Bob Fox: Can you give us a brief introduction to Haworth and the work you do?
Franco Bianchi: Haworth was founded in 1948 by GW Haworth – we just turned 70 this year! Today his grandson is the chairman of the board. We had north of two-billion-dollars in revenue this past year. We operate all around the world and have roughly 7,500 employees whom we call members to signify our special connection since we are a family company. Today, we operate mostly in the commercial office interiors business, but more recently we have expanded into residential brands. For the past decade, we blended the work environment with more variety, borrowing the design, ingenuity and innovation from best-in-class companies in the hospitality and residential industries.
I know Haworth has focused a lot on culture in the workplace – I’m curious how would you describe your culture?
Our culture is about agility and entrepreneurship. I like to say that I try to run the smallest big company that I can – we’re a very flat organization. There are other companies that have an organizational approach where every decision is made by headquarters. While we do some of that, typically we are more of a network organization than command and control.
You mentioned the entrepreneurial spirit and flat organization. How does your workplace support this kind of environment?
You’ll see executives sitting in rooms with glass walls. We still have private offices, but they are very small, open and transparent – the least private, private offices you could have. I like to think that our workplace communicates that level of free flow. We have a very flexible working policy. Some people work from home, some have no assigned space and can work where they want. We focus on outcome and not how long or where you sit. We try to make sure people feel empowered and not constrained by sitting in a certain location and focus on solving problems and getting the job done.