The company’s challenge for Leaders21
FRANZ OBERNDORFER GmbH & Co KG is a successful, long-standing Upper Austrian family business and market leader in the concrete component industry. In its over 100 years of existence, the company has had to reinvent itself time and again in order to survive in a dynamic competitive environment. Challenges such as the digitalization of the construction industry, the war for talent on the labor market, or exploding raw material prices require the company to plan ahead and the entire team to approach tasks in a highly coordinated manner.
The company’s clear vision is “Through innovation and digitality, we make construction even easier and safer.” Our task at Leaders21 was to find a way to raise awareness for this vision and to initiate specific measures in all areas of the company to bring this vision to life.
The Leaders21-Approach
What’s needed to bring the company vision to life? Two things, mainly: communication and collaboration. Especially in a decentralized organization with various locations and mobile assembly teams, it is vital to communicate at eye level, explain the background, and accompany the entire workforce on this journey in the best possible way.
Our solution: Firstly, an internal communication campaign with videos, posters and social media activities to help raise awareness for the importance of the corporate vision.
Secondly, our Leaders 21 team conducted interviews with representatives from all areas of the company in order to actively address doubts and concerns on the one hand, and to better understand the current problems on the other hand. The heart of the project was a two-day summit, during which a group of over 40 OBERNDORFER employees identified and agreed on concrete measures to help bring the vision to life.
The outcome for the company
The cultural change was already noticeable at many levels during the summit. After 100 years of formally addressing employees and colleagues, the corporate language shifted to the informal German “Du” at all levels of hierarchy. The newly created hashtag #wirallesindoberndorfer stands for the change towards a modern, open organization in which innovation and change are actually lived.
About OBERNDORFER
More than 100 years of experience, technical know-how and ongoing innovation have made OBERNDORFER what it is today: Austria’s leading concrete component constructor. Each and every one of the approximately 1,050 employees at OBERNDORFER clearly contributes to delivering the best quality. Thus, enabling the company to offer complete solutions for both large and small as well as complex construction projects, and to develop innovative, future-proof solutions.
