hidden champions

“CWS has grown closer in the crisis”

Interview with Steffen Langner

The CWS employee magazine
02/2020

Graphic: Helping each other through tough times

In order to evaluate the impacts of the corona crisis on CWS on a daily basis and plan the next steps, the CWS Group set up a corona task force. The Group's management as well as all regions and divisions work closely with the experts in the areas of Quality, Environment, Safety, Health (QESH), Human Resources (HR), Operations, Logistics, Supply Chain, IT and Communication. What is it like to manoeuvre an internationally active company through the corona crisis? Steffen Langner, Head of Continuous Improvement and head of the Corona Taskforce at CWS reports on the work of the crisis team.

Steffen Langner, Head of Continuous Improvement CWS

Mr. Langner, when did it become clear that the CWS had to react to the corona pandemic?

We had kept a very close eye on the situation till mid-February and checked whether the chains of infection were still traceable and able to be broken at an early stage. When the infection rates skyrocketed in late February, we knew we had to take action. I remember the situation very well: I set up our first crisis teleconference while on my skiing holiday.

How exactly did you go about it?

We quickly realized that we wouldn't get very far with a central steering group. There are simply too many differing official regulations in the various regions. With this in mind, the solution we arrived at was a crisis management system which, supplementarily to Group-wide management of measures, also provides for divisional and cross-functional task forces and local crisis management. The local crisis management teams are of great importance in this context. They supplement or adapt the central guidelines to local requirements; they translate and implement the guidelines locally.

Graphic: Crisis Management Key competences

What was for you personally the biggest challenge faced by the task force?

For me that was undoubtedly the unpredictability and the lack of experience with the coronavirus as well as the differing requirements in the various countries. Our declared objective was to give all employees the best possible protection against infection and provide them with a feeling of security. This required a lot of dialogue and information from a lot of people in the organisation in order to define the best possible approach to the problem and to bring it into the organisation quickly and effectively.

What surprised you most during this phase?

It was awesome to find that there was not one single person in the entire company who was not pulling their weight. Everyone gave their support wherever needed. How we managed, for example, to produce mouth and nose masks for the entire workforce within a very short time is a really great story. I have the feeling that CWS grew even closer together during the crisis. You can literally feel this identity with the common aim of achieving a declared objective together. Nothing can stop the CWS organisation- especially when "the going gets tough". To have experienced that means a lot to me.

”The crisis encourages us to continue on the path of continuous improvement.”

Steffen Langner, Head of Continuous Improvement Head of the Corona Taskforce

What lessons has CWS learned from the crisis?

The crisis has strengthened our conviction that we are on the right path with our "continuous improvement" concept: to aim to make what we do better every day. In the future this will help us to better deal with situations we cannot fully understand or control, and our pandemic plans are being tweaked accordingly. We also see considerable potential in "mobile working" – i.e. new forms of collaboration – a mix between physical attendance and working from home. The focus here is on an environment in which we can on the one hand raise our employees' satisfaction while further increasing our attractiveness as employer at the same time.

What, in these times of crisis, will you personally enjoy looking back on in the future?

I joined CWS a little over a year ago and can only say: my decision to come to CWS was exactly the right one. I have learned a lot and am very proud indeed to be part of the CWS family and of what we have achieved together so far. And I look forward to seeing what other challenges lie ahead.