Sky Bet ‘promotes’ WFH hybrid with new office design

Sky Betting and Gaming has announced plans to relocate its Leeds office to 4 Wellington Place, a new commercial development in the heart of the city centre.

The Flutter Entertainment owned betting operator is one of the largest employers in the city, and plans to consolidate around 1,400 employees in the new offices.

Sky Bet employees are currently working from home due to the ongoing pandmeic, but the firm’s Brand Creative and Sponsorship Director, Michael Afflick, has informed the Yorkshire Post that the company intends to pursue a policy of hybrid working.

Afflick commented: “We’re trying to promote working from home when you want to and coming into the office when you need to, which we think will be about 40% of the time.”

As part of this hybrid working strategy, Sky Bet intends to set up ‘neighbourhoods,’ which are physical spaces within the office which employees can also connect to from home.

The ‘neighbourhoods’ will take up floors two to six of the building, with between eight and 18 meeting rooms per floor and a total of 266 work desks, whilst the ground floor will contain a reception area and a retail space.

“We’re preparing for a post-COVID world so the desks won’t be two metres apart,” Afflick added.

“We want to make coming into work more appealing than it ever has before. We think that part-time office working and more collaborative spaces will set us up better for the future.”

Other facilities include an in house gym, a cafeteria on the seventh floor, a gaming room and a faith room.

Although the exterior construction work was completed before Christmas, the interior design is yet to be completed, and the firm is hopeful it will be open for business by the end of May.

The new development will see Sky Bet increase its office space to 136,000 square feet from 105,000 square feet, including more than double the amount of meeting rooms from 37 to 79.

The firm is also developing an app which staff can use to book meeting rooms and parking spaces, as well as investing £1 million on video conferencing and audiovisual equipment.