“Ervin & Smith’s office resembles an aquarium floating above the Aksarben Village street level. But instead of fish, there is a full-service advertising and public relations firm occupying the second floor of 1926 S. 67th St., Suite 250.”
We love this visual metaphor.
President and CEO Heidi Mausbach, talked to Omaha Magazine’s B2B about the collaborative culture that has flourished within these walls of windows.
The current design of our office is the result of a collaborative process focused on encouraging teamwork and engaging with the community. Feedback and insight on the ideal environment for a diverse workforce was important and encouraged—everyone from the Ervin & Smith team participated in the developer’s research.
“People wanted more private space, more collaborative space, more comfortable space, but many didn’t want an open environment. So, we really dug into what’s the problem and heard that a lot of times in an open environment it’s just flat desks all the way across, there is very little privacy,” Mausbach says.
Based on the information provided by the internal team, Mausbach challenged local architectural firm RDG Planning and Design to build an office space that encourages fun, collaboration and community involvement, while providing independent, private spaces to work.
“We want to continue to have a culture that people want to work here, so we can recruit and retain the best talent. We put a lot of emphasis on making it a great place to work,” says Mausbach, adding that one of Ervin & Smith’s goals is to foster career, social, financial, physical and community well-being among its employees, based on research from Gallup.
Ervin & Smith has been named a Best Places to Work by Ad Age in 2014, 2016 and 2017, a Top Company Culture by Entrepreneur magazine in 2017 and 2018 and received a Business Excellence Award for Leadership from the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce in 2018.
Read the full article in the October/November 2018 edition of B2B, or online.