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Vitality’s new workplace, the second project completed in collaboration with Peldon Rose, underscores their ongoing commitment to investing in their people. Health and wellbeing are central to their culture and are seamlessly integrated into their real estate strategy.
The next generation insurer moves from Bournemouth’s Marshall Point to Portman House, taking four floors of the flagship building - also home to Nationwide. Relocating to Portman House has the dual impact of concentrating quality of workplace experience and increasing the salience of Vitality’s real estate investment.
With so little physical distance between the old and new workplace, it raises the question of how, and why, they are experientially worlds apart. Here’s the story.
The primary objective was to deliver a workspace that puts wellbeing, social interaction and inclusion at the heart of its purpose. It meets the needs of individual employees throughout the group with a well thought-out flexible and multifunctional workspace that strengthens the brand and attracts and retains the best talent in their industry.
Our work at Portman House is informed by a successful design ethos and adoption in Vitality’s new London workplace, recently completed by Peldon Rose at 80 Strand. In both offices, agility, hybrid working, and connectivity are prioritised. An amalgamation of different environments on working floors – from open-plan desking, to touch down collaboration tables, meeting rooms, breakout booths, and portable furniture – enable employees to connect, collaborate, create, and learn in versatile ways. Then, a carefully considered colour palette subtly anchors Vitality’s standout pink branding, and trusty mascot Stanley the Dachshund, within the space.
To create a people-centric space, workshops with senior stakeholders and all-staff surveys with Vitality’s Bournemouth-based employees, followed the quantitative data collection of the Peldon Rose Strategy team, and highlighted new opportunities for Vitality to enhance healthy everyday experiences in ways that matter to its people.
The fourth floor of Portman House hosts an expanded dining, servery and kitchen area, where employees are served free healthy breakfasts, lunches, and coffee, without the hassle of long queues or bumping elbows with the person next to them as they eat. Complete with flourishing biophilia cascading from structural pillars, and a bright and breezy ambience thanks to floor-to-ceiling vistas of Bournemouth town and shoreline, the outside seems to permeate the walls of Portman House. Brightened further by a simple, neutral design scheme, this area is the perfect lively space for employees to break away from working floors, socialise, and refuel for the day ahead.
Subliminal messages throughout the office enhance the overt design features aimed at promoting employee wellbeing and encouraging behaviour that aligns with Vitality’s core purpose to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. In the restaurant entranceway, a signpost directs individuals to places within and outside the office. From Bournemouth beach to the local parkrun, the number of steps to reach these destinations is printed on the sign as a subtle encouragement for employees to think and calibrate their actions to keep moving, and to prioritise their mental and physical health.
The designs of the London and Bournemouth offices are guided by principles of Fitwel, a building accreditation strategy and process focused on evidence-based design and operational strategies to enhance and instill feelings of wellbeing, inclusion, relaxation and social engagement.
While the Bournemouth office is comparable to its London counterpart in look, feel, and ethos, there are a few distinguishing features that establish the workplace as a charming and unique destination.
The large events space on the first floor caters for company-wide meetings and seminars in Bournemouth, with seamless technology and AV. Complete with a 110-inch screen, podium, plinth, and lectern, the flexible space can be configured to fit up to 100 people in person, and additional people online.
The smaller details go just as far in setting the office apart. Touches like deck chairs in the canteen and a red and white-striped “beach hut” (collaboration booth) ground the office in its locality and create a sense of belonging for employees.
Vitality’s new Bournemouth workplace is a space that embodies and empowers Vitality to live and breathe its values. From its investment in Fitwel accreditation and the vast breakout area serving healthy food, to the floorplates brimming with biophilia, complete with wayfinding which subtly encourages an active workday, Portman House is a physical manifestation of Vitality’s core purpose: to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives.
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