Fivetran, a data integration company, had significant growth during the pandemic, increasing its size to seven times. Now, the company has over 1,000 employees, and while remote work has become key these past three years, the company´s leadership started thinking about how employees could return to the office to establish a hybrid model. After conducting surveys and analyzing data, they realized that the problem is not the office itself but how traditional offices are designed.
According to George Fraser, Fivetran´s CEO, by analyzing results and surveys, they knew they weren´t going to return to the office daily. Their idea now is to create a rarely visited space where employees could gather, collaborate, and bond.
Fivetran´s New Creative Office Space
Fivetran worked with the architecture firm Glenser to develop its new office design. They planned the 85,000 root headquarters in Oakland with the idea to host “onsite offsites,” which means activities involving collaborative meetings, community events, and periodic fly-ins for remote workers.
The space is not created as the central office employees need to work, but towards the non-daily reasons why employees would want to visit and use it. For Fivertran, these flexible design was a need considering their hybrid work model.
The company´s flex design has emphasized meeting spaces with informal areas, switching the regular whiteboard brainstorming offices to more lounge-like areas. The space also has individual offices and workstations.
According to Fraser, the office “looks like a college library,” and it saves the same purpose. He also mentioned the new headquarters are a great space for those that eventually get bored or tired from working at home.
