Hello, Benefex West!
Our office expansion and redesign
13.09.19
Lorelei Bowman
Copywriter
From Founder & CEO Matt Macri-Waller’s home office in 2003, to the first official Benefex Office in 2004, and the 2009 move to Southampton Town Quay, Benefex HQ has become much more than just a workplace. When we moved to Mountbatten House in 2011, little did we know we were making a whole new home-away-from-home.
Our Mountbatten home has seen many iterations along the way, but in August the most exciting one came along! We had outgrown our third-floor office and we needed to find homes for our 250-strong team, so, we expanded into the neighbouring wing of Mountbatten House – aptly named ‘Benefex West’. With this came a whole redesign of the existing offices, and exciting move across to our new wing.
So, without further ado...
Introducing Benefex West and Benefex East
When you first exit the lift on the third floor (or fourth floor if you’re American) of Mountbatten House, you’ll be greeted by our sleek möbius strip ‘B’ logo.
Our original office space – now Benefex East – is home to our OneHub specialists, all customer-facing departments and our Support Centre. And not to fear, the iconic picnic bench and customer cloud wall are still here (they just had a makeover!)
Across the hall in newly-acquired Benefex West, you can find the main reception plus Engineering and Product teams in their product zones and innovation lab, and Marketing and Design tucked away in the Creative Corner – not to mention our fantastic IT, Security and HR teams.
Our logo is a beautiful möbius strip that forms the shape of a ‘B’. It represents agility, fluidity, but also continual movement.
Benefex reception
Creative corner
Product zones
Benefex East
Hot-desks galore!
Having grown by almost 23% in just one year, a huge part of our expansion was to fulfil the need for more desk space. Along with the team layout, we’ve also added several hot-desk areas in both Benefex East and West, equipped with retractable cables, whiteboards, wall displays and standing desks.
Meeting our needs
Another huge bonus of our expansion was the addition of five (yes, five!) new meeting rooms, seating from four to 16 people each. All our meeting rooms have been fitted with the highest-quality tech, from sharing displays and portable microphones to remote HQ webcams. Now, when we host calls or video chats everyone can have equal input without straining their neck to be in shot or voice to be heard! It’s as easy as if everyone was in the same room.
Naturally, we held an in-house competition for the room names. Can you guess the winning theme?
Shamrock room
Emerald room
Racing room
Avocado room
Sea room
Hunter room
I need some space…
That’s right, on top of our snazzy meeting spaces, we have two dedicated soundproofed phone rooms and six additional booths dotted around Benefex, each equipped with the same top-of-the-line tech as our meeting rooms. Whether you’re having a one-to-one, a last-minute conference call or need some time alone to focus on an important document, these cosy booths are perfect!
Meeting room full?
Pull up a seat!
For calls and catch-ups
The ultimate customer experience
If you’re one of our lucky customers, you’ll likely also soon find yourself in these lovely spaces and enjoying the two brand-new customer kitchens (one in each wing) fitted out with coffee machines, an array of herbal tea and chilled/sparkling water taps.
For breaks and breakout sessions alike
If that wasn’t enough, we like to give our Benefexers choice (a lot of choice) when it comes to relaxing on a break or catching up on projects – so we’ve got four brand-new sofa nooks! With the softest sofas, plenty of workspace and WiFi access, there’s nothing to stop meetings being the comfiest part of the day! What’s more, our library of books is spread around the sofa zones, giving employees all the resources they need, from design, engineering or coding, to marketing, management and employee experience!
We’ve also invested in some incredibly comfy beanbags which are perfect for team catch-ups or some solo concentration. Though, you may need a colleague to help you up…
Now, who ordered the matcha latte…?
Over in Benefex East...
And Benefex West!
One of our breakout spaces
The ultimate meeting
All the help you need
Hello, Benefex!
Take a seat
Not to brag...
We love some green!
And finally, the Benefex Hub…
The kitchen(s)! That’s right, we’ve rejuvenated our existing Benefex kitchen space and added a new kitchen in Benefex West. With unlimited coffee, tea, fridge space and coffee machines, this is most likely where you’ll find us getting ready for the day, or catching up with colleagues at lunchtime. Especially as Benefex East’s kitchen includes our game corner, values wall and company charter!
Our team charters
Fancy a flick?
Plants, plants everywhere!
Caffeine time!
Our company values
Sit back and relax
Up for a game?
Benefex East's kitchen
Safe and sound
The end!
Thanks for joining us on this tour of our office redesign and expansion. We’re absolutely thrilled with the new spaces and can’t wait for our amazing customers and employees to start benefitting.
Lorelei Bowman
Lorelei is an avid proponent of iced coffee, video games and anything to do with outerspace.
Copywriter by day, filmmaker by night – Lorelei graduated from university with a degree in Film and Screenwriting, and continues to write and direct films with their production company.
When not at work, you can probably stumble upon Lorelei buying overpriced cold brew in a hipster coffee shop while editing a screenplay or rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the 100th time.