The office of the future!

The We have just reopened our newly refurbished head office in The Whitehouse, London. During the last few months we have created a fresh and cutting edge office environment that puts our staffs wellbeing and new ways of working right at the forefront. As we welcome our teams back into the workplace, we have created a brand new type of space, more akin to a boutique hotel than a traditional office! It is filled with video conferencing centres, state of the art AV, a variety of cosy meeting rooms, and centre stage is an incredible cafe with full barista service for both staff and clients. And yes, the fish tank still remains centre stage!

GIA’s Founder, Gordon Ingram explains the vision for the new space:

“The brief for the office was centred on creating the space of the future. Since March 2019, the world has changed and people have changed. Therefore our workplace needed to reflect a vision which addresses the new reality.

Whilst the zoom quizzes and teams meeting were new and exciting, many of us missed the in-person interaction, and the recognised value in the osmosis of learning, of overhearing how your peers work, and in sharing your weekend plans at the coffee bar, let alone the fish and our lovely housekeeper, Maria.

With all that in mind, we took time and care to understand what our employees wanted from the great space we have at The Whitehouse. We watched the trends, read the articles, and listened to our people, and from this our visionary plans for our refurbishment grew.

Home-from-home

At its heart, idea was to create a ‘hub’, a home-from-home. A space that was so far removed from the concept of the traditional office that we left in March 2019. The choice of finishes, furniture and objets have combined to transform the feel of the space completely. The new cafe, which unsurprisingly we call ‘ The Underground’ opens the door to more collaboration and community.

We now have an office where people feel more relaxed, inspired, and comfortable. A space where the sense of family and connection is predominant whilst embracing state of the art technology in how we use of the office. With the inclusion of a new lighting design and AV, the experience and feel in the building reflects the ultimate home from home.

We were delighted to appoint Zero Workspace as our outstanding contractor who themselves were founded during the pandemic. We followed this focus through the use of a range of local businesses and sub-contractors. The interior designers in particular were very close to home being my wife and daughter, which brought its own challenges!!

We also needed to ensure the scheme was as sustainable as possible. This led to donating all our unwanted furniture to the charity, Business 2 Schools, for use in local schools, and by incorporating many wonderful products and amenities into the finished office space.

So many people have contributed to helping build our new office and our dream, and we couldn’t be more proud and excited to share it. As the world starts to open up further, please come and visit us and see for yourselves!”