A few years ago, Neiman Marcus spent hundreds of millions of dollars refurbishing its stores to offer a more engaging experience for customers accustomed to shopping from home.

Today, the company is taking the same approach at its headquarters office.

Neiman Marcus’ new headquarters, which is set to open in a Dallas skyscraper early next year, says that in a post-pandemic world, people shouldn’t just expect them to show up, they should give them a reason. It represents a dollar bet.

The new space will have no private offices or assigned workspaces whatsoever to make room for meeting rooms, sofas and other sitting areas to accommodate groups. The operator of this department store allocates about 70% of its 85,000 square feet of floor space to such collaboration areas, making up his 30% of individual workstations. Those proportions were reversed in the company’s old offices, a series of suites just above the Dallas flagship store that the company still owns.

The new office is built to reflect a landscape where work for many companies can be done from anywhere. Employers like Neiman Marcus see the office as a space to exchange ideas and share unique experiences that can’t be replicated anywhere else, rather than a place where you have to come in to do (and keep) work. I’m starting to see it.

The company has gone further than many fashion companies toward a hybrid work model that allows employees to arrange face-to-face meetings with colleagues as needed rather than on set schedules.

Eric Severson, Chief People and Attribution Officer, Neiman Marcus Group, said: “So you should only do it if it’s the best way to build something together or experience it together.”

Not all companies are that flexible. After two years of out-of-the-box remote work policies, employers and professional employees around the world are negotiating what to do with permanent work arrangements. Apple this week instructed employees near its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., to come to the office three days a week starting in September. At Nike and Adidas, many of the company’s staff have been out for months, at least two days a week.

More than ever, the office is a powerful recruiting and retention tool. Whether or not employees view your organization as a desirable place to work depends on everything from its design and layout to your company’s requirements regarding when and when employees should come. Even companies with the most stringent office attendance policies may decide that that means more meeting space, or invest in ergonomic sofas and chairs, or other perks that rival the comfort of a home office. Regardless of what it means, you should be careful.

“The easiest mistake to make is to go back to what you were doing before the pandemic,” said Craig Rowley, senior client partner at recruitment consultancy Korn Ferry. “We need this kind of iterative process to get employees back into the office.”

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Even before the pandemic made remote work the norm, Neiman Marcus had already decided to move to a hybrid model. In a hybrid model, corporate teams use the office only as needed. This gave the company a head start on plans for a new hub that would incorporate research “spanning sociology, social anthropology and industrial engineering,” Severson said.

The biggest learning was that the office is most useful for collaboration, and other employee needs (eg, privacy, time to rest and rejuvenate) are better served elsewhere. We also learned from meetings with global architecture firm Gensler, “human-centered” design firm IDEO, and the furniture company we hired, that the most attractive modern office functions like a home.

“It’s a combination of developing an open concept, but it can also allow people to opt-in to where they want to fit on a particular day throughout the day,” said Severson. “So they move around as if they were at home. They get up, sit at their desks, go from the kitchen to the bathroom to the couch.”

To achieve this, the company introduces “auxiliary furniture,” i.e. informal office equipment and fixtures to support different postures such as sitting, sitting and lounging. He also needs a space with “many amenities” where he can host “fashion shows and awards events,” Severson said, including a conference center and an entertainment space on his 42nd floor of the building.

When it comes to office design, fashion creators need spaces that inspire them to conceive their most innovative ideas. .

“It’s about establishing a multi-sensory environment where interiors exude the brand’s personality and boost energy and well-being,” she said.

Zurich, Switzerland-based running shoe brand On opened a new 17-story office space earlier this year. It features a central staircase called “The Trail,” designed to recreate his 2015 hike across the Engadine Valley by his three founders of the brand. In 2009 we set out to set up a company in Switzerland.

Employees are encouraged to use the stairs whenever possible as a source of motivation and as a reminder of the journey the company has taken to scale. And to encourage collaboration, it’s organized into “villages” similar to those encountered by the founders when they climbed mountains, rather than separate departments.

Nike’s New York headquarters has a swimming pool, multiple gyms, a basketball court, and a food cafe that offers complimentary food and beverages, including coffee made by an on-site barista. His newly expanded Adidas headquarters in Portland, Oregon has a fitness center, rooftop lounge, cafeteria, juice bar and a vegetation-covered “green roof.”

For brands that want to inspire without breaking the bank, simple additions like green plants can add a “naturopathic” feel to the office, Gonzalez said. And rearranging existing furniture to make the space more inviting and harmonious is also a cost-effective solution.

“The immediate thing you can do is rethink how you are arranged,” he said. Can we buy two chairs and create a space where people can collaborate?”

People Matters

It’s true that many corporate employees now prefer remote work. But what they most want, Gonzalez said, is more than just being able to answer emails in their pajamas.

One of the things corporate employees appreciate most about working from home is that they no longer have to deal with the time loss and stress of commuting to and from work. But in the two years since the pandemic began, Lowry said many workers have been conditioned to fill their previous commutes with additional work.

Companies that force their mostly remote corporate employees to return to the office (even a few days a week) are mindful of the new trade-offs they are making, and make employee responsibilities and deliverables meaningful and rewarding. You have to adjust in a way. experts say.

For example, on the day an employee joins the company, responsibility must shift from hard deliverables such as preparing a PowerPoint presentation or spreadsheet to soft tasks such as attending a one-on-one meeting with a manager. there is.

These aren’t new offerings, but perks like (delicious) coffee, occasional free meals, and even face time with team members (especially senior leaders) still come a long way, experts say. .

“You can order a bagel once a week or have coffee on weekdays as a reward for your team,” says Gonzalez. “We’ve talked about hiring masseurs quarterly to give people massages. It depends on how far you want to go.”

Who you have is more important than what you have in your office. At the top of the list are managers, directors and senior executives, setting the tone to mentor young talent as well as other team members who have missed important workplace ceremonies due to the pandemic. , you must make yourself available.

“You need a reason to get people to come into your office and work together,” says Severson. “When they leave, they need to feel like, ‘Wow, I just did something I could only do here with other people in this physical space.'”