Aim to create an office that promotes a pleasant working environment for our employees.
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In February 2016, Euglena began a project to move to a new office. The partition of this project is Akihiko Nagata, a director in charge of finance and business strategy (at that time).

-One day, Nagata declared at a meeting where the directors gathered.
"Office is one of the important management strategies of a company. I want to create it firmly because it affects various aspects such as communication, productivity, recruitment. As long as it is within the budget, it is new with my choice and judgment until the end. Let me proceed with the move project to the office. "

How can it make it easier for my colleagues to work in the office?
How can more Euglena Group members work with diversity?

In designing the new office, Nagata set three important themes.
It is (1) to be able to select an environment where you can perform yourself while feeling a sense of unity, (2) to be able Euglena Co., Ltd., a company centered on science and technology, and (3) to change the life stages of working colleagues. It was something that could be dealt with.

"It is natural that the way of thinking and working is different depending on the environment in which you grew up and worked. I want to create an office that accepts the working style of each and every one of my colleagues, not what is good or bad!"

Euglena The common denominator that connects the group members is that they are centered around the management philosophy of "making people and the earth healthy." All other backgrounds are disjointed, and in the office, next to colleagues working on the development and sales of food and cosmetics, colleagues in charge of biofuels are involved in plant design, and researchers write papers. Sometimes it is.
And there are new graduates, people from major companies who joined the company mid-career, and colleagues who have served as president in the past. Because such diverse colleagues work together, it was necessary to emphasize whether each person could realize a more efficient and personalized work style in the office.

So Nagata came up with the idea of creating four selectable spaces in the office. There are four zones: a fixed seat zone where you can have your own fixed seat and make it your favorite place, a free address zone where you can work with different places and people every day, a cafe zone where you can chat and eat and drink, and a focus zone where you can concentrate on phone calls and conversations. It is. Through these efforts, we tried to realize that each and every one of our colleagues could work in their own optimal space, depending on the person, the day, and the time.

In addition, in the previous office, everyone had fixed seats for each department, so there was a tendency to divide the space, such as using words such as "that island" and "this island". However, I thought that it would be easier to create cross-departmental communication by interacting with people while going back and forth between the four zones.
In addition, Nagata sought to give Euglena like meaning by breaking down and understanding the behavior of people visiting Euglena

"We have many management teams in their thirties and young working members. Among the same generation who often start businesses in IT and web services, it is rare for a university-launched listed company to use science as a weapon."
-This is a word that Nagata often says.

As a premise design, the theme of the visitor zone is "lab", the theme is "laboratory", and the theme is "academia", while the atmosphere of the bio-based laboratory is desired to be open like a university laboratory. I decided to aim for a free atmosphere in the university. In particular, the visitor zone on the 3rd floor will incorporate many mechanisms to realize a life science laboratory, and will also provide an open space where free communication with external ventures will occur.

The theme of the visitor space on the 3rd floor is "Lab"
There is a little trick when looking through the microscope

In addition, President Izumo has set an in-house daycare center as one of his goals since he was in the Iidabashi office two years ago, and Nagata, together with the members of the moving project, set up a system in Tokyo to realize this idea. We decided to proceed with the establishment of a daycare center while utilizing it.

Increasing number of child-rearing generations and diverse working styles of the next child-rearing generation
Established an in-house nursery school for backup

As of April 2018.
About two months have passed since I moved to my new office.
As Nagata walked through the new office, he noticed that his colleagues were gradually changing.

In the new office, Euglena Group's GeneQuest, Real Tech Fund, and Helson are living together with free addresses. Until now, departments and generations that have had difficulty interacting with each other are sitting next to each other and communicating with each other. The members who go to lunch seem to have changed. Some people work in the environment that suits them best, going back and forth between cafe spaces and focus rooms.

Inspired by the new office, there is also a movement to prepare breakfast and lunch for everyone. Events such as yoga and gymnastics are also beginning to occur.

Every morning and noon, all the friends eat freshly cooked rice, natto, eggs, salad, etc.
Friends can eat freely, and fruits are also served on Tuesdays and Thursdays
Young colleagues play a central role in working to "make everyone in the office healthy"

In addition to being able to work in the cafe area
Breakfast and light meals are also provided, and conversations between friends are also lively.

In the free space on the 3rd floor, the members of the investment destination of the Real Tech Fund sit down as a matter of course and hold meetings and coworking with people outside the company. I am inspired by the environment where there are many managers based on the same research.

Although the utilization rate of in-house daycare centers is still low, some friends have begun to take care of their children for temporary childcare and break-in childcare.
More than that, from the generation who are not married or have no children, "In order to think about our life plan from now on, having a daycare center in the company has expanded the options and reduced the risk of assuming. I hear the voice.

Willful office design and design are changing people's leads and communications, which are beginning to change the thoughts and actions of their peers. "It won't be long before the results come to fruition in research and achievements." While feeling that way, Nagata is still warmly watching the changes of his friends today.

Posted in April 2018