When it was time to build our brand new HQ in TLV, we knew it had to reflect our culture and values. How did we do it? Lior Pinco, one of the team members who worked on this huge project, explains.
How it all started
A little over 4 years ago, we started a renovation in Hangar 1 in the Tel Aviv port. What most people didn’t know yet, is that that project - which was a great success - was actually a pilot for the overall design concept for Wix Campus: our brand new HQ in Tel Aviv. It was also led by the same team that would end up leading this ambitious project - myself included.
When the offer to be part of the team who’s planning the Campus came, I couldn't say no, as this was a “once-in-a-lifetime” project. After all, how often do you get to build an HQ for a global company, right here at home?
The goal: huge-yet-intimate
The vision for the project was clear: to create a long-term space for all Wix TLV employees, instead of the multiple offices we were spread across at the time. We knew we wanted someplace that would allow us to continue growing and would be worthy of a company in our scale; we also knew that there was no way this was going to be a building where you spend your day and only see the people you work with - we needed to allow for many spontaneous meetings and encounters between people from different teams, as well as casual hangouts. It's too embedded into our culture.
It’s definitely difficult to maintain a startup feeling in a Campus of 2,000+ employees, and we needed to make sure that the many external partners working on this project “get” us - and thus, the Campus team was born. It’s a mix of veteran employees who’ve been at Wix for many years, and a group of professionals of kinds we never had at Wix before. That led to a team that has, among others, an interior designer, a chef, a former secret service officer and an accountant. Together, this eclectic group is responsible for not only planning and designing every single thing across the project, but also to operate it from the day the first employee moved in.
Once an architects firm was selected, their representatives came to our offices and interviewed 300 Wix employees - from new recruits to senior managers - to find out what our real needs are. They conducted a thorough research of how Wix operates, to make sure that the Campus gives our people the best experience possible: how many informal meetings are taking place? How many people sit in an average meeting? How often does a person grab a chair and join someone else’s desk? This data became the cornerstone to pretty much every major decision we took for this Campus.
Communication & transparency are key
Since transparency is one of our core values, communication with the employees was also key. We built a website with the information, illustrations and numbers we knew about the project; and every 2 weeks I sent out an email, “The Campus Chronicles”, with a more detailed explanation about every aspect of the project in real time, complete with photos from the construction site. We also held tours of the site with any team that wanted one, to convey the sheer size of the place.
All of this led to the incredible Campus we have today - and it’s not even completely finished: by the end of the year the Campus will be complete, including a 20-ton metal staircase that will be a masterpiece, and for the first time in a very long time, the vast majority of Wix IL employees will once again all be under the same roof. I can’t wait!
By: Lior Pinco, Design Guild Operations Manager
