Design your workplace of the future

"Never go back to the office!" or rather "Fortunately, get out of the home office!"

What will your new normal be? Somewhere in-between?

And that's what it's all about: defining the in-between. At Uniper, we want to create a work environment that allows individuals to be more flexible, while still strengthening collaboration with colleagues and continuing to give us a common sense of belonging. 

How to do that?

With ideas from all our employees, interdisciplinary workshops and a goal-oriented look into the future. The project participants of NewNormal initially work with 160 employees from all countries and areas of Uniper on our future Normal, our future workplace, working environment and way of working. The needs, the well-being and the wishes of all are the main focus. The initial idea of the NewNormal project is not the reduction of physical workplaces and the reduction of our building infrastructure, all board members affirm.

David Bryson: "All of us at Uniper are doing an excellent job during the corona crisis. This shows us that we are much more flexible than we thought. We started this NewNormal project with confidence in our people, who are passionate about their work and keen to develop Uniper as a company. If we can work independently of our normal workplace, why not look for new ways of working? Especially when those new ways allow us to better balance our family and leisure time with our work".

What is NewNormal about?

"From us - for us" is the elementary basic idea of the project. That's why employees from all areas of the company are integrated right from the start and bring a variety of professional backgrounds and different experiences to the 10 workshops. Their ideas and visions are incorporated into the design of the workplace of the future. The project is led by Valentin Balzer from the Business Change Team, backed by a project team with colleagues from HR, Communications, Compliance, Legal, IT, Tax, Facility Management, HSSE, Operational Excellence and representatives of the Co-determination. The first workshops started last week.

Valentin Balzer: "The NewNormal project has the potential to impact all areas of Uniper. This means that we need to involve people from different parts of our organization, both as idea generators and as experts. We expect many individual wishes and ideas from individuals, teams and leaders. We will examine all these ideas for feasibility and compatibility with other requirements, which will probably also mean that we have to question some established processes. The result should be a plan of action by the end of December, which contains concrete suggestions on how and what needs to be changed so that we can remain as close to our wishes for the future as possible.

The project team has identified 8 focus areas that make the complex field of NewNormal more tangible and serve as the content framework for the project work in the coming months.

And of course it's not that simple, because each of us probably has different ideas about what our ideal workplace should look like. This is the challenge, but also our opportunity. Valentina Verrini, sponsor of the NewNormal project: "I am proud that our company gives us the freedom to shape this ourselves. It is a great example of Uniper Way empowerment, and at the same time our chance to bring to life the Uniper Way into our workplace."

The comprehensive approach of the project is also endorsed by the Group Works Councils. Many works council representatives work directly in the workshops.

Harald Seegatz: "I myself can no longer imagine returning to the old normality. The weeks of work at home have shown what is possible and how flexibly we have reacted to this situation. Taking the positive aspects of this into the future now is the right approach. The Co-determination is pleased to accompany the NewNormal process directly and to represent the interests of the Uniper employees also in the working groups.”