Pella Opens New HQ: No Mandates, Just Visibility and Choice

Challenge: Capacity Maxed, Visibility Missing

Before moving into their new regional headquarters in Minneapolis, Pella Northland had outgrown its old office. While most of the team worked on-site with assigned desks, many others were based in the field or nearby states, only coming to the office once a month or so.

Management was doing everything it could to support in-person work for these team members — extra desks here, an improvised office there — yet finding a spot was essentially a free for all, with nothing ever guaranteed. The perception was that coming into the office was unreliable and inconvenient. 

“Anybody who didn't work in the office every day mostly avoided coming in because they weren't sure they'd find a space to work,” says Lisa Weck, a senior administrator at Pella Northland. 

Due to the lack of space, many employees ended up meeting at coffee shops and local restaurants to collaborate.

Growing pains for fully on-site work were also becoming more of an issue. Seat assignments lived on paper and nameplates, not in a dynamic system, and printed maps were outdated almost as soon as they were posted. On busy days, employees wandered the floor searching for a teammate, a quiet office, or a desk with the right equipment.

Wanting to encourage a return to in-person collaboration – rather than simply mandate it – Pella recognized that the lack of transparency, wayfinding, and self-service booking would continue to be a major bottleneck without a proper solution. 

Solution: A New Office, Designed for Collaboration

As a company that prides itself on passionate innovation, Pella Northland knew moving into a new building presented an exciting opportunity to rethink a better way to manage space access and encourage office attendance. The message was simple: no mandates, just visibility and choice.

“We're committed to getting things done and working forward for a solution. So having a system like Skedda just makes sense,” says Lisa.

With flexible workstations and private focus rooms now abundant in their new headquarters, Pella Northland needed a way for employees to easily find and reserve exactly what they needed. Honoring their century-long legacy of innovation, Pella partnered with Skedda to usher in a new era of modern workplace management.

By providing employees with a visual, interactive way to book work stations, Pella eliminated uncertainty for hybrid and remote team members. Now, they can quickly reserve hot desks, private offices, or collaboration areas whenever they visit the new headquarters. 

“Skedda alleviated the stress and anxiety of not knowing where you’ll sit or where your teammates are. Now you just click a button and reserve a space,” says Lisa.

Results

Self-service hot desking

New hires and field sales reps can easily browse and book cubicles, focus rooms, and collaboration spaces – whether planning ahead or working onsite. Attendance grew naturally from the excitement of using technology to collaborate in the new office, not from rigid mandates.

“We wanted to encourage people to be in the office – give them options and an easy way to see what’s available. Skedda helped us deliver on that.” — Lisa Weck

Fast adoption

As an organization already managing many different software programs, Pella Northland prioritized finding a system that is easy to jump into and use. With Skedda, the team started booking spaces right away with minimal instruction. 

“It’s a click-and-go experience, which is really important to us. We invite people in and they just book what they need.” — Lisa Weck

Agile seat assignments

With Skedda’s Assigned Spaces, Pella added structure to seat planning while staying flexible. Desks and offices could be allocated for a few months, then quickly reassigned or opened up as flex spaces — making intern season painless.

“Being able to assign and unassign spaces on the map was a big win.” — Lisa Weck

Visibility that reduces friction

Interactive maps and live availability help people find teammates, the right room, or a properly equipped desk. On peak days, like quarterly all-hands, desks and offices are spoken for in advance instead of discovered on the fly.

“If a sales manager is in ‘Flex Office 1,’ I can find them fast for signatures or updates.” — Lisa Weck

A better workplace experience

Pella Northland encouraged in-person work by making access to workspaces in their brand new HQ simple and reliable. This transparency made coming to the office easier and more appealing – no mandates required. 

“The in-person experience is important to us. Skedda brings a sense of comfort, showing our team that if they want to be in the office, there is room.” – Lisa Weck

Calendar-synced meeting rooms

As meetings are scheduled in Pella’s calendar system, Skedda’s two-way sync keeps conference room availability perfectly aligned, giving everyone a clear view of where and when spaces are in use.

“It’s really nice to see our calendar information reflected in Skedda. If there is a team meeting or training happening in a room, we can see that.” — Lisa Weck

Conclusion: Encouragement Through Innovation

Pella Northland didn’t mandate a return; they made it easy and worthwhile. By bringing its new headquarters to life with Skedda’s self-service reservations, interactive floor plans, and flexible seat assignments, the team turned space into a reliable, visible resource. People come in confident they’ll find the right place to work, managers can plan busy days with clarity, and admins shift from reactive seat-juggling to simple, scalable governance.

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