A discount retailer as an innovative IT employer

FutureWork encompasses many aspects of our work: how and where do we want to collaborate and share information, what do leadership and trust mean in this context and what will our offices look like in the future? The basic rule for communication following our hybrid approach is: the more emotional the topic, the more synchronous the communication channel. We use Microsoft 365 tools in particular to organise our personal work and to collaborate within teams and projects. So we use mobile working and our offices in a targeted way, based on the individual themes and activities.

With FutureWork, we have created a working environment in which we can collaborate efficiently both virtually and on-site at our office. Therefore, with a view to work, we harmonise the personal life situation of our employees with our corporate goals to the greatest possible extent. Specifically, this means that our employees can decide on their working hours and place of work within Germany with the approval of their line manager. The office is our “home base” and also another communication channel. Our teams use this option quite differently. Consequently, it is equally possible to partially use mobile working or to use regular on-site team days. At our office locations, we will create even more inspiring working spaces and concepts in the future in order to further promote team spirit and collaboration.

Following our FutureWork approach, we provide a working environment in which we can collaborate both virtually and on-site at our various office locations. So, when you are not in the office, you can work from anywhere you like – provided you are in Germany. Mobile working is only allowed within Germany and is unfortunately not possible from abroad. However, we are constantly on the lookout for ways to offer our employees additional benefits and are checking whether new developments can also be implemented in our company. Among these is the topic of remote work abroad. In this framework, our employees also have the opportunity to carry out their work from selected countries. The maximum number of remote work abroad days is 30 working days per calendar year for employees with a five-day working week.

In order to make optimal use of mobile working options, we provide our employees with the appropriate technical equipment so that, for example, they can use an additional monitor, keyboard, camera and much more at home in addition to their notebook. For this purpose, our employees have a budget they can spend at an equipment partner. At the office, they can easily book their desired workstation for the day via a shared desk tool.

We primarily use Microsoft 365 tools to organise our work and collaborate in teams and projects. Microsoft Teams is our central hub for communication via channels, chats, calls and video conferences. Fast and transparent communication is the focus here. Tools such as SharePoint, OneDrive, OneNote, Planner and To Do also help us to work collaboratively and in an organised way. Moreover, we have introduced Yammer as an internal social network. For optimal use, our FutureWork Pioneers and numerous training courses assist our employees in getting to know all the tools.

With FutureWork, our first step is to create a uniform understanding of how and in which places we communicate and collaborate with each other, be it in digital form or in person. In doing so, we mainly pursue two goals: transparency and efficiency. As the number of tools for everyday digital communication and collaboration increased, a development that was even accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a need for a common definition of collaboration. We use this digital competence for the success of our Mülheim-based international organisational unit.

Our journey to the future is not yet complete. We want to continue learning from experience. We have introduced Yammer as an additional tool for the transparent communication of information across departments and hierarchies. However, there are other aspects that are also important in order to determine what our work will look like in the future. For example, we have just started to redesign and rebuild our office spaces in order to also understand our office as a relevant tool for us and to harmonise the use of this tool with changing and future needs.