Finding the perfect space for supporting our people

For anyone who hasn't been following along, this year we took part in the Great Place to Work® en Uruguay certification process and then used it as an opportunity to improve ourselves as a company. One of the aspects most mentioned by our team mates was the idea of ​​looking for a new office where we can focus, collaborate, learn, and socialize. The desks and barbecue space seemed to be getting smaller by the day as our team grew bigger, so we listened to our needs and put hands on work.

To do this in an inclusive way, a self-managed and voluntary commission of Kaizen’s collaborators was formed with the goal of creating the best possible proposal to move to a new office. This was fully organized by the people who wanted to take part in this initiative, without intervention of management.

The commission was in charge of creating a backlog to tackle the proposal, establishing an evaluation criteria, broadcasting the advancements and periodically submitting decisions into a consent process with the whole company, and lastly presenting the agreed proposal to the Board for a final approval.

The criteria for evaluation of our new office was created based on the feedback gathered from the whole team. Some of the most valued aspects that made up the agreed criteria were:

• Location in a neighborhood which is convenient for the largest numbers of people.
• An Open Space area to work collaboratively or have internal events for at least 40 people.
• A big barbecue space for at least 35 people, free to use at any day and time.
• Outdoor and green spaces.

Once the evaluation criteria was agreed, the commission began to look for options and make a comparison between all of them to see the strengths and weaknesses of each one.

One of the options shined above them all. To make the strongest start possible, the proposal was presented to all the collaborators and their input was again requested.

Through a consent process, people provided their opinion qualifying from a range of Veto (meaning they don’t approve at all) to Whole-hearted Endorsement. In order to move forward with the proposal, it was necessary to reach a minimum of 90% participation of all Kaizen collaborators and 80% of approval.

During this process, those opinions that were furthest from approval were reviewed to investigate the reasons behind them and be able to provide solutions to their concerns. After some revisions and improvements were made based on the feedback collected, we achieved 93% of participation and 93% of approval to be able to choose this beautiful place.

Leading our business through a successful office relocation is a huge accomplishment and we are proud to say that this initiative was fully managed and carried out by all of us who are part of Kaizen.

As a next step, our office space will be beautifully designed and decorated according to our vision and culture. At Kaizen, we want to enjoy our work environments for being more engaged, productive, happy, and healthy. Finishing this project might take a while, but we trust on setting a workplace with a collaborative atmosphere that has tonnes of coffee + a BIG barbecue!