Why companies are upgrading their workspaces.

When I think unique workspaces, I automatically think of Google. Leading the way with beanbags, sleep pods, slides, and everything from the weird to the wonderful. But it isn’t just tech giants that are providing unique, creative and flexible workspaces for their people these days.

Ten years ago only a handful of businesses could have boasted truly distinctive offices, and to work for these companies you had to be at the top of your particular field. By providing innovative workspaces, companies made sure that they were attracting and retaining the best talent into their business and ultimately pushing themselves ahead of the competition.

Fast forward to 2019 and more companies than ever are investing in their working environment. As a recruitment business we work with hundreds of companies, many of which place the working environment central to their employer brand strategy. And why are they doing that? For the same reason they were 10 years ago. Competition for talent. Only now there’s more of it!

With many industries seeing a shortage of talent, employers need to stand out.

It’s not enough anymore to just provide a competitive pay, employees are looking for more. They want genuine career development and progression, transparency, companies that are socially responsible and of course, a workplace that they enjoy coming to every day.

The workplace of the future isn’t just one that looks great on Instagram. It needs to be practical. It needs to bring people together, to help productivity and allow people to work flexibly and collaboratively. How companies execute that will vary from industry to industry. One person’s sleeping pod is another person’s goldfish bowl.

The key thing is to understand your business. And understand your people.

As technology allows us to instantly communicate and work together over long distances, the “dedicated desk” model may not be the most efficient way of getting the job done anymore. Giving employees and their teams the choice to work in the manner that best suits them, whether that be at a desk, on the sofa or sat on the roof terrace, seems to be the trend for businesses of today and proves that Google’s approach is not a fad but instead a genuinely effective business model.

At Roc I’ve seen first-hand the impact a well-designed work environment can have on attracting and retaining the best talent and it’s no wonder the business has come in the top 20 small companies to work for in the UK for 4 years in a row. If you’d like to see for yourself the investment we’ve made in our office spaces, feel free to take the virtual tour of our UK Reading office.

What is your favourite thing about your office? If you could get your company to add anything, what would it be? Let us know if the comments section below! Thanks for reading :)