How to show company values ​​in an office (without posters and slogans)

    Naumen began in 2001 with six employees. The company rented a small office in a residential building in Yekaterinburg. And now, in 2019, our main development office occupies 4 floors in the business center: we have meeting rooms for every taste, a training class, a sports room, a spacious kitchen, coffee points and an indoor parking for bicycles.

    In general, Naumen lives not only in Yekaterinburg. We have offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tver and Chelyabinsk. We try to make all offices in the same style so that the employee, arriving on a business trip, feels comfortable and easily adapts.

    We will talk about how we changed the office in Yekaterinburg last year to meet the needs of employees and to grow by 20% per year.

    We have made all spaces the way they are, for a reason. We have the main values: openness, flexibility and rapid growth of employees. Also, employees note a special atmosphere. For example, in one of our departments, employees do not call each other colleagues. They call each other “brolegi”, these are bro + colleagues.



    We could not ignore this and wanted to maintain such an atmosphere. But it was also necessary not to forget about the functionality of space. We make offices so as to help employees work productively and at the same time feel comfortable, and not just in the “office box”. Just note - we do not have open space, but separate rooms for teams.

    If the theater begins with a coat rack, then Naumen begins with a reception. This is the first thing that candidates and clients see, and each employee passes by him several times a day.



    Office managers help employees: arrange business trips, issue an office, a pass, if you forgot it, make copies of documents or just print something. In general, they do everything so that the employee does not waste time solving everyday issues in the office.

    On the same floor with the reception there are Naumen top cabinets: the founder of the company (he is also the chairman of the Board of Directors) and the financial director.

    When I first joined the company, I was wondering: how can top companies not have a secretary, a reception room, and an office always be open? And then I realized that this is quite in the style of Naumen. Firstly, it is convenient. If the door is open, then we can go to the directors - sign the documents, agree on something verbally, warn about the event, and just say hello. Secondly, it is an indicator of the attitude of management to employees. In the company, all processes are transparent, and directors are open to employees.

    As I already said, we made the office space taking into account the needs of employees.
    The company has large departments that come together, carry out a retrospective or present a new version of the product. This requires a large meeting room.



    We conduct trainings in the same meeting room, for example, recently a lecturer was invited, who conducted a two-day training in oratory. The training was conducted for employees who teach from the company at the university. It was for training that we did not just a large meeting room, but a transformer room. Those. if necessary, it is easy to remove all tables from it or put them as in a classroom.



    In this meeting room, our employees watch broadcasts of large conferences, for example, JPoint. We also use this meeting room for events with students and schoolchildren.

    Employees like to gather here, to play, for example, in the mafia or poker in the evening after work.

    There are also medium-sized meeting rooms, and there are small, literally for 4 people. In such meeting rooms there is no large table, but there is a cozy round sofa.



    Often they conduct interviews to make candidates comfortable. Small groups also have brainstorming sessions and mini-meetings. And you can just work in such a meeting room so that no one distracts.

    We openly say that our employees are growing rapidly professionally. For example, trainees grow to a middle in less than a year. What are we doing for this? The most important thing is the system of adaptation and mentoring. An adaptation manager and mentor helps each newcomer to get comfortable with the company.

    Adaptation Manager is a beginner’s assistant. It is he who can be told what you do not always decide to tell a mentor or a leader, he can be asked a “stupid” question, he can be asked about the culture of the company as a whole. Adaptation manager accompanies the process of registration of a novice, conducts a tour of the office, introduces corporate systems, internal rules, where to contact on household issues. And sometimes he introduces the team.

    And already directly in the team, a mentor is “attached” to new employees. It not only helps the novice adapt to the tasks and specifics of the company, but also helps to join the team. And mentors replace trainees with teachers. They tell what they don’t tell at the university, and show how to apply theory in practice.

    How did we reflect this in the office? For training trainees and new employees, not only meeting rooms, classrooms or a classroom are suitable. Even the corridor fits! On each floor in the corridors there are boards on which employees often write something, argue about what was written, erase, write again, explain to each other ... And sometimes they just draw :)

    To make it possible to take a break from work, we equipped the gym. He is a favorite place for both employees and office guests - students and schoolchildren who come to us on open days.



    Our kicker team is also training here.



    That year we acquired a professional table, the only one in Yekaterinburg :) We do everything for the team’s victories :)



    The kicker became so popular inside Naumen that new teams appeared, and the Naumen Kicker Team kicker party formed.



    In addition to the kicker, here you can work out on simulators, arrange competitions with colleagues in table tennis and exercise balance on the balance board.

    We have employees who do not like activity, but prefer to relax in a quiet way. It was for them that we purchased a massage chair. And for creative and musical ones - a drum kit and an electronic piano. We appeared on the initiative of employees: someone brought an idea, we told the rest about it and spun :)



    Employees contributed to the purchase, but not with the ruble, but with NauBonuses. Bonuses - this is our internal virtual currency. We accrue to its employees for their help at events, for lectures at the university, for reports at conferences and for much more.

    Well, the holy of holies of the office is the kitchen :) We call it NauKafe.

    Every morning, breakfast and snacks are waiting for employees here, and for lunch we are brought hot food. It is here that we spend small office holidays and congratulate employees on their birthday. And here is our “Inner Kitchen”. These are informal meetings of employees at which we listen to reports from both management and employees. We’ll tell you more about this in another article :)

    When the number of employees began to increase rapidly, the kitchen was redone first.



    In the kitchen you can meet a colleague, sorry, a brolleg from another department or department, have a little chat, drink coffee. And if you’re tired of the monitor, but don’t want to go to the gym, you can sit at the bar, look out the window and just enjoy the moment.



    In the kitchen, we made slate walls, on them you can draw anything that comes to mind, write a message for other employees or declare your love for the company :)



    Well and most importantly, how did we adapt the office in Yekaterinburg to the changing needs of employees?

    • They began to do more conversations. We make large meeting rooms transformable, and we equip small meeting rooms with the necessary equipment.
    • They gave a choice to employees: an active break or a quiet one. For lovers of outdoor activities there are exercise machines, for lovers of relaxation - a massage chair.
    • They increased the space of the kitchen, made it brighter and more vibrant.
    • Supported the love of sports. Now the kicker team itself initiates kicker parties and coaches employees, while table tennis fans gather for games every day.
    • They made the space brighter, but at the same time they kept the cosiness.
    • Cabinets of directors are still open for employees :)

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