If you worked in an office with these amenities, putting in extra hours may not sound so bad
Stepping into the offices of Singapore-based cash rebate service ShopBack, one gets the feeling that its design brief read: “An office that embodies the essence of work-life balance.”
Half of ShopBack Singapore’s office space is dedicated to open-floor workspace, while the other half is dedicated to meeting rooms and creature comforts. Wu Ying Ying, Regional Head of Communications at ShopBack, took this reporter on a short tour of the office’s delightful amenities and features.
Have a look!
A family that bonds over the universal language of music is stronger; and pianos are great for those wholesome and boisterous occasions. ShopBack has placed team photos on the piano’s top, as a nice touch (and maybe, to inspire the pianist).
This chill-out lounge is actually situated on an elevated platform, much like a big bunk bed. The soft toys on the far right and left are ShopBack’s mascots. There are also two fairly decent-sounding acoustic guitars.
Add those to the piano, and you got yourself a neat three-piece band setup. Or you could just lay on the sofa and strum some tunes. If you play Wonderwall you will get thrown off the bunk though (just kidding)
No millennial-staffed startup office is complete without a foosball table.
The gamer geeks at ShopBack are truly blessed. They have a Nintendo Wii U and Oculus VR to play with. Now I’m jealous — I don’t even have one of those cardboard VR headsets to begin with.
Very clear, straightforward steps for operating the consoles and VR, ShopBack clearly looks out for its less tech savvy people.
Instead of a television, ShopBack uses a projector to project games, company presentations, films, and videos on a wall. At the back, you can see the staircase that leads to the elevated platform I mentioned earlier.
Fake grass patches and an array of low lounge chairs make for a comfortable space to rest, meditate and clear one’s mind.
By the way, here’s an interesting fact. ShopBack has an intern-led initiative called “Shopcation”. Basically, one day, a group of interns thought it would be nice to have a sleepover. They watched films, sang happy songs, and just generally bonded with each other. This event became a Thursday night ritual for some interns.
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Internships aren’t like what they used to be. Normally, I would have questioned their sanity for even entertaining such a thought, but with such amenities, maybe a sleepover in an office doesn’t sound asinine.
Check out this cool meeting CRM developed in-house. It syncs with ShopBack’s google calendar so that staff can book meeting rooms without clashing with each other’s schedules. Every meeting room comes with an alarm that goes off when another’s staff appointment is about to come up.
ShopBack’s teams are segregated into different silos. Large TV panels display each team’s performance metrics, allowing everyone in the team to track statistics easily.
For the customer service team, it is the individual’s performances that are being tracked on the screen, for example, the number of tickets they have cleared for the week. Wu told me that each individual’s performance in the customer service team are tracked by emoticons. Want to stop that smiley emoticon from turning into a frown? Better work hard.
This staff photo wall shows how much ShopBack has grown in just a few years. Class of ’14 will have many tales to tell each fresh batch, for sure.
On the right are staff suggestions on company retreat destinations. There is one person that clearly loves the office too much, as you can tell.
ShopBack embarked on an experiment to grow their own dried flowers. It failed.
Every two weeks, a different group of ShopBack staff are assigned to oversee food supplies. The first rule I learnt when I was in film school was: Feed your crew (or they will turn rowdy). ShopBack has over 90 people in its Singapore office, so keeping all of them fed is quite a heavy responsibility!
The pantry looks like a convenience store. So many delicious snacks. That purple note reads: “Help the co. save $, help yourself lose weight!”.
That mural, painted by ShopBack’s graphic designers, depicts all the markets — represented by their cultural icons — the company is operating in.
ShopBack has a modest library of entrepreneur-focussed and business skills books.
Staff can also leave book reviews after they have finished reading each book.
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