Recently the moving of the office of Bekaert Japan Inc. had been completed, and the satisfaction survey after the event was also finished. The project this time was a small-scale transfer of an office of 24 employees. However, as Mr. Ono and the people in general affairs understood what kind of office conditions the employees were truly wishing for, they decided to introduce DOUMA’s work place consulting in order to realize their wishes. In the interview we asked him how he came to decide the introduction of this and also on his thoughts on after the move.
(Ozawa) Congratulations on the great success with moving the office.
(Ono) Thank you. With everyone’s help the satisfaction level of the office has risen and we were able to realize an easy-to-work environment, which was our initial goal.
(Ozawa) What made you decide to introduce our company’s work place consulting?
(Ono) The office before the move had more space than the current office. However the environment was not exactly the easiest to work in and there were issues in terms of storage. Also, in the case of our company, several business sections do their work on their own individual service lines, and so a sense of unity of the entire company as well as communication was also an issue.
As we were thinking of making an office with these points in mind, our company’s staff in charge of general affairs had the opportunity to go and listen to DOUMA’s seminar. We sympathized with the way of thinking of workplace consulting, which creates an office by beginning with the analysis of the way of working. That was the beginning.
(Ozawa) The thing we realized in the actual examination, was that the environment for communication and management within each of the several business sections were lacking. So in terms of zoning we first created a place to enhance communication within the business sections and planned so that interactions of the entire office would increase by a multiplying effect. By making the concept of the office as “Better Together”, which is the principle of Bekaert, we believe people have become more aware of the interactions of the whole company.
(Ono) The satisfaction level of the evaluation point of the office for design was in the worst three in the preparatory satisfaction survey, but its importance level was high and we were aware of it as an issue. This time the satisfaction level was in the top three and the impression has completely changed.
(Ozawa) The location of the building also seems to be very popular.
(Ono) Yes. This time we were very particular about the selection of the building, so I feel extremely content for receiving high praise regarding that. Also, the total area of the office has been slightly reduced, but we used the space efficiently to make meeting rooms that are easy to use and have plenty of audio-visual devices as well as communication equipments. By realizing the convenience of the functions of the office the degree of satisfaction as a whole has increased, and I believe this is a result of consulting.
(Ozawa) This time it was an office with relatively few members of staff. For this we were able to program the setups while satisfying demands in a detailed manner, and managed to display a way of consulting that large-scale offices do not have. We hope for your office to develop into something even better with keeping the results of the satisfaction survey after the event in mind and holding on firmly to the concept of the office in the future. Thank you for today.