65When we moved to our King’s
Cross office just over a year
ago, we wanted to build a creative
and collaborative space where
people were able to work together
and solve challenging problems.
Kalo allows freelancers and
companies to work with the best
talent anywhere in the world. We
decided our office setup needed to
reflect this ethos regardless of
whether you work remotely or
come into the office.
Our office space is completely
open plan and we work in our
project crews – teams that mix
product managers, designers and
engineers, rather than sitting in
our separate disciplines. It’s such
a collaborative way of working on
a problem and allows us to share
knowledge across the company.I enjoy spending time in
our chill-out area (1) with other
members of the team syncing
up with our San Francisco office,
remote workers and customers.
We have every room set up with
cameras, Jabra microphones
and speakers (2) to make this
feel seamless and remove any
communication barriers. Having
clear communication across
countries is critical to our culture.
We have our core values printed
on the wall (3) as we come into
the office to remind us what we
should be working towards each
day: “Make work beautiful”, “100%”,
“Serious fun” and “Go together”.
I love that we have photos of the
team (4) scattered throughout the
office – it makes the space feel
more personal and always brings asmile to my face. We take our work
seriously but not ourselves.
We listen to music in the office
through our Sonos speakers (5)
and, surprisingly, we generally
agree on the music choice – it’s
centrally controlled so anyone
can be the DJ. We normally play
chilled tunes during the week
with more upbeat selections on
a Friday to ease people into the
weekend. We’ve found playing
music in our offices makes for
a much more collaborative and
sociable environment.
Marker pens! (6) We’re a creative,
design-led company and have
whiteboard surfaces everywhere.
It’s great to be able to pick up a pen
and sketch out an idea whenever
you have one or use illustrations to
help communicate ideas regardless
of your team or discipline. Our
meeting room table is even a
whiteboard surface for sketching
ideas or taking notes.3241Lauren works as lead product designer
at Kalo, the world’s first freelancer
management platform.
w: kalohq.com
PROFILEKALO
Lead product designer at Kalo, Lauren Plews gives us abehind-the-scenes glimpse of the company’s London oL·ces
WORKSPACE