Salesforce’s New Offices At Salesforce Tower Have Employee Health, Wellness In Mind

Boston Properties and Hines’ Salesforce Tower is not only the tallest tower in San Francisco at 1,070 feet, but also offers one of the most sustainable and greenest buildings in the city. Hines Senior Managing Director Paul Paradis said during the grand opening ceremony for the tower Tuesday that the building has some of the cleanest indoor air quality in the city.

Additionally, the building's ceiling heights are much higher than traditional San Francisco offices. He said buildings with normal ceiling heights would have to span 90 stories to reach the height of the 61-storey Salesforce Tower.

“This is a place where workers want to come to work,” he said.

Each floor was designed with employees and the environment in mind. Floors have a differing mix of phone booths, conference rooms and training rooms based on the needs of the workers, Salesforce Senior Communications Specialist, Real Estate Benny Ebert-Zavos said.

Employees have access to balance boards they can use at their desks for a mini workout. Each floor also has a meditation room.

Salesforce floors have interior staircases connecting three floors at a time, allowing employees to go back and forth between floors. Salesforce Tower Vice President of Global Workplace and Strategic Events Michele Schneider said some teams are just too big to be on one floor.

Each floor has a social lounge that faces Salesforce Park. The fifth floor will provide employees with direct access to the 5.4-acre park, which has a 1.8-mile track that employees could use during a break. The park also includes an outdoor amphitheater, an open grass area, a children’s play area, a café and a restaurant.

Workspaces are on the outer area of each floor to provide access to natural light, she said. Each kitchen has a unique tile design on the wall, which varies by floor and even at other Salesforce Towers in New York and Indianapolis to reflect the location.

The social lounge has flexible furniture for teams to hold meetings or have breakout space, Schneider said.

As teams move into the space, an ergonomic team will work with employees to get their desks and chairs at the right setting for comfort.

“We’re trying to find new things to help improve the work experience,” Schneider said.

Salesforce Executive Vice President and Head of Global Real Estate Elizabeth Pinkham said it took a collaborative effort to design the space to feel uniquely like Salesforce.

When someone steps into the lobby, there should be music, happy colors, smiling faces, she said. The building is a physical expression of the company's culture of ohana, which stands for family in Hawaiian, she said. Salesforce sees its employees, clients, customers and community as part of a family.

In addition to its focus on employee health and wellness, Salesforce Tower is the greenest building the tech company occupies to date. Salesforce Tower has the largest on-site water recycling system and the city’s first blackwater system.

It is expected to save over 7 million gallons of water each year. The building is LEED Platinum certified and is enrolled in San Francisco’s SuperGreen program, which uses 100% renewable energy.

Salesforce also launched a healthy materials program at Salesforce Tower, which is the first office to get conference and huddle room tables manufactured with a water-based finish that does not contain VOCs, which are solvents that are released into the air as paint dries that can cause headaches and dizziness.

The building uses under-floor air distribution to provide improved indoor air quality and increase energy efficiency, and carpets are made from recycled fishing nets from the Philippines. Ceiling tiles are made from recycled materials and use a plant-based binder.

A Place For Community

The 18K SF Ohana Floor on the 61st floor of the tower will provide additional work and lounge space and will be open to the public for events.

The floor will open during Dreamforce, Salesforce's annual conference in San Francisco, in September and will be used initially for receptions and Dreamforce-related events and then be open to community groups and employees for use, Schneider said.

The Ohana Floor in Salesforce East provides a model for what Salesforce Tower’s Ohana Floor will look like.

The floor has over 5,000 plants, an exhibition kitchen and a conference area with nano glass, which are movable glass partitions, that can enclose the space. The conference room also has a pop-up desk that can be lowered to allow for yoga classes and other presentations.

Schneider, who will be heading up events scheduling at the Ohana Floor at Salesforce Tower, said her team learned about the benefit of flexible space and furniture that allows for better use. The new floor will offer more flexibility within the space that offer better uses.

Things like the demonstration kitchen and a barista bar, which proved popular at Salesforce East, will be incorporated into Salesforce Tower.

Salesforce Tower’s Ohana Floor will have two conference rooms, one with nano glass technology and another with fixed glass, she said.

Salesforce Tower also boasts the nation’s tallest public art installation. Designed by Jim Campbell, it is made up of 11,000 LED lights. It will provide different images of the skyline and people on the beach and on the streets.

IA Interior Architects and Mark Cavagnero Associates Architects worked on the interiors for Salesforce.