The first day after the Easter long weekend saw ITV put the finishing touches on the revamp of its workspace at MediaCity UK’s Orange Tower in Salford, Greater Manchester.
“This is the first building we have fully adapted to hybrid working,” says Angela Linsky, ITV’s regional facilities manager. “We knew we couldn’t bring everybody back from home all day, every day. It feels quite brave and new.”
ITV might be known for its homegrown content – Coronation Street is filmed at MediaCity – but it has looked further afield for inspiration in the workplace, introducing what the team calls “the Manhattan concept” with workspace set out in different blocks for different teams and uses.
Rather than endless rows of desks, the company has focused on more complex layouts that also lean on circles, squares and hexagons. The goal is, in a creative company, to allow staff more flexibility to, well, be creative.
“The circle doesn’t have monitors on it, that’s for you to pop down with a laptop or sit and talk to each other to work on something,” Linsksy says. “The hexagons have monitors and six seats, and the squares have monitors and eight seats. So you can have whatever configuration you like and what works for you.
“When we had the big rows of desks, we were leaning in front of people and trying to talk to someone two desks down. This is much easier because you can be opposite people.”
Like many other occupiers rethinking the post-pandemic office, ITV has also increased the amount of informal space, adding more casual seating and booths, and building an extra meeting room.
Some of the amenities have also changed. ITV had a deli in the building when it moved in back in 2013 – “we couldn’t buy food anywhere else”, Linsky says – but continuing to pay for the service during the Covid lockdowns made little sense, and there are now many alternatives as MediaCity has grown.
In addition, ITV plans to bring its terrace back into use from the beginning of May. “MediaCity is so vibrant in the summer, and outside there’s always something going on,” says Linsky.
Many of the initiatives were mapped out ad hoc as the pandemic unfolded. “We saw an opportunity and made the most of it,” Linsky says. “The only difficulty was that we weren’t expecting to do it, so we didn’t even have a budget.”
That led to some creative approaches. Instead of buying new furniture, the company had existing pieces reupholstered. “Ten-year-old furniture has been given a new lease of life and it looks fabulous,” Linsky says. “We want to be environmentally conscious of carbon footprints – everybody does, don’t they?”
Elsewhere, the company has turned some of the acoustics panels from its studios into pin boards. And when the old can’t be made new, it has tried to find alternative ways of doing good – ITV has donated more than 300 books to Oxfam, while parts of the old carpet were given away to businesses as varied as a local nursery and a Thai boxing club.
“We always recycled,” Linsky says. “But we keep trying to challenge people a bit more.”
View letting comparables and events at MediaCity >>
To send feedback, e-mail evelina.grecenko@eg.co.uk or tweet @Gre_Eve or @EGPropertyNews
