Author: Anita Turner

Food service can be a powerful tool to aid recruiting, increase employee engagement, encourage collaboration, or just make your employees’ lives simpler.

Full Service

In The Employee Experience Advantage, Jacob Morgan details how the Airbnb Food Service team constantly “considers and evaluates (1) general satisfaction with the food and beverage offerings; (2) balance of food options (healthy, indulgent, familiar, and exotic); (3) usage patterns, i.e. how many and which meals in the office; (4) how food affects the culture of the company by asking employees where they connect with their peers most often; and (5) how food affects overall outcomes of the business including productivity, recruitment and retention.”  They found that 50% of Airbnb employees say the three-meals-per-day-plus-snacks food program weighs into their decision to stay at Airbnb and 90% say it makes them more productive.

When I visited Airbnb last year, I witnessed the food service amenities in action, enjoying a kombucha brewed on-site and lingering after my visit with a glass of local wine.

Another example of the Airbnb implementation: Airbnb has a pastry chef who creates little treats that get wheeled around on carts throughout the day.  It also offers pop-up shops in various parts of the office.  For example, employees could get an email saying “Today from 3-4 we are offering matcha tea lattes in the upstairs kitchen.  Come grab one and say hello to your coworkers.”

Not to be outdone by Airbnb, Pinterest headquarters’ features the Wall of Snacks (not its actual name, but a fitting description).  This large wall is lined with bins of snack food, and this food offering is in addition to the free hot meals Pinterest offers three times per day.

Is a similar full service free cafeteria feasible for your company?  Probably not.  San Francisco-based Linkedin is rumored to spend $7,000 per year per employee to provide three meals per day plus snacks to every employee.  While that kind of spend might be justifiable in the hyper-competitive recruiting and retention market of San Francisco, it is less realistic in other markets.

You could, however, implement Airbnb’s pop-up idea today in your company for little cost; no catering kitchen required.  As Seth Godin says, “surprises and vivid action matter far more than we imagine, and we regularly underinvest in them.”

Weekly Plus

Birmingham-based Daxko has implemented a scaled down version of the Airbnb model.  Daxko brings in free lunch for its employees every Friday and calls it family lunch.  In addition, like Airbnb, Daxko’s employee engagement team has been known to wheel a cart of petit fours around the office as a midafternoon employee surprise.  This food service program is more manageable for a growing, budget-conscious company and still accomplishes the goals of encouraging interaction and showing employees appreciation.

Snacks and Beverages

At White & Case in New York City, the law firm built a coffee bar on the second floor of its two-story lobby.  The coffee bar is for employee and client use and, although it is not free, the firm does subsidize it.  The Denver office of Hogan Lovells took a different approach, installing a high-end espresso machine and self-service beer and wine bar in their main gathering area, all of which are complimentary. The firm also provides free snacks.  Meals are not provided in-house, as attorneys are encouraged to go out for lunch with clients and prospects.

Zappos feeds its employees three hot meals per day, and made the choice to do so even when it was a struggling start up.  During those early days, Zappos salaries were slightly below market, however, the food service benefit and the overall office atmosphere were so attractive to prospective employees that Zappos never had a problem hiring.  Thus, for the same overall spend, Zappos was able to encourage its employees to spend mealtimes together and minimize the time employees spent traveling to buy meals.  This was especially important given Zappos then-suburban location.

Which Is Right For You?

Our advice to our clients?  Look at your budget and your goals and test different approaches.  But definitely build some space into your offices for a food amenity/gathering space, even if it is small.  Per a well-known architect, food brings people together more than any other amenity or space.

In today’s work spaces, there are abundant examples of reflecting and promoting brand in office design.   Why?  To remind your employees and your clients of your company’s purpose.  Sometimes, incorporating brand in office space comes naturally.  For instance, if your company sells a product, you can integrate that product and reminders of how it solves problems for its consumers throughout your space.  Be careful: this can be easily overdone.  On the other hand, if your company sells a service, your brand image might be more abstract and therefore harder to define and reflect.

In my travels recently, I have seen brand boldly incorporated in design.  In the same spaces, I have also seen some interesting but subtle reflections of brand.  An example? When you walk into Molson Coors’ offices in a high-rise Denver building, the first thing you see is a wall of kegs behind the reception desk.  Turn around and you will notice that the creative team at architecture firm RNL Design built an adjacent pub with window views that mirror the mountains seen on a Coors can.  You know that you are in the space of a company whose product and passion is beer.

There are other, gentler reminders of Molson Coors’ business throughout the rest of its space, including barley emblems in the iron stair rails and keg pulls installed as handles on the office doors.  The design team also sourced some antique Coors brewing implements and equipment to display on walls throughout the space as a nod to the brand’s rich history.  On a louder note, bright beer murals are painted on walls throughout the office areas.

Disaster recovery technology firm Agility’s service is a little more abstract than beer.  Agility’s brand is built on its ability to help clients react to the effects of storms and other disasters.  Consequently, in Agility’s new offices in Denver, Interior Architects incorporated materials and finishes to evoke a storm motif which reminds both employees and clients of the company’s purpose.

As one enters the elevator lobby, the colors are darker and the ceiling features a wood sculpture that branches out like lightning/clouds.  In the work space areas, architectural “clouds” fan out beneath the open ceiling.  Similarly, the floors feature polished concrete with carpet clouds fanning out to reflect the ceiling clouds.  The space feels moody, stormy, or bright depending on where you are sitting.

How can you incorporate brand in your company’s office design?  In my experience, success at doing so depends on two things: (1) your understanding of and ability to communicate your brand and (2) choosing an architect/interior designer who you believe can take that information and translate it visually within your space on your budget.  We try to help our clients with #2 to ensure that they end up with space that accommodates their office requirements AND promotes their brand.

Jeff Knoll and his Ted Moudis Associates team recently worked with IPG MediaBrands, Initiative and UM to transform three floors of a former shopping mall in New York City from plain vanilla offices into funky open space reflective of the creative agencies that now reside there.  Other challenges: bringing light into a 95,000 square foot floorplate that had very few windows, moving employees from private offices to free address open plan, and an aggressive budget.  Knoll and his team met all of them.  How? 1) some seriously creative minds; 2) imaginative use of paint and wallpaper; and 3) using other inexpensive materials in ingenious ways.

The first challenge tackled was visually breaking up the large floorplate.  To accomplish this, each floor was divided into zones and each zone was given a different color.  That color was then tied in between the lights, columns and floors by painting the casings of the existing light fixtures, portions of the columns and the concrete floors.  Common conference rooms were distinguished from these zones by color as well – they are finished in a black and white palette.  Because paint is an inexpensive finish, this simple use of color also had a large cost benefit.

The black and white common areas were each given distinct personalities with different finishes.   For example, one common conference room was created by building a drywall “tent frame” and then hanging heavy black and white curtains from the ceiling inside the frame.  In another common area, the concrete floor was painted with a black and white pattern and the walls were covered in an oversized floral wallpaper.

The Ted Moudis team used bold wallpaper as a tool throughout the space to create architectural effects without hard construction and the associated costs. For instance, Le Salon, a common conference area, is wallpapered with a mural of marble sculptures.  Funky furniture and inexpensive yet quirky light fixtures add a further touch of whimsy to the space which had previously been a dark storage room.

Another conference room is hung with bookshelf wallpaper to create a fun visual effect.  My favorite office (for now) is decorated with a book page wallpaper.    All of these finishes are used in a playful way that evokes a sense of humor; none take themselves too seriously.

The Ted Moudis team also placed materials typically used as floor coverings in nonstandard places.  In one conference room, the blue-paint-spattered white carpeting on the floor was run up one wall.  In a hallway elsewhere, Astroturf covers an arch.  Astroturf was also used to create “grass” in an indoor beer garden with patio seating and gnome stools.  And lastly, a reception desk was covered in flokati rug.

To address the lack of natural light, high ceilings — most of which are painted white — helped immensely, as did abundant lighting.  Although enclosed spaces are few and far between, most feature glass fronts to emphasize the open and bright atmosphere.  Per code, architects are required to place “distraction strips” – typically striping of some kind – across glass walls so that people do not inadvertently walk into a glass wall they do not see.  In another fun twist, the designers created distraction strips out of interesting and motivational quotes.

Not even elevator lobbies were overlooked by the design team.  Ted Moudis commissioned a string artist to construct a logo in the elevator lobby on the Initiative floor.  On another floor, there was an existing diagonal beam on the lobby ceiling.  Rather than downplay this beam, the designers painted the lobby on one side of it yellow and the other black to create an interesting visual effect.   The designers wanted to incorporate a funky carpet that is woven to look like a collection of rugs in a lobby area; however, the existing glass doors could not be raised so as to open above the carpeting.  The designers came up with a brilliant work-around: they left a rectangle of concrete floor exposed and painted a Welcome mat graphic onto it.

The clients represented by IPG  were also incorporated into IPG’s space in both a nod of appreciation and an invitation to those clients to spend time in the offices.  To that end, the space includes a “bubble bar” with red and white bubble images and a Coca-Cola machine.  The computer helpdesk is called the “MayDay Bar” in recognition of client Amazon.  (The help desk also has a brilliant neon sign over it – “Turn It Off and Back On Again.”)

My takeaway from touring IPG’s space?  No space is “unworkable”.  With the right design team, any space can be improved and it does not require unlimited funds.  Because of this fact, I encourage my clients to bring their architect along when we tour options.  It can really help them understand the possibilities, especially if they lack that kind of creative vision.

Read more about creating office space that encourages collaboration here.

It is no surprise that Colorado is “greener” than Alabama.  Alabama is a football powerhouse; Colorado is an environmental one.  Both states are probably equally proud of their monikers.  However, on a recent trip to Denver, I visited two different green co-working spaces to see if there were any environmental lessons that office markets like Alabama could learn from Colorado.

My first stop was the Alliance for a Sustainable Colorado, a not-for-profit organization that owns a 40,000 square foot building built over 100 years ago in what is now the hip LoDo area of Denver.  In 2004, this building became the first historic building on Earth to earn LEED certifications (Gold for Existing Buildings and Silver for Commercial Interiors).   After further renovations three years ago, the building is now also LEED Platinum certified for Operating & Maintenance.

The Alliance’s building houses its offices as well as co-working space for other non- and for-profit companies in the sustainability sector.  In order to create a space that would attract and retain tenant companies like BikeDenver, Conservation Colorado, and the Cottonwood Institute that are looking to “facilitate sustainability through collaboration”, the Alliance hired Gensler Architects for the renovation.  Gensler’s goal was to create an “open, healthy, flexible and light-filled space that would promote the cross-pollination of ideas while encouraging spontaneous interactions among tenants and visitors.”

Some of the most striking features of the building are its lobby and adjacent boardroom.  Glass walls on the board room allow it to open up to the lobby area to accommodate 150-200 people if desired.  The lobby is home to Serendipity Coffee and includes a casual seating area that is well utilized by both tenants and the public.  Similarly, the boardroom can be booked for events by tenants and the public alike and hosts an average of 450 events per year.   Like the rest of the Alliance operations, the events spaces are not for profit because the Alliance wants them “to be a community asset”, according to Events Manager Dani Orth.

Tenant spaces within the building include small private suites as well as pods of workstations, individual offices, and soft seating.  All of the Teknion office furniture in the space is provided by the Alliance to its tenants and is LEED certified.

According to Christopher Bowyer, the Director of Building Operations, LEED requirements were considered from the initial design phase so the capital expenditure was lower than if LEED had been a late-stage afterthought.  This kept the LEED premiums to a minimum.  As a result, the Alliance spent $9M to renovate the building after taking into account $5M in tax credits.

A couple miles away in the RiNo area of Denver sits GreenSpaces, a for-profit co-working space.  GreenSpaces occupies an older, single story 12,500 square foot building.  The building has 160 solar panels and uses LED lighting so almost 100% of the energy used by members is offset AND electricity costs are low.  They compost, recycle and incorporate biophilia (nature) throughout the space.  They even take this love of nature to the next level, as the building has roll-up doors that are kept up when the weather permits to allow fresh air throughout the space.

All of the furnishings in GreenSpaces are 100% recycled and/or donated.  Individuals and companies interested in working from GreenSpaces can lease private offices, team pods, dedicated desks, or lounge space, or just opt for a clubhouse membership to drop in occasionally and work.  Dogs are welcome and the dress code is beyond casual (at least by Birmingham standards!)  There is no requirement that members’ businesses are in the green or eco-sector; however, buy-in to the green cause is encouraged.

What can Birmingham and other cities learn from these two progressive Colorado examples?

• There is a demand for more environmentally responsible environments. It can be met on a shoestring (“upcycling” and “repurposing” existing materials) or on a more generous budget (state of the art green materials).
• LEED construction is most successful when LEED considerations are incorporated into initial plans from the beginning.
• There is a demand for casual gathering and meeting spaces that do not require catering add-ons and these spaces can generate income for a property.

Since I returned from a recent trip to Denver, I have been telling everyone I meet about an amazing, high-energy workplace I visited there — the two-story headquarters of Gusto, an online payroll and benefits company.  Apparently, the ebullience of this work environment is intentional, as I learned when I did some background research on Gusto.  Their company mission statement states their belief that when businesses treat their employees like people, work becomes a source of energy rather than a fatigue.  With the help of IA Interior Architects, mission accomplished!

According to the IA team, Gusto was founded in 2011 in founder Joshua Reeves’ parents’ San Francisco basement and the Gusto management wanted to reflect that scrappy origin in a space with a slightly more professional polish.

Gusto selected a 30,000 square foot space in a former shopping mall on 16^th street in downtown Denver.  Because the space had been retail, it was not move-in ready for office occupancy.  (In fact, the escalators are still in place, although their days may be numbered.)  As Gusto is a growing company, they did not want to spend all of their capital building out expensive space so the mandate for the architectural team was to be creative with existing finishes and fixtures.

IA kept the budget low through some creative solutions to the problems that arise in second generation space.  In order to avoid using core drilling to bring power to work stations, they built half-height (“pony”) walls at existing power sources and ran the power out from those.  They reused light fixtures and exterior wall finishes.  They removed walls and dropped ceilings to take advantage of skylights and bring as much light as possible into the space.  Finally, they used inexpensive solutions like graphics and paint to reflect the company culture.  For example, on one wall, there is a giant map of Denver where employees can pin or post notes identifying good restaurants, hiking trails, shopping, etc.  Together, these creative approaches helped bring the total build-out cost in under budget.

In addition to the direction on budget, Gusto asked that the space be completely open plan.  Consequently, no one has an office, although there are booths, phone rooms, and huddle rooms for teaming or quiet work.  And – perhaps my favorite thing about Gusto – they have a shoeless culture.  Yep.  No shoes.  Socks? Sure.  Slippers?  Fine.  Shoes?  Not a chance.  As a result, when you walk into their lobby, you see a wall of cubbies where employees and visitors alike leave their shoes before entering the office.

As a real estate advisor, I don’t know the psychology behind it, but this facet of Gusto’s culture has an immeasurably large effect on the energy level in their space.  Maybe it’s hard to be in a slump when you are surrounded by people in unicorn slippers or pink argyle socks.  That’s my theory.  Regardless, I walked into their kitchen area at about 9 am and was surrounded by a crowd of people chatting and making their breakfasts.

This congenial vibe continued outside of the kitchen into the space. There was a soft undercurrent of chatter and laughter and likely, as a result, collaboration, throughout the office.  The space includes bike storage, foosball, soft seating and yoga mats so employees can take whatever kind of mental break restores their productivity. None of these amenities is expensive yet all of them contribute greatly to employee health and happiness.

My takeaway from my Gusto visit: you can build great space anywhere and you can do it on a budget.  This means you can lease an ultra-hip historic building in the urban core or a rundown former mall in suburbia and make it great.  (Some great examples here and here and here.)  Great space just has to reflect and promote a great company culture.  And a good architect/broker/client team can make that happen.