In early September, most of the teams from L’Horme and Lorette moved into their offices in the new headquarters, H3, after 17 months of construction. The site was designed by Eutopia and features three buildings with three floors each, covering more 5,000 m², on a park-like campus of 31,000 m².
“An optimized quality of life at work”
“This new complex was designed to provide employees with an optimized quality of life at work, with more space for meeting and discussion,” explains Stéphane Hubert, the group’s CSO. The three buildings were named after the group’s sales zones: Europe-Africa, Americas, and Asia-Pacific. These buildings feature a number of formal and informal working spaces: office spaces in a range of different sizes, multimedia meeting rooms, spaces for relaxation, a large cafeteria, a beautiful green patio, etc.
Business center and training center
H3 takes it one step further with a business center, where the Group’s international employees and customers can meet and hold meetings and events. This is also where the Haulotte Academy, its professional training center, has set up shop. Finally, “we created a 3,000 m² covered area specifically for innovation and prototypes,” says Patrice Métairie, COO Industry. This space includes a testing and validation center. “With a collaborative e-lab and, soon, a fablab, it will enable us to develop the equipment and services of the future,” he adds. It also includes a demonstration showroom for customers and Haulotte’s teams.
A collaborative project
The new headquarters are a response to the group’s growth and its desire to promote collaborative work. To this end, “we have completely opened up the teams”, adds Stéphane Hubert. Specifically, all the business lines now work together in shared spaces. This desire for collaboration was also felt starting from the design stage of the construction project. “It’s a project that we worked on from start to finish in coordination with everyone. From choosing a geographical location that suited everyone, to the choice of interior and exterior design,” explains Patrice Métairie. Every employee was able to suggest their ideas through an initial group consultation. We then chose 60 specific topics for discussion, which were discussed in 11 committees of around ten employees each. These committees were an opportunity to discuss a wide variety of topics, such as customer service, food service, confidentiality, connectivity, green space planning and respect for the environment.
It was initially the project’s unofficial name, but it stuck. It was finally made official because it made sense in a number of ways. The “H” stands for Haulotte, of course. It also stands for “Higher,” which has a dual meaning for us: it refers to our business of designing lifting equipment, as well as our values of performance and high standards in terms of quality and customer service. Finally, “Headquarters” needs no explanation!!
Every Friday, for an entire month before the move, we worked on sorting things to be moved to H3 and things that to be thrown away. We sent a total of five 60 m3 dumpsters filled with junk to the dump!
We had budgeted 5 to 8 days to move everything, but in the end it took us just 4 days, thanks to a great team of about thirty highly motivated people. We needed 64 trucks to move our 27 machines and the equipment from our 2,000 m² space and the 6,000 m² outdoor area.
But we weren’t done yet! We also moved the tilting ramp. The move took place at night with a wide load truck (28 tons, 7 m wide and 7 m high). We ran into a lot of surprises that night. The freeway was shut down, so there was a lot of traffic on our itinerary. Going under the SNCF train bridge was stressful: there was just 30 cm of clearance on the sides and above the load. It was a real challenge that we’ll all remember for a long time!
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An event to make you feel at home
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An event to make you feel at home
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