How a Hybrid Work Model Leads to Shared Success and Fun
Few people today can imagine sitting in the office for five days. Companies are therefore developing work cultures to score points on the labor market and be as attractive as possible for employees. Daniel Arnold, Head of Corporate Development at Opacc, talks about this in an interview.
You received the Best Workplace Award 2022 in the Hybrid Workplace category. What makes your work model unique?
Daniel Arnold: A modern and personal workplace with all the associated amenities has a strong impact on well-being and performance. The workplace should be a place that allows efficient work and personal development. Modern IT makes it possible to install this workplace independent of location, which has become the norm at Opacc, and not just since the pandemic. However, we also enable location-independent working at our office locations: depending on the type of task, employees can choose where they work on the task most efficiently. This can be, for example, the personal workstation, the library, a retreat room or our bistro. We place great value on personal responsibility not only in the choice of workplace, but everywhere. This is reflected in an exceptionally high level of employee satisfaction.
How do you integrate home office and on-site employees in equal measure?
We have ensured through a uniform IT infrastructure (hardware and software) that collaboration is possible regardless of location. The work tools and equipment in our various workspaces are standardized. However, one of our success factors is close collaboration among ourselves in interdisciplinary teams and with our customers. This works most efficiently when everyone meets in one place and the informal part is not neglected either. The proportion of home offices among our employees is therefore deliberately no higher than 30 percent.
What concept do you pursue at the Opacc campus in Rothenburg?
The entire campus is designed for informal and formal exchange. Informally, it's all about the coffee corners, the bistro, the lounge and the garden. Formal at the various work opportunities such as the meeting rooms, retreat boxes or the library. This also allows knowledge to flow between all the roles and tasks relevant to our enterprise software. This makes work more interesting and lays the foundation for viable innovations.
How do you achieve high employee engagement?
We run the company according to clear and understandable goals. Each and every employee therefore knows what contribution he or she and the team make to the company's success. With our commitment and the resulting solutions, we improve the working environment of our customers. Designing, manufacturing, implementing and supporting this under one roof is an enormous incentive.
What does an optimal work culture look like for Opacc and how do you achieve it?
We place great value on quality awareness, personal responsibility and mutual respect. This is the basis for us to be able to deliver our mostly complex projects on time and in the right quality. We already pay attention to these values when selecting new employees. Integrating the right personalities correctly after sound training and using them for our customers is one of the many pieces of the puzzle for an optimal work culture.
How does the corporate culture manifest itself at work?
Our employees perform exceptionally well, and the shared success is fun. This is reflected in a very lively, goal-oriented and team-based corporate culture. What many visitors to our campus also notice is that the atmosphere is very calm and extremely focused. This has a lot to do with the fact that each person knows what their job is and carries it out with a high level of personal responsibility.
How do you involve employees in innovation processes?
The combination and networking of over 20 professional profiles is a permanent source of small and large innovations that we incorporate into our applications and services. Project work, customer support and further development also generate countless ideas that are contributed by our employees. In addition to this, there is also a dedicated innovation team that takes care of the internal innovation culture. The team, which is made up of various departments, reviews ideas, submits proposals and supports the idea providers in implementing them. This has resulted in many innovations from which all employees now benefit.
What work-life offers can employees take advantage of?
Health management is systematically practiced at our company: For this, we were again awarded the "Friendly Work Space" label by Health Promotion Switzerland during our third recertification. The quality requirements of the certification help the participating companies to recognize the many factors that influence the health of employees in the workplace and to operate a systematic health management system to prevent stress-related illnesses and burnout. At our company, progressive working conditions are therefore part of the corporate DNA. Many of our employees adapt their workload to their life situation and work part-time. Annual working hours, sabbatical days and the possibility of taking a career break also support work-life balance.
What team-building activities do you offer employees?
Legendary and for many one of the highlights of the year is the "OpaccFun-Weekend", where all employees meet with their families. This major event is organized annually by an organizing committee made up of Opacc employees. From lunchtime sports to monthly team dinners to seminars that don't always have to do with IT, we also offer a variety of other activities. Many of these offerings were employee ideas and are highly appreciated.
How does Opacc convince IT talent to join the company?
As one of the few enterprise software developers, Opacc combines all competencies from software engineering to project management and customer support under one roof for decades. Our management and specialist career models are also exceptional. Both careers are of equal value and are promoted and supported accordingly. This gives our employees a wide range of prospects, regardless of the direction in which they wish to develop personally. Another successful model is our vocational training program, which enables us to train our own skilled employees and retain them after the apprenticeship period. We are becoming increasingly well-known as an attractive and reliable employer. Many IT talents also contact us on the basis of recommendations from our employees. Once they get to know the team, our working atmosphere and our applications, the decision is usually very easy.
Source: Netzwoche.ch
