Check out P&G Singapore’s new office with outdoor working spaces

It occupies 6 contiguous floors within The Metropolis.

When the management of Procter & Gamble (P&G) Singapore decided to build a new office space, they didn’t simply construct an office space. It built a ‘Home for Inspiration’ to harness their workforce creativity while celebrating their unique Asian heritage.

Located at The Metropolis, dubbed as the only Grade A office building in the One-North District, P&G’s new office occupies six contiguous floors within the building.

According to Damon Jones, communications director of P&G Asia, the management recognized that flexible work arrangements and work-life balance are some of the key workplace priorities for many employees, especially millennials. Hence, it set out to create a space that allows its employees to enjoy greater flexibility and promotes overall wellness.

“As a company that embraces diversity, we also wanted to create a space that unleashes the full potential of our people to enable stronger collaboration and greater value creation across the six contiguous floors that we occupy,” he said.

The principle for having different spaces, he said, is to enable their employees to be where they need to be to get work done at their best. That’s why with the new P&G Singapore office, the management made sure that it would offer numerous quiet areas, individual work spaces and open collaboration spaces on every floor, as well as outdoor working spaces with the sky garden on two floors that provide a sweeping skyline of the city.

As a company aimed at improving the lives of more than five billion consumers globally, the new office also features a Vibrant Living Room where employees can receive personal health coaching from health professionals and Vibrant Living Areas on every floor for employees to relax and reenergize.

A workspace designed for tomorrow’s workforce

With over 2,000 employees, of which more than half fall into the millennial camp and 45 nationalities across various business units to consider, P&G’s new office space is designed to enable employees to work how and where they wanted to. According to Damon, in order to design a work environment that maximizes the generation’s unique strengths and work styles, the management conducted an internal survey during the planning stage to identify some of the unique preferences of millennials and implemented them in their design.

“We listened to our employees to find out what they needed in the best workplace in their minds through the internal survey conducted and we shared the findings with a group of internal and external experts in design, engineering, and technology, among others. Together, the team created and implemented solutions that incorporated unique needs, flexibility as well as encouraged collaboration and inspiration,” said Damon.

Some ideas that the P&G management established include setting up phone charging stations, combination locker spaces and ensured 100% wireless Internet coverage across the entire office to meet the needs of their mobile and digital workforce. It also increased the number of video conference rooms for virtual collaboration. While to reflect the company’s diversity and inclusion mission, it built nursing rooms on every floor for dedicated mothers and multi-faith prayer rooms to respect and help meet the needs of various employees.

Keeping it green

Following P&G’s focus on environmental sustainability and The Metropolis’s status as one of the most sustainable sites in Singapore, the new P&G office integrated the sustainability features into its interior design. According to Damon, the management created an energy efficient office layout and implemented efficient lighting design that reduces power usage by 34% without compromising brightness and effective air conditioning distribution system for dynamic air temperature adjustments. While on the top floors, it installed 560 square meters of solar panels to derive power from renewable energy. Rainwater is also collected and recycled to irrigate the Metropolis grounds and Sky Gardens.

Damon said that with the state-of-the art advances in energy savings, water efficiency and environmental footprint reduction, the P&G Singapore office will collectively save the equivalent of 19 football fields worth of trees every year.

Overall, he said that they are extremely proud to say that the P&G Singapore office is ‘truly a workspace designed for tomorrow’s workforce’.

“More than just the team member who worked on design and technology, it was the team’s continuous connection and partnership with HR and dozens of employee “ambassadors” who represented the employees’ needs and wants that was instrumental in the project’s success,” he said.

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