Steelcase

Hi all,

Does anyone have any experience working for Steelcase or know of anyone who has worked for them? Is it a good palce to work? Thank!

Don’t know anybody who’s worked there, but if you are looking at Steelcase you should check out Herman Miller and Haworth and Knoll too. Those companies have more of a design edge to them.

steelcase is going through a state of flux, i thought.

unless you get onboard with one of the subsidiaries (turnstone). kurt martin is a great guy there.

so many designers i knew at all three left to work at firms, it’s hard to keep track of. hell, i’m not sure if haworth a blue sky division anymore. herman miller hires designers who have strong project management and design research skills…best to have a masters before even talking to them.

there are a lot of small firms that specialize in contract furniture.

I heard they are hiring… but if everyone is bailing out then maybe the boat is sinking…?

All the Michigan based contract furnishing companies have been going through tough times since 9/11 - tons of layoffs. I think things are slowly getting better now.

true. i was one of the layoff victims early on…it was happening before 9/11.

the industry is slowly coming back. miller is doing well. haworth has subsidiaries that are doing well. steelcase is too big a ship to sink, but they seem to be the slowest to recover.

lots of mergers, buyouts and bankruptcies.

HON keeps rolling along. they are #1 now (iirc).

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i’ve worked for the corporations and the firms…i think the firms are better.

doesn’t Stealcase own IDEO now?

I know Kurt as well and would second the fact that he is a great guy.

For what it’s worth, I recently got my official “rejection letter” from them about a week ago, and I had applied in late summer I think. They WERE looking for a mid-level experience designer. From what the HR person said, Steelcase may have restructured it’s design department from having individual divisions, to a “design pool” that handles different projects for all of Steelcase’s product lines. I think that possibly there are design managers for each division though, because Kurt is still affiliated with Turnstone mostly.

That was me above, forgot to log in first.