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Welcome home!

Posted by Mike Walley |

Among the many aspects of life the global pandemic turned upside down was the office. What will the new world of work look and feel like as we begin to gather again in spaces re-designed to meet the new, and still-evolving, norms. Senior Director for Real Estate & Workplace Strategy, Mike Walley, can’t wait to find out!

After covid capsized all of our plans for Criteo offices around the world, the Workplace team has spent the past year reacting and adapting to dramatically changing circumstances and expectations.

Our team’s approach to managing workplaces by staying focused on the needs of Criteos - our “customer” – also helped us adjust. It’s a philosophy reflected in the activity-based design of our offices, providing a wide variety of work settings, concierge-type services mixed with some traditional facilities management, a dash of event management and a generous helping of fun! Our new workplace positioning illustrates this perfectly: 'Our workplaces are built by and for Criteos to create interactions, encourage collaboration, and stimulate creativity in an open and inclusive way. They are spaces for all employees to come together and bring life to their ideas and projects. Our workplaces foster our company’s culture and create a productive work environment to support our growth.'

As the pandemic hit, Workplace teams mobilized to make our offices “covid-secure,” from designing hand sanitizer dispensers to paper desk covers, we tried to think of everything. Then, just as we were gaining momentum, the move to a total lockdown left us with no physical offices, the same number of customers and a whole new definition of “workplace.”

Workplace team members quickly developed a series of inventive initiatives geared to nurturing Criteo’s Together value by keeping teams feeling connected to each other, the company and helping them find new ways to work together. As the lockdown extended, we further refined and tailored our offerings, curating our “Radio Criteo” playlists, adjusting the pace of exercise classes, adding yoga and stretch sessions and discovering new recipes in our cooking and cocktail classes.

3 lessons for the new workplace

Today, as Workplace teams prepare to welcome customers back into offices that are being re-thought and re-designed (starting with Singapore in July) three take-ways from our collective experience of the past year stand out:

The workplace isn’t just about work

The workplace is no longer where we come primarily to create work product, instead, it’s a center for interaction, connection and collaboration. Working from home 1-4 days a week, Criteos will spend their time in the office on the other days connecting with each other, the company and its brand.

A global workplace strategy can be built bottom-up

Where do Criteos go when they need to work solo or when particular focus is needed? To locations designed according to their own feedback, provided in workshops and “serious gaming” sessions that helped us identify their priorities and preferred ways of working. From these came space budgets for our designers that are being turned into constructed reality in the first wave of Criteo sites.

It’s all about the flexibility

Like many things post-covid, it’s a brave new world and we’re all going to be learning and adapting at the same time. Criteos will need to decide on their own house rules for the open spaces in which everyone will be coming and going. Managers will need to learn new, flexible ways of leading. As for the workplace.. we’ll watch carefully how the space is used and be ready to further adapt to meet our customers’ needs, in keeping with the culture of our “Criteo Home.”

So, what am I looking forward to most in our new offices? For me it is simply being there on the first day to welcome Criteos to their new workspace and seeing the reaction on their faces. It’s one of the things that I like best about my job!

Mike Walley

Senior Director of Global Real Estate & Workplace Strategy at Criteo

The Future is Yours.

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