Planning 1.0

The first hurdle had been cleared, the decision made. Now it was time for professional support. A cadoozie took ownership of the needs assessment: Working with our external consultants, he worked in project groups and with personal surveys of representative employee groups to figure out what our cadoozies will need in their new working environment. We still want to create a better working world and we can only do that with the agreement and commitment of our cadoozies.

The results of these comprehensive surveys ranged from the physical equipment through colors and furnishing preferences right up to what was needed for teamworking as well as concentrated individual work. 

Mobile work—mostly still within the office—was centralized, and laptops and company smartphones were rolled out to all employees. It was amazing that 30-40% of our cadoozies still used a desktop PC; 50% had no work phone. 

So, 2020 arrived and everything was in place. Until ...

THE disruption!

Yes, everything was actually ready to launch in 2020. The lease and service provider agreements for the reconstruction were on the table, ready to sign. Then came the mother of all disruptions: Covid. 

We needed and were able to set up 95% of our workforce to work safely from home, initially on an ad hoc basis. (Read more about it in our blog post: Unintentional Preparedness)

This was helped by our IT infrastructure and the fact that we had already given all cadoozies laptops in 2019. 

Of course, no one had any idea in March 2020 what effects the Covid-19 pandemic would have. So we put the reconstruction plans on hold in the short term. After comprehensively weighing everything up, our decision quickly became clear. We had been consistently growing for 20 years and never at any time had to let any employee go because of poor order books or crises—not even during the 2008 financial crisis. We were not going to sacrifice this record. Not even for Covid.

As it happened, our 2020 business actually experienced a huge surge—in retrospect, because of our digital solutions. Our caution was right at the time, but as it turned out, it would not have been necessary. But still, better safe than sorry. We do not regret for one moment the decision to postpone the reconstruction.

The months went by and the working world was transformed. To begin with, there was a healthy skepticism about these new home offices. The question of whether remote working could be effective dominated above all others. However, this was quickly overtaken by the realization that this way of working actually works much better than the old. As we see it, this is mainly due to the mindset and teamworking spirit of our employees. Everyone is responsible for their own area of work and has a great deal of freedom to shape results and processes. This independent way of working and understanding by our cadoozies is deeply ingrained and has once again proven to be a secure anchor for our business.

Planning 2.0

Nine months of pandemic later and our long-term requirements for a modern workplace have changed with long-lasting effects. In planning 1.0, we still wanted to squeeze 120+ cadoozies into the office every day. Now it is very clear that we no longer need to have the entire workforce in the office five days a week. Not even when life returns to normal. Our requirements are radically different. We need fewer desks. We need even more flexibility.

Today, we are thankful that we often encountered situations during the reconstruction that required more time and slowed us down. Because otherwise we would have created a working world that would have been instantly obsolete for today’s needs.