Under the motto “Mach di fit!” (Get fit!), Swiss technology group Bühler is opening its Energy Centre in Uzwil. With the completion of the Energy Centre, Bühler has expanded its Uzwil campus, which includes the newly opened CUBIC innovation centre. The result is a place that supports employees in learning and “recharging” on their own initiative and that enables them to successfully master the complex and dynamic demands of tomorrow’s professional and personal environments. In this way, the company is making itself and its employees fit for the future.
Bühler has always placed great emphasis on caring for its employees, and this will be strengthened with the Energy Centre. In recent years, the demands placed on companies and their employees have increased significantly in many respects. Positive energy and knowledge are crucial resources and form the basis for well-being, performance, and resilience. These factors have a significant impact on creativity and innovative strength and are also important for maintaining business continuity, especially under difficult or changing conditions. Bühler has therefore invested in a “healthy cycle” because if its employees are doing well, the company is doing well. Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic was only the tip of the iceberg in an increasingly volatile environment. Issues such as training and development, health management, individual responsibility, and innovation have taken on even greater significance.
Three supporting pillars
With the Energy Centre and its three focus pillars: health & lifestyle (health management), lifelong learning (vocational and adult education), and prototyping and production, Bühler is making targeted investments in important future fields. Long-standing, proven Bühler traditions are being reinterpreted to create positive prospects, both for employees and for the company.
The Health Port offers employees various options for taking care of their health and well-being, in addition to offering first-aid care and medical assistance for travel. In addition to lifestyle check-ups or nutritional counselling, there are also offerings that cover health literacy, fitness, physical therapy, mental health, and relaxation.
Vocational training and adult education reflect other important components of Bühler’s corporate culture. In the new premises and through state-of-the-art methods, they are raised to a new level. Apprentices are prepared for the professional world of tomorrow and beyond. Furthermore, all employees have access to customized modules for lifelong learning to develop their skills in their professional lives.
The prototyping & production area ensures professional cooperation between Bühler’s development departments and builds bridges to the application and training centres and production facilities. As a result, apprentices in production and product-oriented professions benefit significantly more from a high level of practical relevance and the enormous knowledge of several generations of experts who work together directly here and learn from each other.
Shaping the future
“The demands made on employees in an increasingly complex and dynamic world are very high, and we are well aware of this,” says Stefan Scheiber, CEO of the Bühler Group. “This makes it all the more important for us to promote the competencies as well as the personal responsibility of our employees. People are at the centre here. The Energy Centre is made for our employees, young and old, as well as for the employees of our partners, as well as our customers.”
“With the Energy Centre, we support our employees to better master their professional as well as private challenges along their life phases currently and in the future—that’s why we encourage them to: Mach di fit! Get fit!” adds Christof Oswald, Project Manager Bühler Energy Centre and Head of Human Resources Switzerland.
Construction of the Bühler Energy Centre started in November 2021. It is located at the interface of Bühler’s Application & Training Centres, CUBIC, and production site and is therefore part of the Bühler innovation campus. It exudes openness and combines sustainability, modernity, and vision in equal measure; interior spaces can be flexibly designed for today’s as well as future needs. “The most resource-conserving and sustainable implementation possible included, for example, the reuse of concrete from the previous building and the use of low-CO2 cement, and the supporting structure of the office section was realized entirely in wood,” explains Elvis Pidic, architect and Head of Corporate Real Estate Management at Bühler.