On Monday, a new office space opens in Sheffield. Called the Electric Works, it's for media-related businesses, and its claim to fame is a helter-skelter that runs right through the middle of it.
Quite a big helter-skelter, in fact. It goes down three storeys, which is a 40ft drop, which in helter-skelter terms means 87ft of, in this instance, steel and transparent plastic.
Yes, it's a gimmick. But I love the way they've tied it into the 'values' of contemporary media business. Designer Toby Hyam apparently refers to it as a 'statement on risk-taking'.
Those of us who are in the business of advising on, or growing, employer brands will know that nothing communicates messages better than this kind of innovation. People talk about it around water-coolers. Newspapers report upon it. And every time the story is told, something is communicated about your organisational values.
It's like the woman who flew in from Benidorm every week just to work at ASDA; the desks at Amazon that are made from garage doors, just like the original Jeff Bezos used when he first set up the business; the donations Microsoft made to charity if people didn't exceed normal working hours.
Can't see many of these being developed in the current climate - but afterwards, the ability to dream them up and implement them will be a profitable tool in employment marketing.
Our lift's broken. Maybe we could produce an internal memo suggesting that it's an employer brand symbol of promoting healthy living through stair use?
Posted by: Jamie White | March 04, 2009 at 03:25 PM