Sodexo Transforms Its UK HQ To Showcase Its Vital Spaces Proposition For The Post-Covid Workplace
Sodexo has invested in its London headquarters using its Vital Spaces approach in order to prioritise employee experience and create a showcase for its eco-system of workplace services.
The new-look HQ, based at One Southampton Row and known as OSR, will help the company attract and nurture talent within its workforce, becoming a workplace which encourages collaboration, accommodates mixed working patterns and styles, while optimising space and prioritising employee experience.
Vital Spaces - the company’s approach to serve adults at work, wherever they work - comprises workplace strategy, workplace design, workplace management, work-life services and workplace tech and analytics.
To begin the collaborative investment project, Wx, a fully-owned subsidiary of Sodexo, used human-centric methodology to analyse office usage, identifying satisfaction and friction points through an ethnographic study which focused on people in addition to space and technology.
Sodexo worked with new UK partner, TSK, to design and build a modern, welcoming workspace which embraces new ways of working and smart building technology. A truly connected workspace using the internet of things is felt throughout, with sensors tracking air pollution, desk usage and energy management to continuously improve the office environment.
Offering three distinct experiences – work, collaboration and showcase - OSR is an adaptable workspace that can accommodate a range of activities and events. For those looking to focus, the workspace area includes a number of desks, private rooms and meeting spaces. A more flexible collaborative area sits alongside this with sofas, booths, standing desks and coffee tables.
The day-to-day kitchen area doubles as a stage for hospitality, providing event space for Sodexo to welcome clients and partner organisations, with bespoke food offers provided by its 2017 acquisition, the Good Eating Company.
The new design responded to ideas of connection and communication for face-to-face meetings within the built environment, with additional integrated technology solutions to enable remote collaboration. The result provides formal meeting rooms that can be reconfigured into a larger meeting space, as well as a new experience room for a more relaxed, yet connected, setting.
Other features include telephone boxes for private or confidential calls, smart lockers for receiving packages and a digital concierge service, Vpod, for guest booking, meeting room availability and suggesting catering and travel options for a truly immersive experience.
Julie Ennis, CEO corporate services, Sodexo UK & Ireland said: “The remodelling of our London head office is a blueprint of our Vital Spaces proposition. Our UK HQ had to be a place that was flexible and easily curatable to accommodate a diverse range of activities and events.
“The new-look OSR includes solutions that empower people to transform the way they work and has been designed for shifting futures to get the best out of our spaces and our people. We are delighted to offer our colleagues this new workspace which enables a new flexible hybrid working model for all.”
Following the end of government work-from-home guidance, Sodexo is welcoming all colleagues back to its UK office locations, including OSR, and has begun to invite clients and partners to showcase events at the newly designed HQ.
