OMD Group vacated its College Hill premises, its home for over a decade, to shift into a stylish new office space in Mt Eden. Here’s the lowdown on the new space and the thinking behind it.
OMD moved to its new premises on July 27, designed by Ashton Mitchell Architects.
“Having spent time working on separate floors with minimal space to work together we want to be able to create a space that made working together easy,” OMD chief executive officer Kath Watson says.
“Plus, we have been blessed with a space that has tonnes of natural light. We were keen to make sure we made the most of it.”
She says though College Hill was a touch bigger than its new space, the previous space was split across three floors. “And we had, to put it simply, outgrown it”.
“The new space fits in beautifully with our company ethos of better collaboration and sharing of knowledge across teams and specialist business units to help create smarter solutions for our clients.”
The cost was significant she says “But not extravagant. We didn’t quite have enough budget to do everything that we would like and we had to make some tough calls, however, we hope to be able to implement a number of other initiatives next year.”
She says the standout spots are the collaborative workspaces and the bespoke reception joinery.
An earlier release on the move says the move gives the staff an architecturally designed, creative work environment, and that the office is built around the company’s core values.
“The new office is built around the company’s core values with environmentally friendly solar panels on the roof, breakout collaborative work spaces and a new timber deck that is destined to become more legendary than College Hill,” the release says.
Watson says: “This is an exciting time for our group of businesses. Continued growth across the board provides us the opportunity to give all our staff a better working environment and more opportunity for collaboration across our agency brands and specialist experiential, digital and data units.”
Total Media, which had shared the College Hill premises for the past five years, has also moved to a new location joining Dynamo at Greys Avenue. “This move provides an opportunity for both OMD Group companies to leverage complementary talent with an increased focus on strategy and innovation, while keeping clients at the heart of their business,” the release says.
A nationwide survey of office workers conducted by research agency Perceptive shows that 81 percent of Kiwi office workers believe the physical environment at their workplace has an impact on their happiness and job satisfaction, while nine out of ten workers agree that if they are happy at work, they are more productive.
The study was commissioned by the Spaceworks Design Group in an effort to determine whether workspace has an impact on worker performance and whether spatial design can facilitate creativity, collaboration and innovation.
Over three quarters of respondents said that they are more likely to stay at their current company if it has an inspiring office space and sixty percent said that the office interior layout has a substantial impact on their decision to work for the company.
And the study also showed that there’s a disparity between what workers want and what they have, with only four in ten saying that they believe their office is adopting new trends in the workplace design space.
