From Thomas Meyer

A total of 15 members accepted the invitation to the spring meeting of the Work Group Westfalen in Bönen. At its 24th meeting, the still young ICV Work Group was hosted by Welser Profile Deutschland GmbH. The company’s products are widely used – steel profile beams reinforce cars, support desks, kitchens or storage racks, for example.

In addition to the exciting conference venue, however, the focus was on one thing above all: change. Because even at Welser Profile, time does not stand still – in fact, the company impressively demonstrates how structural change can succeed in a constantly changing world.

In business management or the press, the term “VUCA” is hard to avoid – it describes a world in which competitive conditions are constantly changing and can hardly be predicted with any precision. The result is that companies – and with them all of us as employees or the self-employed – must constantly adapt.

Individuals can try to remain ‘agile’ through training and further education – but how can companies do this themselves? The living organism to which we give our time and which – hopefully – does us justice with acceptable pay and a good work-life balance? One thing is clear: traditional, often patriarchal companies have no future with Generation Z. The company as a whole must adapt its organizational form to the new requirements.
And that brings us to the Welser Profile. The topic: “Structures for unique people” – the Welser organizational system in the financial sector: from a hierarchy to a cellular organization.

We listened to an impressive travelogue: how the Austrian family business recognized the need for change and has been breaking new ground step by step with its employees for seven years. Participation is voluntary and the works council is involved. A special milestone: the US subsidiary itself asked to become part of the program.

In the new organizational form, role profiles are created – each person takes on several roles that are grouped thematically and partly overlap. Decisions are made where the technical competence lies. As a rule, the line manager is not identical to the disciplinary superior.

In a lively discussion, the participants exchanged views on various aspects of the transformation. The unanimous opinion: Welser has taken a strong path – a role model for many companies. It is not for nothing that requests are coming in from outside to make the “travelogue” usable in their own company.

During the company tour – traditionally the ‘icing on the cake’ of our conferences – we met only open-minded and friendly employees. In the evening, there was also plenty of socializing and networking at the ICV.

We would like to thank our host and caretaker Stefan Drees and the Head of Controlling, Marcus Romar, who traveled all the way from Austria, for their warm hospitality and the exciting insights into a complex transformation. It was well worth it!

We will meet again for the fall conference on September 11 and 12, 2025 in Paderborn at VegaSystems GmbH & Co KG. Topic: “Planning – people and/or? Technology. In the field of tension between BIAS and AI”