As one of Europe's largest engineering and architecture firms with offices in 14 countries and nearly 20,000 employees, Sweco has ambitious goals for both the present and the future. In developing a vision for the urban planning department, the company chose to use Involved in the strategic process.

The city of the future starts today. The world around us is changing rapidly, and at the same time, society continues to place higher and higher demands on how we want to live, work, move, and relax: smarter, greener, healthier, and happier. All of this, without straining our limited resources such as space, materials, and raw materials. This task requires versatility and expertise – exactly what Sweco offers.

Easy to engage the organization

But what is the vision for the cities of the future? How do we create them? What can the urban planning department contribute? To answer these questions, Urban Planning invited employees, professionals, and clients to participate in three sessions with Involved.

"Involved has been invaluable in our strategic process toward our future vision. It has been easy to engage our organization and collect their valuable input for the future. We’ve also involved our clients to gain their perspectives and expert assessments," says Jeanette Kalthof, who is Business Unit Manager in Sweco's urban planning department.

Creating motivation for the strategy

For Sweco, it was important to involve both employees and external stakeholders in a way that ensured objective feedback. That’s why they chose the online tool Involved, where everyone can easily share their opinions anonymously and evaluate each other’s input. Finally, all data is collected into a shared direction, making it easy to move forward.

"It has been quick, effective, insightful, and fun! We now have data from both internal and external sources, which ensures we are moving in a shared direction and creating motivation for the entire strategy," concludes Jeanette Kalthof.

Three sessions created a well-founded vision

In the first session, the focus was on the city in 2050, and by considering external developments and trends, employees provided valuable insights into the future direction of urban planning and its significance for Sweco as an organization. In the subsequent session, the focus shifted to the internal perspective, where employees expressed their views on the organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses. For the third and final session, Sweco invited external stakeholders to share their visions for the cities of the future and the implications for urban planning.

The result of involving employees and external stakeholders in the anonymous and online development process was a comprehensive and well-founded vision for the business unit.