Company trip to Denmark
October was a busy travel month, not only because I had to be in Hamburg (both for work as privately) and because we took our lazy summer vacation in Gran Canaria. In the week between those 2 mentioned trips, I had the joy of squeezing another company trip to Denmark.
In 3 different weeks each time one third of all my colleagues - a mixture from directors, marketeers, customer service, technicians up to the cleaning lady - left for 3 days to visit our mother company. On the agenda were visits to production sites, company museums and some sightseeing in Kopenhagen. Since we sell and service in Belgium the products designed and produced elsewhere in Europe without having a local stock in our company, there is a risk that our products and the rest of our company remains something very abstract to most of our colleagues. For that reason this big company trip has been organised. They had done the same thing 10 years ago when our local company was still much smaller than it is today. Obviously it also functions as an excellent team building trip. Thumbs up for our management team to invest in this and get this organised! I'm very greatfull for the opportunity.
In 3 different weeks each time one third of all my colleagues - a mixture from directors, marketeers, customer service, technicians up to the cleaning lady - left for 3 days to visit our mother company. On the agenda were visits to production sites, company museums and some sightseeing in Kopenhagen. Since we sell and service in Belgium the products designed and produced elsewhere in Europe without having a local stock in our company, there is a risk that our products and the rest of our company remains something very abstract to most of our colleagues. For that reason this big company trip has been organised. They had done the same thing 10 years ago when our local company was still much smaller than it is today. Obviously it also functions as an excellent team building trip. Thumbs up for our management team to invest in this and get this organised! I'm very greatfull for the opportunity.
While I had anticipated big industrial buzzing halls, as I was used to when visiting major brewery sites in my previous jobs, I was surprised by the seemingly quietness of the production sites that were organised in a collection of low halls with green zones in between that had grown organically into a production zoning. The big mass production of our mainstream products is no longer in Denmark but all specialty and high-end products and prototypes and testing etc still happens there...right in and around the hall where the first windows got produced several decades ago. Ha, the testing hall were we endured a weak hurricane was good fun.
I also enjoyed learning a bit more about Villum Kahn Rasmussen, the founder of our company, his vision, his entrepreneurship and some of the many other companies and products he had launched (and closed) in the past such as very Scandinavian modern looking furniture, a coffee maker, ... I enjoy the inspiration and pride that such a visionary and entrepreneurial "founding father" brings to an international family-led company. I experienced the same positive effect when working for Heineken.
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| VKR's original office |
Some landscapes
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