Pitney Bowes has brought in 200 new hires to its Spokane operation in the last year, but it says not about to stop there.

 “We have 18 job fairs scheduled for 2015,” says Thomas Roberts, vice president of inside and Web sales for the company. “We’ve had six already. Simply put, we’re growing.”

Meanwhile, the company is continuing work on a partially completed remodeling project on the entire third floor of the Rock Pointe East building at 1313 N. Atlantic where additional workers will be stationed.

Baker Construction & Development Inc., of Spokane, completed the first of three phases of that project last month. A second phase is scheduled to be finished next month, with the third phase set for completion in mid-October.

Pitney Bowes declined to say how many employees the company has at its Spokane location. However, it says once that remodeling of the entire 53,500-square-foot floor has been completed, the space will be able to accommodate more than 500 workers.

Pitney Bowes employs 15,000 workers worldwide, and offers products to help its customers manage databases for their businesses, provides Web-based ecommerce tools, and traditional shipping and mailing services that originally served as the foundation of the company, Roberts says.

“We are transforming Pitney Bowes for the next century by expanding into high-growth markets, including digital commerce and software, while continuing to innovate our core shipping and mailing businesses,” writes Marc B. Lautenbach, the company’s president and CEO, in its 2014 annual report.

Pitney Bowes reported $333.8 million in net income for 2014, which more than doubled the company’s earnings of $142.8 million the previous year. The company reported $3.8 billion in revenue for 2014, compared with $3.7 billion the prior year. 

Pitney Bowes has been in Spokane for 20 years, and the company itself recently celebrated its 95th birthday. Though corporate headquarters are in Shelton, Conn., the Spokane office is the largest Pitney Bowes sales center in the world, Roberts says. The company says more than 90 percent of its client interactions in the U.S. now are managed at this center.

The Spokane remodel is a complete overhaul of office space that reflected 1990s style and technology.

“This is really about Pitney Bowes investing in its employees. It’s creating the right work environment so we can more effectively serve customers. Just the physical difference in the office lighting that exists in the newly remodeled first phase compared to the rest of the office is dramatic,” Roberts says.

Roberts says an elaborate virtual demonstration center will soon be installed to allow on-site employees the ability to videoconference with their customers via high-definition resolution.

During the remodel, staffers also learned something that has proven to be valuable to all employees, Roberts says. When managers were moved out of their offices and placed in what were intended to be temporary work stations in the midst of the respective units they supervised, they were immediately exposed to some of the general challenges that customer service representatives face on a daily basis.

“It was an unintended consequence due to the renovation that has had a positive effect,” Roberts says. “Taking away the hard-wall offices I think has also removed that feeling that often emerges where there is us and them,” he says.

Instead, the hard-wall offices now serve as smaller conference rooms for work, or for personal use for all employees who may need to use their phones during the day, Roberts says. An existing full-size cafeteria will be gutted and remodeled. 

The company has the ability to serve breakfast and lunch there. Pitney Bowes also employs a full-time nurse to treat staff if necessary, Roberts says.

“Nothing has been more exciting to me than being able to give employees the tools that they need to be successful,” Roberts says.