an office space that is unique, where each office and area is different and each employee can relocate wherever they want to work. They use this space for their tours where over 100 people come each day to see how they operate. The typical customers think conservatively of the way they work. They wouldn’t ever consider these innovative rooms before they visit Steelcase and see how they work. Steelcase got rid of show rooms, and basically tour their customers around their workers and show how they work.
Their selling point is finding out what 3 phases of work are most important to the customer(for example Innovation, people engagement, collaboration—all business challenges). They find 3 topics that have prioritization to the customer and Make customers talk about work trends and how these phases of working are typically operating at their office. They almost act as consultants and have the customers talk amongst each other about ways they can improve on these phases of operation.
From research, Steelcase found that Highly engaged people are only 1/3 people of total workforce. Engagement is important. They believe if they provide a good work environment then employees will be actively engaged. They hope that through the freedom of workspace that they offer employees, they will be more highly engaged. Here are a few examples of the freedom and changes they offered:
They added big windows to the office so that daylight shines in at all times, allowing the employees to know what time of day it is.
They also made the leaders operate on the middle floor so there was no feeling of hierarchy. The leaders don’t even have set offices. In most companies, the leaders will be on the top floor, but at Steelcase, they operate on the middle floor and are available to everyone. Their leaders dont even have an established office. The CEO said, “everyone knows me, I don’t need an office for that”.
Overall, Steelcases “Learning and Innovation Center” is used as a selling point for their customers. Instead of show casing their products, Steelcase just shows how they work and hopes it rubs off on customers. It sure rubbed off on me. Allowing employee freedom and displaying level hierarchy made Steelcase seem like a company anyone would want to work for. This would rub off on perspective clients or employees. It was an awesome visit.
