Select a region
Guillaume Alvarez, Senior Vice President EMEA at Steelcase, one of the world’s longest established and most innovative manufacturers of workplace furniture, was in Jersey recently to visit Style Office, Steelcase’s local partner and an office furniture dealership specialising in the planning and design of offices and other workspaces.
The visit comes as Style Office and Steelcase celebrate the 30th anniversary of their exclusive partnership in the Channel Islands, the longest-standing of all the US firm’s dealerships in the UK.
Steelcase is globally renowned for helping leading organisations create places that support the wellbeing of their people and enterprise. Places designed to bring people together and help them be better – when working together or alone, side by side or across continents. The best places help people engage deeply by giving them what they want most: access to each other, the right tools and technologies, and to places that offer choice and control.
Locally, Steelcase and Style Office are presently providing fixtures and fittings for the new Police Headquarters at Route du Fort. This is a project that creates numerous challenges, not least the need for the building to meet specific functional requirements, whilst providing an environment in which police Staff can comfortably complete all aspects of their work.
Few people in the world have the depth of understanding of the importance of workplace design than Guillaume Alvarez. In his 30 year-long career at Steelcase, he has worked on five continents and today is based at the company’s Learning and Innovation Centre (LINC) in Munich. It is here that he sees Steelcase designing for a world which is both full of differences and very keen on collaboration.
“Today we don’t work like we did 20 years ago,” said Guillaume Alvarez. “Technology allows us to collaborate globally, which strongly influences the demands workers have towards their work environment. People in Germany work differently than their neighbours let’s say in France. Even within countries there are big differences. However – collaboration is one of the driving forces for innovation and therefore of great importance.”
Style Office is one of the few Steelcase Platinum Partners in the EMEA region and is one of the first businesses to have received the honour, which recognizes dealerships that stand out as extraordinary partners.
Guillaume Alvarez says “This is not an easy award to achieve; Steelcase dealer partners everywhere meet high standards for quality and performance. Style Office Platinum Partner stand out as being
extraordinary for their on-going investment in their business and their ability to engage with Steelcase, their customers and community to deliver exceptional value to the people and places they touch."
For Style Office, Managing Director, Paul Watson, expressed his delight at Guillaume’s visit:
“We are delighted to have achieved this qualification and are very proud of our long partnership with Steelcase. This award is a testament to the dedication and respect with which we treat the relationship and is a fitting reflection of the positive and fruitful partnership that exists between us. “ says Paul.
“We are looking forward to many more years of productive partnership with Steelcase and would like to thank Guillaume for taking the time to visit us in Jersey.”
