I visited Google’s offices in Tel Aviv!
If my visit could be summarized in one sentence, I’d say I experienced a sophisticated office environment that encourages creative effort.
The open expanses and the innovative design differ completely from the classic conservative planning that shows, for example, in the legal offices I visit. Instead of closed-off individual offices in various sizes offering each employee complete privacy, there is seating for Google employees in open spaces where they can make eye contact at any time. The floors aren’t divided into offices, conference rooms, and auxiliary areas such as reception, file room, and kitchen; instead, they’re divided into open workspaces and areas for special meetings, restaurants, and little pleasures.
As soon as you enter, you’re greeted in the reception area by benches with cushions, instead of simple chairs or armchairs. The Google sign is merrily colorful. The ceiling is high, with pipes exposed in an ultramodern design. Special materials are used that don’t often serve in the finishing elements for an office. This design language is repeated on all the floors of the company, where each area develops a different motif that is also unconventional in office space design: a forest area or street area, a fruit and vegetable market, a beach, a night club, a diner or barroom. From the first moment, you understand that you’re in a place that’s totally unlike what you’ve known so far!
The areas for holding meetings and exchanging ideas are inviting, the visual variations are exciting, and the comfort is addictive… There’s a music area, and another area that’s set aside as a quiet space. There are game areas and little “living rooms” with various armchairs for sprawling comfortably and pondering this and that. The Google offices in Tel Aviv include five different restaurants for breakfast, lunch, and supper. There are juice bars with other soft drinks as well, and a coffee barista. There are snacks and candies (“hidden” in drawers). The feeling is one of mutuality between the company, which invests in the employees and in their wellbeing, and the employees who for their part invest their labor. I was impressed that despite the variety of possible distractions, work proceeds energetically at the Google offices.
In addition, Google helps its employees focus on their work rather than on bothersome errands and chores, avoiding unnecessary travel that requires planning, organizing, and time off. The gym is well equipped and provides for proceeding from the morning workout to the workday with no time wasted. There are showers, of course, and a spa as well. The company has a postal service for receiving packages and other mail, and it has washing machines and dryers, manicure and pedicure services, a barber, and a dentist and dental hygienist who are on site from time to time. So as I was saying, the employees don’t need to leave the offices in order to find a good cup of coffee, a sandwich, or a hot meal of any kind.
In the past, conventional wisdom considered that employees work best in a closed-off space where they can concentrate on the task at hand with no interference from the environment. Today, open space is nurturing open-mindedness, as conversations among employees encourage exchange of ideas and brainstorming. Each employee occupies a variety of areas on different floors during the day, with different people, in an informal atmosphere of multitasking. The result is innovative, original thinking.