Good day at the office – or the play park?
FIRM BRINGS A SENSE OF FUN TO ITS NEW HQ
A PARK with swings, trees and an American style diner aren’t typical finds in offices, but one North East firm is daring to be different.
Mayborn Group has become a major contender for the North East’s coolest office crown after opening its new headquarters at Balliol Business Park, built to reflect its vision to become the world’s most loved baby company.
The firm, the North East company behind the global brand Tommee Tippee and sleep experts Gro, has invested £2m in its new headquarters, a 30,000 sq ft building bringing all staff from its previous HQ at Dudley, North Tyneside, under one roof in a colourful base from which it can develop its global expansion.
The 160 staff move into the building on Monday, and with the business planning to grow to more 200 people, the firm’s CEO Steve Parkin hopes the colourful and creative environment will attract staff keen to join the company.
He said: “We are trying to build our brand from the North East – 60% of our business is overseas but the creativity comes from here, so I wanted to get a space which had the social space for teams to have a feeling of creativity and fun – that was the brief to the designers.
“We had too much of a desk-based team structure at Dudley, so the biggest thing here was the ‘wow’ factor. Our biggest challenge, I suspect, is for the 160 people coming in here to think it’s normal.
“Go and have a game of table tennis or a game of pool – if you look at the way millennial employees are working, they don’t like to be constrained and want to be able to do things in their own way. I look at all the new faces we have and they are the future, so this office needs to be a great recruitment for us.”
The ground floor has been designed around toddler and family activities with a beach and park area, meeting rooms themed around the firm’s offices in the US, France, China and Australia, such as the American diner room and Le Jardin Parisian room, where staff can spend time with colleagues or meet with customers.
The building fit-out was delivered by Ben Johnson Interiors, the office transformation specialist based in York, which worked with the company for more than two years on creating the perfect new office.
Every floor has an abundance of breakout areas and meeting rooms, and Mr Parkin said the biggest chal-
lenge will be the staff adapting to such a different environment, having worked in such a traditional, former factory setting for so long.
The new site will be the core from which the company manages its growing global footprint across Europe, North and South America, China and Asia and support its 1,200-strong global workforce. Birch tree trunks and a threemetre high oak tree feature in the ‘In it together’ hub. The firm’s products are visible in every part of the building including a lighting feature made of hundreds of feeding bottles.
Every floor has a kitchen area, but it’s the ground floor hub area that will draw the most attention with its bleacherstyle seats alongside comfy chairs and sofas, a pool table and the neighbouring room’s play park area with meeting rooms. High-tech conferencing facilities have been installed, as well as electric car charging points and cycle-to-work facilities.