WORKPLACE Sponsored by
ENVIRONMENT
Winner: Cargill at Velocity V1, Weybridge
Arguably we are going through a workstyle revolution with global Internet communications enabling 24/7 remote and homeworking business operations. Yet collaborative working, social interaction, and colleague meetings remain key to many successful businesses.
So, increasingly employers are aiming to provide workplace environments where their staff enjoy working, with facilities that suit their 21st century needs and enhance employee engagement.
In this second award category the judges were looking for companies that used their property strategy to create new working styles, innovative new practices and actually made great working spaces for their employees.
Two workplaces contested this award:
• Cargill at Velocity V1, Weybridge • ConnectTVT at GROW@Green Park, Reading
When global food, agricultural and industrial commodities corporation Cargill decided to move its UK corporate functions, it chose to use the relocation to enhance its culture and workplace environment – bringing modern thinking to its traditional values. Cargill chose the Velocity development within the world-famous Brooklands racetrack as its new home and selected Area Sq, part of the Fourfront Group, to undertake design and fit-out.
The result? Previously disparate, isolating and uninspiring offices exchanged for impactful, dynamic and connected space, enabling communication, collaboration and employee engagement.
Connect TVT’s successful workplace environment was created on a budget of just £6,000. Imagination, an eye for design, and the trawling of furniture auction sites has provided a Thames Valley technology incubation hub that enables openness, inclusion, co-working, networking and innovation for fledgling entrepreneurs and startup businesses.
businessmag.co.uk
Green Park owners Oxford Properties and pro-bono work by international construction services company ISG helped champion and support this grass- roots community-building project, described as “an invaluable resource for startup business” and “an awesome place to meet and work”.
Appropriately, the category was sponsored by office design, fit-out and refurbishment specialist Morgan Lovell, and managing director Colin Allan, announced the winner ... Cargill at Velocity V1.
The ConnectTVT GROW@Green Park project received a Judges’ Commendation: “Collaborative working space is a concept for the future – Connect TVT provides a useful resource for the Thames Valley’s tech startups and thus makes a valuable contribution to the regional economy.”
Proudly receiving the award on behalf of Cargill, Gary Chandler MD of Area Sq, highlighted the mutual client-provider engagement within the winning project. “It’s all about understanding the environment that the client wants to create for their individuals and their teams collectively. I think our designers did a fantastic job of translating those requirements into a design that works for Cargill. We are a business that loves receiving awards as any business does, but this was very much a joint effort and we are fantastically pleased.”
He added: “Workplace environments today are very much about creating a shopfront for recruitment and retention of staff, creating the reflection of a more agile workstyle. Gone are the days where people were in nine to five. The modern office is about creating spaces to interact, positive friction, different platforms of work, individual and team working, and that’s becoming more prevalent.
“Our designers love the business environment right now. As much as office spaces today might be decreasing in size, they are creating reasons for people to come into the office and enjoy the company of colleagues rather than stay at home because technology has allowed people to do their jobs from anywhere.”
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JUNE 2016
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