What I’ve learned visiting 100+ offices in Paris.
At Totem, we have a clear mission: we want to be the best Office Cafeteria in France and in Europe. We want our brand to be so strong that any employee eating any of our products will feel that their company is helping them to pursue an healthy life both inside and outside the office.
Being responsible for the acquisition of clients, I need to understand how offices and kitchen spaces are evolving. In one year, I visited more than 100 offices in Paris from top startups like Uber, Algolia and Palantir to more corporate ones like AccorLocal and the Air Liquide Innovation Lab.
Here is what I learned:
Open space is dead. Hybrid offices are the new way forward.
Hybrid Offices incorporate a range of spaces and give employees the autonomy to move between them throughout the day:
- meeting rooms _ for brainstorming and planning
- soundproof rooms _ where employees can concentrate
- open spaces _ where you can feel the team energy and do daily operational tasks
- cafeteria _ where employees can take a healthy break, get some energy and have informal conversations with other employees, whether they know them already or not
- fitness rooms
- specialized rooms _ (video studios, photo studios and so on) depending on your activity
Thinking that a company’s activities can be optimized using only one space is misguided. Open space is not the answer, it’s just a reaction to both a lack of proximity created by private offices and a lack of communication between leaders and their teams.
Instead, flexibility is the keyword for enterprises right now. That’s why the best thing is to have one space for each of the day’s activities.
Co-working spaces can be an answer for small teams but are a “culture killer”.
Co-working space communications are all about network, collaboration, flexibility and services. For small companies it is a hassle to find office for a couple of months — you have to go through finding an available space, then an internet provider, a coffee provider and so on.
But co-working space will not help you promote your enterprise culture. I truly believe that a small team’s spirit is created in a small environment that doesn’t need to be full of services, but full of values, creativity and identity.
Finding your own offices, even for a 15-person team, will help create a core team that knows each other and has lived something unique together, all in a unique environment.
Offices are too often designed to be perfect for any company. But any company isn’t YOUR company.
If you take most of the amazing startups offices out there, you can just change the logo on the wall and it becomes anyone’s office.
You need to make it yours. For example, I really appreciated the uniqueness of both Keymetrics and MinuteBuzz offices. They had actual design and self-made rooms with specific specs based on what they are building.
The first thing you want your employee to feel when they enter the office is: the Mission. The office needs to be all about what you do and how you do it.
That’s why MinuteBuzz is a “flex office” which means you can sit anywhere, whether you are a CEO or an intern. As their company is all about making creative contents, they don’t want anyone to feel stuck in one place, whether it is in their head or their office. That’s also why MyLittleParis has such an amazing office focused on culture and how to make people creative and artistic. As soon as you are in their office, you just want to sit, look around, take a book, read or write !
Go the extra-mile. You’re willing to pay €500/desk/ month but you’re not willing to pay €5000 once to make it special and unique? And in fact, you may not have to spend any money! For example, at Totem we did an afternoon team workshop and created our own sofa out of wooden pallets that we received when ordering in bulk! Your employees will spend thousand of hours in the office, and the environment is not only about their coworkers but also the design and atmosphere!
The best offices are ones where you feel at home.
Home furniture is being used more and more within offices: sofas, plants, a nice cafeteria with healthy products… 😉. Working should feel comfortable and normal. The easiest way to do that is to break the barriers between offices and apartments.
As I wrote in a previous article, employees that can be themselves will thrive and be far more productive, creative and efficient since they can use 100% of their brains instead of only the 10% allowed within a corporate office.
Create at least one place where your employees can live, talk and feel comfortable.
Even if you are too small to have lots of different rooms, every company need one place where they can have a break, rest, enjoy a great cup of coffee, some organic fruit and a nice conversation with their coworkers.
So many people don’t even realize the value of that. If your coworkers start discussing something other than work, they will start to understand each other, how they live, what they like, what they do at the company. This is the starting point for having people offer their help, their advice. It will allow for smoother collaborations and a strong team spirit.
- “Hey, Jo, how was your afternoon?”
- “Actually, I have to say it is pretty tough, I am working on that new tech call Redux and I am having so much trouble integrating it.”
- “Funny you said that, one of my best friends just did it at [company name], I could make you the intro if you want, he’ll be happy to help you.”
It’s just small talk, but it’s a realistic example of all the value that informal conversations can create.
Summary:
Stop focusing on location and having the perfectly clean office, you will attract people that don’t really care about your unique mission. You could also be paying a premium of €100/desk/month that could be used instead on making your office unique with great services like free food, team events or great design.
Focus on:
- the uniqueness of your office: write out the values, facts, stories that apply only to YOUR company.
- having a comfortable office where your employees can stay all day without feeling bored, trapped in a small room or like they’re missing out on their lives!
- creating at least one place where your employees can have a break, feel comfortable and talk about anything.
At Totem, the goal is to create that employee paradise where they know their company is taking care of them. Around their Totem, they can share the best coffee in town (Kawa.coffee), an organic passion fruit and a bowl of Dear Muesli while talking about how they are going to solve your company’s issues. And all for around 40€/employee/month. And since YOUR company is UNIQUE, we enable customization for every single one of our clients by using tech in an efficient way. We are currently delivering to 50 offices and not one has the exact same package or equipment.
If you have any advice, great tips, or just want to discuss these subjects, feel free to contact me at rafael@thetotem.co.
