In September 2023, ICONICS celebrated the grand opening of their new headquarters! Featuring modern workspaces, advanced technology infrastructure, and thoughtfully designed meeting and collaboration areas, the new office aims to better serve employees, customers, and partners. Using their own Intelligent Building Software Stack (IBSS) for space booking, employees and teams now have the flexibility to work from numerous types of workspaces, a model that is a welcome upgrade from their previous office.
Starting Fresh - from the Old Office to the New
When making the decision to relocate the ICONICS office, it was important to remain in the same area for employee convenience, which is why the new location is just one mile up the road. Prompted by the desire to look the part of being a Mitsubishi Electric group company, there was a need to start fresh with an office that could suit a hybrid work model, which in turn allowed for scaled down square footage. Involving the opinions of ICONICS employees was a priority and helped to answer many questions about design, layout, and furniture decisions.
Office & Space Design
Since starting with a raw space, the design process required many discussions and decisions. How do we accomplish a hybrid work model? How do we meet technology requirements? How can we promote employee health and wellness? Also, from the beginning stages of planning, it was well known that the new space needed to prioritize collaboration with flexible and multi-use areas, something that the old office lacked.
ABOVE: The new office space during the construction process.
Unlike the old office, the new office features an open floor plan without any assigned spaces or offices. Opting for this type of space required workspaces and equipment that would work for everyone. The main workstations are equipped with adjustable desk heights, so employees can choose to sit or stand. Additionally, every space has a docking station that works with all laptops and dual 4K monitors, ensuring all types of work would be supported.
To give employees the space to collaborate with their teams and other employees or visitors, collaboration areas were placed strategically throughout the office. Moreover, the customer center was built with large-scale monitors and technology to connect devices to thereby enabling the capability to showcase demos and videos of ICONICS solutions. Essential quiet and private spaces were also created in the form of offices and phone booths, as well as secure spaces like the IT/Server Room, Marketing Center, Quality Assurance Lab, and Human Resources center.
ABOVE: Coworkers and teams using some of the new office spaces for collaboration.
To highlight a specific functional space, the Marketing Center satisfied the need for a single space where all the marketing items and equipment could be stored securely, space that was lacking at the old office. Touting the second largest space to the large conference room, the Marketing Center has given the Marketing Department room for proper storage, event preparation, and departmental collaboration.
ICONICS has a long and proud history of being an automation software provider, and we wanted to asthetically blend that history with being a group company of Mitsubishi Electric. To do this, many vintage items were brought over from the old office and used in the design. Old advertisements showcasing the beginnings of the company can be found throughout the office, as well as a color palette representing ICONICS’ blue and Mitsubishi Electric red, with yellow as a complementary accent color to punctuate the space.
ABOVE: Decor in the new office used items like books and equipment saved from the old office to maintain ICONICS identity, while also incorporating the colors red, blue and yellow in the overall design.
Deployed Office Technology
With ICONICS being a technology company, the design team worked hard to ensure that the technology that outfitted the new office would meet the requirements and demands of our talented team. To foster seamless collaboration across hybrid scenarios and with international colleagues, meeting room amenities like cameras were vetted thoroughly. User-friendly Neat and Yealink products were selected to maintain continuity of ICONICS’ current Microsoft ecosystem. Both Neat and Yealink products feature uncompromising audio and video capabilities, delivering immersive and natural meeting experiences. One piece that carried much excitement was the Neat Board, a smart whiteboard set up on a wheeled stand for mobility throughout the office, allows for the creation of new and ad-hoc collaboration spaces for employees. With Neat products, users can start meetings with the press of a button, enabling them to focus on the meeting experience instead of troubleshooting.
A top priority was user-experience, which drove many of the decisions about technology and equipment well beyond the meeting cameras and TVs. By implementing an unreserved hotel seating model, the next substantial technology decision regarded how to manage reserving spaces. Luckily, ICONICS already had a relationship with a software supplier capable of such a task – their recently wholly acquired sister company, ICONICS UK and their IBSS solution.
ICONICS' IBSS Solution - the Key to Its Modern Digital Office
IBSS is flexible for any work model because of its capability to book and reserve any desk, room, equipment, multi-purpose space, and amenity area. Additionally, this smart building technology creates sustainable, collaborative, and data-driven workplaces, optimizing occupant experience and lowering running costs by using real time building insights. The IBSS solution was chosen because it checked all the boxes for easy use, rapid deployment, and organic functionality to create an overall positive in-building experiences.
To start using the office, employees were asked to download the Roamer app to their phones and familiarize themselves with the web-based portal version Flex. The Roamer app, which is one of the UX apps within the IBSS platform, enables users to make reservations for whichever space they need on a given day from the convenience of their mobile phone. On opening the app, users are greeted with various ways to search for spaces, including a map of the office showing available spaces in green. Users can also search for coworkers, view and book available spaces by function and type, and report AV/IT issues for a space.
ABOVE: From the Roamer app, users can search for available spaces in many different ways like a list view, or map view.
From a space management standpoint, setting up booking and space policies was simple, and the UK team was quick to address requests and assist throughout the whole setup process. Once set up, using the Admin Portal for managing settings, visitors, and bookings is simple and flexible.
The New ICONICS Headquarters
This move underscores the company's strategic vision for growth and innovation in the automation industry. This enhanced space is equipped with cutting-edge facilities, advanced technology infrastructure, and thoughtfully designed meeting areas. Lastly, by encouraging collaboration and creativity, the office aims to cater to the company’s transformation.
The new ICONICS office was designed by Megan Courtney, Marketing Coordinator and Social Media Specialist, with assistance from Richard Henderson, Director of Planning and Integration, and others.