Dave Wrightson, Engage
Where is it?
Munro House, Duke Street, Leeds, LS9 8AG
How big is it?
It’s a 6,000 square foot office space zoned into large four person workdesks, a boardroom, three smaller meeting rooms, two work or meeting booths, and a theatre with projector and bleacher style seating.
The space also boasts a fully featured gym with weights and cardio options, bike storage and workshop, shower facilities, and two kitchens with full cooking facilities – plus a wine and beer fridge.
What happens there?
We wanted the office to feel like a space where people actually wanted to spend time; a space that enriched their working life. That’s why it’s a very social and collaborative space with the theatre and booths being a real highlight.
Our two kitchens provide proper cooking facilities, enough that we even managed to cook a full Christmas dinner for the whole team as well as providing a spacious area for people to hang out and chat at lunch time. The gym and bike facilities are well used on a regular basis too!
What happens there?
We’re a digital marketing agency so there’s obviously lots of desk-based design, coding, analysis and planning, but being a collaborative bunch we’ve designed the space for people to be able to work together in small and larger groups.
Why is the workplace appropriate?
We wanted to create more than just an office but a space that people enjoy both working and socialising. Key to that is the word ‘space’, with the allowance of 150 square feet per person, which is nearly double a standard office planned space. That gives the space a relaxed feel, so even though it’s open-plan it never really gets too noisy to concentrate, which is essential to the type of work we do.
As well as being a very collaborative company, we’re also very design-led, so an aesthetic that matched the values and expectation of us as a company was really important. We’re also committed to promoting our team to lead healthy lifestyles and the provision of the gym facilities combined with the bike storage with showers and a drying room reinforces this.
All that said, COVID has thrown up a few challenges and like most companies we’ve all got used to a mix of home and office working which is likely to become the new normal. So with that in mind we’re currently looking at making a number of alterations which will take us into that new world of the hybrid office.
Part of that will be the addition of one-person soundproof booths for video calls and a re-organisation of the meeting rooms to make a larger number of smaller rooms available for collaboration. We’re also heavily investing in technology, allowing the whole team to be able to recreate their ideal working platforms at both the home and the office.
Who works there?
We currently have 34 people working at Engage, although under current COVID guidelines we’re capping day to day capacity at 50%. The space is desked for 40, which will support our growth plans in a hybrid home/office capacity for the next five years. We’re also home to our friends at PR agency, Lucky North.
