3 Things Fast-Moving Companies Look For In An Office
Companies of all sizes have increasingly begun to view the workplace as an investment that allows them to attract and cultivate talent. Developers and property managers, noting this trend, are striving to reflect it in the built environment.
Many employees are blurring the lines between their personal, social and professional lives and are looking for comprehensive amenity packages that suit their lifestyles. Many millennials prioritize things like upward mobility, training and purpose over compensation.
Savvy companies are using technology, emphasizing human interaction and implementing increasingly nonhierarchical organizational structures to engage millennials. To accomplish this, businesses are examining their office space and the following in-demand features.
1. Engaging Communal Space And Amenities
Real-time document sharing, sophisticated communication platforms, videoconferencing and the ubiquitous, multifunctional smartphone have facilitated virtual collaboration to such an extent that many employees opt to work in a fully remote capacity. But some of the most admired and innovative companies, like IBM, Bank of America, Yahoo and Aetna, have realized that when workers conduct their business remotely, they are not as productive. Promoting collaboration and lifestyle at the office is their new aim.
Rubenstein Partners repositioned the Center at Innovation Drive in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, with this shift in workplace dynamics in mind. Previously the home of Wang Laboratories, the research and development space has been revamped to cater to today’s creative and cutting-edge organizations.
The suburban Center at Innovation Drive, with its emphasis on its open spaces, infrastructure and amenities, is more reminiscent of creative-class urban retrofits. Its pursuit of LEED and WELL certification reveals its focus on sustainability and tenant health and wellness.
2. Large, Open And Flexible Floor Plates
Many companies see their business models, headcounts and employee job descriptions evolving at the breakneck pace of technology. They need open, customizable space that can adapt to changing needs.
One key benefit of the Center at Innovation Drive is its relatively large floor plates, which allow for corporate adjacencies and opportunities to promote collaboration that stacked, multilevel offices cannot provide. Given the efficiencies of large floor plates and reasonable rents, companies can reduce costs per employee. They can reallocate that money toward attracting and retaining talent.
According to Rubenstein Partners Director Deke Schultze, the Center at Innovation Drive can offer up to 400K SF of contiguous space, and up to 120K SF on a single level. Tenants can reduce the programming in their leased space to save money, given the scale of common amenity offerings at the Center at Innovation Drive.
3. Proximity To Talent Pools
The ability to find and recruit talented, educated employees is essential to any company’s growth and success. Areas with high concentrations of universities keep the local talent pool stocked with a steady stream of graduates.
The Boston region has more than 80 colleges and universities with 250,000 enrolled students. The Center at Innovation Drive’s Tewksbury campus is well-positioned to take advantage of this abundant brainpower, and offers a manageable commute from locations throughout the metropolitan area.
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