MoneySuperMarket partnered with us to design and build their new tech hub. The design of their new office had to reflect their brand, attract Manchester’s top talent and support productivity, collaboration and innovation.
The new tech hub needed to feel like a MoneySuperMarket office, and create symmetry between the Manchester and London offices. It also needed to attract Manchester’s top engineering talent, who MoneySuperMarket believe are key to their continuing success.
MoneySuperMarket’s software engineers were historically spread across four offices in Manchester and Chester. Dispersed, these teams weren’t able to effectively connect with one another or their customers. It was our task to design and build an office where MoneySuperMarket’s top tech talent could work together as a united team, moving faster to build better products.
The space needed to inspire people to operate efficiently and collaboratively. MoneySuperMarket’s developers also needed to form better connections with their customers (using tech), to empower them to create world-class apps, websites and digital solutions.
Each team has what they need to work collaboratively including lots of wall space for Kanban boards, architecture diagrams and designs.
Dave Hasley, CTO, MoneySuperMarket Group
We identified eight themes that could positively impact the team’s daily work activities and make the space perform better. We investigated, analysed and understood these themes, using the findings to form a tailored workspace designed to inspire productivity.
1. Arrival
When you enter the new workspace, what impression do you get? It was important to design a welcoming arrival space for employees, visitors and new recruits.
2. Health & Wellbeing
This is all about diversity, inclusivity, and mental and physical wellbeing. All aspects of the space (from ergonomics down to lighting) were designed to improve employee experiences.
3. Team Working
We carefully considered how individuals could connect and collaborate. How do employees use technology to work effectively as a small team and across larger teams?
4. Rhythms & Rituals
How do you make each day enjoyable, productive and effective? Getting the best out of their people meant better results for their customers. Firstly, we got to understand the rhythms of how each employee works and then discovered how these rhythms could be supported, making each day as productive as possible.
5. Neighbourhoods
Just like a village, an effective workplace should have everything employees need to be productive within an easy and accessible distance. There should be a choice of settings to support each activity, for example spaces for employees to focus, collaborate and socialise. We designed multiple neighbourhoods within the office space, for different departments to come together and employees gain a sense of belonging.
6. Customer Centricity
The first element of customer centricity is making sure all employees feel connected to the customer. Employees should be able to see the real-time impact their work is having on people’s lives, to give a sense of purpose. We built in a large 7mx2m digital screen between the two floors. This communication tool can display messages such as “You’ve just saved Mr Jones £200”, for software engineers to see the difference their work is making.
7. Capacity
This is all about looking at the physical space and figuring out how to make the most of it. We took a modular approach so that employees could ‘plug and play’. We created spaces that could be broken down into smaller meeting rooms but also used as one large meeting area for the whole workforce. This flexible design means the team can change the office as much as they want, to support the evolving needs of the organisation.
8. Connection
How do you keep a sense of connectivity within a 23,000 sq. ft. city centre building over two floors? We designed a giant hole between the space to make two floors feel like one. The large digital screen connects the two floors and this central point of information and graphics can be used for sharing information, bringing people together for floor briefs, or screening films after work. The screen generates an immersive experience for everyone working in the building.
You listened, but most importantly, you understood.
Tim Jones, Group CIO, Moneysupermarket.com
After 13 weeks on site, we delivered an intuitive environment in Manchester, where MoneySuperMarket’s software engineers can do their best work in house and its customers have the services, tools and products they need to grow their money.
Grant Dean, Lead Designer on the project, had this to say:
“This was an amazing project to work on, with a truly engaging team. We’ve created a great new home for MoneySuperMarket in Manchester. It’s not just an office; it’s a home.”
As a result of the hugely successful environment we co-created, we’ve continued to work with MoneySuperMarket’s central services offices (28,000 sq. ft.) in Ewloe, North Wales. With different team dynamics to the Manchester office, we had to investigate, analyse and understand the different work groups in Ewloe to develop a tailored menu of work settings and an inspiring environment. Read more about the project in Ewloe here.