If you want your company to appeal to a younger generation of talent, you need to consider upgrading and modernizing it. Thanks to the pandemic when the whole world was forced to reflect, mostly at home, Millennials and Generation Z grew more aware of how their environment impacts their well-being and productivity.
Now more than ever, they might be more inclined to consider how a company’s office looks before they sign an employment contract. And when it comes to creating modern, functional, stylish, and energy-boosting workspaces, there is so much to learn from the world’s biggest and most successful companies.
If you are thinking of modernizing and upgrading your company’s headquarters, here are some office design tips and ideas from the world’s biggest corporations.
Physical activity
If you want your employees to have more energy for work, consider incorporating spaces that encourage them to move their bodies. One example is Google’s Zurich headquarters, where their employees can play basketball or soccer on the indoor court. It’s a wonderful way for their staff to unwind or stretch their legs during a long workday. Here are some examples of installations you can consider for your own company headquarters:
- Consult with tennis court contracting services to see if your commercial property would benefit from having a court of some form. It will encourage you and your team to keep their bodies moving before or after work. The court can also double as a space for team-building activities and even as a common area where you and your employees can have some water cooler conversations with each other during breaks.
- If you have high ceilings, why not incorporate a rock-climbing wall on one side? Just make sure that you have all the safety harnesses and equipment available so that you and your employees remain safe while trying it out.
- Nothing brings up nostalgic memories of college parties more than a pool table. If you want to create a more relaxed or exciting work environment, having a pool table might be an excellent way to do so, especially since it’s also one of the ultimate symbols of pubs and bars across America.
Open office plan
When the pandemic started, there was a brief debate about whether the open floor space plan was on its way out. After all, the whole point of this architectural design is to bring people together and make common areas bigger and more open. It became one of the markers of modern interior design, both for residential and commercial properties.
The argument was that people need to set some physical distance between each other, at least for the foreseeable future. An open floor space plan might not do anything to curb infections.
But trend forecasts project that the open space plan is here to stay, especially for working spaces. One example of this is Facebook’s Palo Alto office, which is inundated with big open spaces upon which people can both work and relax. They can plug in their devices to a dock, people can skate and DJ, and they can also mix some drinks. And if they want to, they can also work. A big common area will encourage collaboration and socialization among your team, and if it’s well-designed, it might also make them want to come to work more often.
Connecting with nature
Another of the world’s best offices is Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters, which uses treehouses as meeting rooms. Every employee can attest to how tedious most meetings can be. The management of Microsoft was smart enough to know that they can use strategic and creative design to create spaces. With this, employees won’t want to pull their hair out during a long meeting or workday.
Moreover, multiple studies have shown that being around nature and greenery is good for us. It significantly boosts our mental health, and city dwellers with more gardens and parks are largely more joyful and calm. If your company doesn’t necessarily have the budget to have a treehouse built, make greenery the centerpiece of your concept and design. It will be good for everyone in the company.
Even if we may not have the same financial resources as these big companies, we can learn so much from how they design and conceptualize their working spaces. Take the best principles from their design strategies and find ways to apply them to your company’s specific context and needs, and you will be providing your employees with an office they would want to come back to every day.
