Of course, our home has taken on a whole new meaning
because of Corona.
DIY stores like Toom
were considered the winners of the pandemic.
This naturally also gives rise
to a whole new social and ecological responsibility.
Mr Hassfeld, there was a real home improvement boom,
perhaps also triggered by the shutdown.
Is this a trend that is now continuing
and what conclusions have you and your company come to?
What lessons have you learned from the last two years?
The trend was already there before,
but it intensified during the Corona phase,
especially in the first year, because people couldn't get out.
Then, of course, you used the time to beautify your home,
make it more pleasant
or complete projects that had been put on the back burner for a long time.
This has been the case throughout the whole phase,
but now we are noticing a little restraint
because people want to go on holiday again.
However, triggered by inflation and the crisis,
it is of course also an issue to say:
okay, I'm taking advantage of the opportunity,
I can't invest anywhere else right now anyway,
I can't go anywhere else.
I'm building at home again and making my home more beautiful.
We call this "cocooning" in our industry, and we notice this trend.
So what were the lessons you learned as a company
from this pandemic period, from the last two years?
We have actually been able and allowed to draw a few.
A big factor was digitalisation.
We were well positioned before, or so I thought, at least.
The lockdown phase has shown us where we still have homework to do.
That's where we started, that's where we really need to catch up.
However, we now know where we have to do something,
where we also have to change our infrastructure once again -
and that is where we are currently building on.
What role does sustainability play
in the consumer behaviour of your customers?
Especially in the garden sector,
customers are asking a lot for peat-free soil for plants and flowers.
Peat-free soil has the advantage that we no longer strain peatlands,
that the peatlands can continue to exist as they are today
and that they can also store CO2.
That is precisely the advantage of peatlands.
Our company is now also moving towards re-naturalising the land and
we will also have switched our entire range of soil to peat-free soil by 2025.
And we notice that customers are asking a lot about this.
You have developed the principle of the four pillars of sustainability.
What should I think about that?
And how do you live these principles in your company?
In fact, this was developed through
our parent company,
REWE Group.
Of course, we were involved,
and the REWE Group's sustainability programme
applies to all subsidiaries
and is based on four pillars.
Where once it is about employees, where it is about energy
and climate, about society, but ultimately also about green products.
These are pillars that can stand alone
but have a much stronger effect in combination.
Toom is also involved in this and is very active in all these issues.
- We have already mentioned a few products in this regard. - What would be an example of social commitment?
We work very strongly with Lebenshilfe,
and the topic of inclusion is also quite strong with us,
especially in the markets outside.
They enter into various forms of cooperation
and support people with disabilities
and simply enable them to have a working day.
Sustainability, climate friendliness, these are important points.
At the same time, the products should also be of high quality
and presumably also inexpensive.
That seems difficult in the times we are currently living in.
How do you manage this balance?
Ultimately, the balancing act is that on the one hand we want
to drive the issue of sustainability,
because it is also very strongly anchored in our DNA.
This was already the case before the term sustainability was
so widely used in the media and had such a strong impact on the public.
We had already dealt with it before
because it was an inner need for us.
Where does this inner need, your motivation, come from?
At the end of the day, it's very much related to our value framework
that we have within the company.
I don't know if you've already heard our brand claim:
"Respect [for those] who do it themselves."
This is also a basic attitude in our company.
This is a very high value for us, which we provide for our customers,
but also for our employees.
And it is so strongly anchored in our DNA that we have said:
if we want to respect everyone,
then of course we also have to respect the planet.
Of course, we also have to look at how we can manage that.
We know that we cannot do everything alone.
But we know that we can provide an impulse.
We put small building blocks into the world.
We ourselves are not perfect either, even if you look at our assortment.
But we are constantly developing.
And we also enter into discussions with manufacturers and suppliers there,
about what possibilities there are to change the product
or to develop new products.
And when you're in development, you realise
that it's not always more expensive.
That may be the case at the beginning.
But as more people get into it and demand gets higher,
the price adjusts accordingly.
Respect is, so to speak, your corporate culture,
your philosophy.
Respect also among each other in the company towards the employees.
How have the employees' demands towards you as an employer
changed in recent years?
I am by nature a very approachable managing director and CEO,
and I am very much in touch with many employees.
My colleagues and I listen when requests come from our employees,
also through the works councils or HR.
But also when individual employees come to us
and ask that they want to work from home much more.
We also asked ourselves what the right number of home office days is.
Of course, we have a huge range of requests,
we have 1000 employees here at the headquarters alone.
But it doesn't work to design everything individually,
because in the end we still have to be able to work.
But we can at least offer all employees three days of home office,
the other days they have to be present
to work with their colleagues on the projects.
Sure, there are exceptions in IT or IT-related fields
who can work completely from home - and they do so.
Others already bring their dogs with them.
That's okay, you just have to get used to it.
But it works, it doesn't bother anyone.
So, you were quite well prepared for the pandemic,
what about the current situation?
We have quite high inflation, possibly a recession soon,
turbulence in supply chains and a future that is quite unpredictable.
What is your strategy for the next two years?
If there is one thing we have learned from the pandemic,
it is that we still need a scalable and flexible organisation.
We will continue to work on this and our business model
will become much more digital.
We continue to believe that the trend towards DIY will continue.
The shortage of craftsmen will continue in the coming years.
Many handicraft companies have problems recruiting young people,
and this will also be a huge problem for Germany as a whole.
Especially as a private customer,
if you would like to have something repaired or build something new,
you feel this particularly, and have for some years now.
As a company, we naturally see an opportunity for ourselves -
no crisis without an opportunity.
Of course we take advantage of the fact
that we have the goods and the products there.
We can make projects out of it,
it is also our job to enable our customers to regain certain technical skills,
because we used to have a lot here, but have forgotten them again.
Because things are often already finished
or there were companies that did that job
and of course you had the opportunity to have it built.
What about resource scarcity or difficulties in supply chains.
e.g. with wood, it is well known that there is a lack of supplies.
Unfortunately, we cannot undermine this
because the supply chains have been set up
over the last few years as they are now.
We struggled with that too.
At least we were able to solve the problem for ourselves.
We have enough goods there.
Are you rather optimistic about the next 2-3 years?
And why?
I just see that in a very short time -
triggered by the certainly tragic war in Ukraine
we are seeing a change in perception with regard to climate change.
Also in the shutdown of climate-damaging resources, oil and gas.
I believe that we would not have managed to do that
in the next 15 years, despite all the wishful thinking.
This gets very, very fast now.
And in the course of this, and you can see that every day,
so many inventions, developments and ideas
are currently being flushed onto the market.
I am confident that in the next two years there will be really good solutions
on the market that will really help.
And we're all happy about that and ask ourselves why it took so long.
Great final word. Thank you, Mr Hassfeld, for this interview.
Thank you.