Office furniture to make you feel good from Burgenland

Office furniture from Neudoerfler – for sitting or standing – is not only found in offices, but also in schools and universities.

Whether at home, in an upscale office environment, at schools, at university campuses or at companies such as Coca Cola and ÖAMTC – office furniture from Neudoerfler can be found everywhere. Time and again, the crucial question arises: to stand or to sit when working in the office? Neudoerfler CEO Heidi Adelwöhrer and COO Maximilian Schubert answer this question and many more.

You have held management positions in various industries. What brought you to the furniture industry and what interested you in it?
Heidi Adelwöhrer: am fascinated by the office furniture industry because office furniture makes a decisive contribution to the culture of a company. The furniture a company furnishes itself with has an effect on how people work together and how comfortable the employees feel in the office.
Maximilian Schubert: I think it’s particularly nice that in the furniture industry craftsmanship, industrial technology and product design go hand in hand.

Last year, Neudoerfler recorded the highest turnover ever with almost 65 million euros. What was the reason for this achievement??
Adelwöhrer: Neudoerfler has grown steadily in recent years. I am particularly pleased that we have felt this upward trend even in the third year of the pandemic. One reason for our growth was certainly the change in the working world. Many of our customers see that their existing office can no longer keep up with the changing requirements and urgently needs a redesign of communication zones, quiet zones and everything that the working world of tomorrow demands.

The motto “From people with drive. For people with drive.” can be found on your website. Please explain this corporate philosphy.
Schubert: We build furniture for people who realise their potential, who enjoy their work. It is furniture for people with drive – by people with drive. People who feel as much enthusiasm for what they do as our customers do.

How much has New Work changed your business field, your design and requirements?
Adelwöhrer: New Work is changing how workspaces are designed. Due to the competition from people working from home, the office has a stronger representational character again. Our customers want to design their offices in such a way that employees want to come to the office because they simply feel comfortable there. They are planning many more communication areas where the focus is on interactive, agile and interdisciplinary exchange with colleagues and quiet zones where people can concentrate on their work or simply relax.

You also furnish schools. How do the requirements differ from office furniture for adults? Did you seek advice and expertise from pupils during development?
Schubert: In schools, furniture has to withstand greater loads and is used by children of different heights, but it still has to be ergonomic for everyone. Therefore, quality products like those from Neudoerfler are in demand. The common factor, however, is that both in the office and in the education sector, we focus on which furnishings children and adults need to make full use of their potential, so they can take just as much momentum home in the evening after a day full of energy. For of our new educational furniture portfolio, we work with a group of international students and put prototypes through their paces with future users.

Which of your projects or clients from the past years would you highlight in particular?
Adelwöhrer: One project I am particularly proud of is furnishing the new headquarters of Asfinag. The task was to develop a series of customised furniture – a core competence of Neudoerfler. The storage furniture was to be modular and fulfil different functions, such as attachable modules with an acoustic effect or smart storage space. The result has a unique look and gives the office space an individual character.
Another exciting project was furnishing the MOL Campus in Budapest. It is the new headquarters of the MOL Group and the tallest building in Hungary. We furnished the entire office tower work desks, meeting tables and storage space. In cooperation with our subsidiary Planmöbel in Germany and our Hungarian Neudoerfler branch, it was an absolute team effort.
Other customers of ours include the Vienna Economic Chamber, the Austrian Post, L’Oréal, Beiersdorf, Palfinger, ÖAMTC and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Will plastics lose relevance in furniture production due to the trend towards sustainability?
Schubert: We are constantly looking for new materials that have the smallest possible carbon footprint. One of our latest solutions is coat hooks made of a biodegradable material as an add-on to our storage furniture. Generally, few plastic components are used in our furniture, our main material is wood. We deliberately produce our furniture at our company headquarters in Neudörfl and work with regional partner companies wherever possible. We value our regional ties, source wood from sustainable forestry and deliver the finished pieces of furniture to our customers largely without disposable packaging, but carefully wrapped in blankets.

Are you concerned about the shortage of skilled workers and what are you doing about it – speaking of employer branding?
Adelwöhrer: The shortage of skilled workers is a major issue of our time. At Neudoerfler, we are currently training more than twenty apprentices and thus ensure the development of our skilled workers of tomorrow ourselves. One of our goals today and in the future is to be an attractive employer. We offer our employees an ergonomic working environment with the latest office furniture, flexible working hours with a 4.5-day week, a health programme with sports classes and an internal business academy with a wide range of further training opportunities.

What are the biggest challenges for your company in the years to come?
Schubert: The climate crisis affects people, animals and raw materials today as well as in the future, so the topic of sustainability is also one that we would like to address more intensively in the years to come. We are currently installing a photovoltaic system on the roof of our company headquarters to become more self-sufficient with the energy consumption of our production and are relying on solar energy as an environmentally friendly source of energy. Inflation and rising raw material prices as well as the shortage of skilled workers are other issues that concern us.

Finally, a personal question: Do you prefer to stand or sit when you work?
Adelwöhrer: When I am in my office, I only work standing up. My height-adjustable desk allows me to switch at the touch of a button. By standing more often, I feel more active, can think more concentrated and have less neck tension in the evening. Schubert: I am a fan of alternating between sitting and standing. For concentrated work I like to sit, but for meetings I likee the dynamics of standing up.