Our Sustainability Report 22

Training and further education

We invest in the future by providing training and further education for skilled workers. Every year, we offer three apprenticeships and one internship for future technicians and engineers. Events such as the national Future Day enable us to show young people the career opportunities in the furnishing and furniture industry. At Vifian, we also support established employees in their personal and professional development.

Promoting sustainability awareness

Part of our sustainability programme is also two annual internally led workshops. They serve to strengthen the common awareness for resource-friendly actions and to develop innovative solutions.

Working hours and models

With flexible working models and working hours as well as part-time positions, we are a contemporary and competitive employer. Flexitime also allows our employees to work a 4-day week as needed. We provide our employees with the necessary equipment to work from home or on the road and thus respond to individual working needs and circumstances. In general, we promote an open exchange and thus the satisfaction of all team members.

Occupational safety

We take specific measures to prevent accidents at work. This includes the appropriate training of our employees. We design safe workplaces and check all precautions regularly.

High-quality workplaces

Not only for our clients, but also internally, we create workspaces that motivate and inspire. Our offices are a hub for interaction and identification. They promote collaboration and creation within the team in a balanced working environment.

Leadership culture

We organise ourselves into teams, with coaches striving to help each team member reach their potential. We cultivate respectful interaction at eye level, an active feedback culture and encourage each other.

Diversity

Diverse perspectives not only nourish creative work, but also the social consciousness of a company. We welcome and promote cultural diversity. Another important goal for us is to achieve a minimum of 30 per cent female representation.

Partnerships

We strive for long-lasting partnerships with customers, dealers, suppliers, architects and planners. We cultivate our partnerships on an ongoing basis.

Reduction and recycling of scrap materials

Planning and synergies help us to conserve resources. We combine orders, coordinate purchasing with consumption and optimise cutting – this is the only way to reliably prevent waste. We use any offcuts to heat our office buildings.

Use of recycled materials

We want to increase the proportion of recycled materials in all areas. For every order as well as for every product development, we examine alternative materials and offer customers environmentally conscious options.

Reduction of single-use materials

In the future, packaging should be made of recyclable cardboard whenever possible. In order to reduce the plastic content of our packaging by 30 per cent by 2025, we are constantly looking for new possibilities and are exploring, among other things, an alternative to bubble wrap.

VOC

By treating the surface of our products with a more environmentally friendly water-based paint, we keep VOC emissions at a low level.

Fuel

Careful route planning enables us to reduce fossil fuel consumption, with efficient vehicles in our fleet. Other measures include the company’s contribution to employees’ public transport season tickets and the provision of Stromer electric bikes.

Dealing with leftovers

With recycling stations, we promote the separation of materials in our company and return waste to the material cycle. Regular training helps us to stay motivated and informed, and to dispose of rejects properly.

Energy

We pursue the goal of CO2-neutral production and obtain electricity from renewable resources. We heat our business buildings primarily with wood, and the supplementary oil heating system will be replaced by a woodchip heating system in 2024. In this way, production cuttings can be optimally utilised.

Processes

Striving for continuous improvement, we review our work processes after each major project and record suggestions for optimisation. This results in job descriptions with a clear competence and responsibility profile as well as sustainable processes. We develop our products using modern working methods based on lean approaches.

Digitalisation

Digitalisation offers us opportunities that we use in work preparation, production and sales. We are constantly developing tools such as CRM, ERP CAD-CAM. Training makes it possible for our teams to use the tools in the best possible way for their core competences.

Quality

We meet the high demands of our customers with quality products and a balanced price-performance ratio. Thanks to extensive checklists, final inspections of all deliveries are seamless and detailed.

Life cycle

Our products are built to last for generations. They are durable and of high quality. The initial two-year warranty can be extended as needed. After each expired warranty period, we offer repair and refreshment services to our customers.

Product development and advancement

Our position in the market is important to us and we not only want to maintain it, but to strengthen it. Therefore, we intensively observe current needs and develop new products every year. We continuously check our existing designs for construction, functionality and expansion possibilities. We incorporate feedback from production and sales directly into further development.