Comcast’s Culture-Driven Interior Design Transformation Story
Comcast — a world leader in the fast-changing businesses of media, entertainment and technology — garners one of the most diverse, agile, and forward-thinking creative workforces in the world.
To create a new workplace more reflective of its vibrant and dynamic culture, Comcast set out to build a new home for its 1,000+ Central Division employees that would enhance productivity, enable increased "speed to market", and excite current and future employees from the moment they walk in the door each day — whether it's day 1 or 100.
Comcast partnered with ONE Global Design's Hendrick Inc. and Design Republic to develop an intuitive workplace strategy for its 245,000-square-foot Atlanta-based Division headquarters. The design team kicked things off with a comprehensive work style assessment to gain insight into the Division’s culture, systems, and working styles. This assessment included extensive tours of the workplace, executive visioning sessions to gauge future possibilities, employee surveys to dig deep into the inner workings of the company, 59 distinct questionnaires, focus group discussions to analyze the "why" behind many employee perceptions and requests, full-day observations detailing how employees used their space, and in-depth space analysis of existing locations. The key findings of Hendrick and Design Republic's thorough analyses concluded that employees desired an open-concept workspace to reduce hierarchal attitudes, increase transparency, and open up possibilities for increased collaboration and innovation between departments, leaders, and the general population.
The result of these insights produced a neighborhood-like environment that balances open office space with private collaboration environments and innovation areas — as well as 20,000-square-feet of hospitality, recreation, and amenities to make the workplace feel more like a central space for living, working, and playing. This audacious concept resulted in flexible work spaces for different work styles, ample opportunities for spontaneous collaboration, increased stimulation of creativity and innovation, as well as increased transparency and camaraderie among all employees — regardless of their status in the company. It has been transformative project for Comcast, creating a fun, inspiring yet functional environment where employees can successfully manage the extremely fast changes in Comcast’s business environment.
