JAPAN'S BEST-DESIGNED OFFICES
Concept
Challenge and security come as a set
In an industry where tools and trends turn over monthly, CyberAgent’s office is built around two things engineers say they need: to catch new information fast, and to shut the world out and build. Hence the “Room of Spirit and Tech” for focus and the CREATIVE Lounge for learning and meeting people.
The company’s other principle is that bold challenges only happen on a foundation of security — chōsen to anshin wa setto. So the office is paired with an unusually detailed set of HR programmes meant to keep people working here for a long time.
Note: the workspace and lounge sections below come from WALL’s own 2017 interview, republished here; facilities may have changed since.
01 · Workspace
The Room of Spirit and Tech
A focus room only engineers and designers may use, named after the Hyperbolic Time Chamber in Dragon Ball — the place where one outside day equals a year inside. The idea is exactly that: go in, finish fast, come out. Wood and white, deliberately understated so neither engineers nor designers feel it belongs to the other camp.
Long tables sit far apart in an open room; lighting is kept soft and low so screens are easier on the eyes over long stretches. Desks adjust for standing or a balance ball; creators get wall-facing monitor desks, and a corner of bean bags is the most popular seat of all.
02 · Cafeteria & events
CREATIVE Lounge
A free space born so that study groups and tech events could be held casually, open to engineers from inside and outside the company; the logo is a light bulb drawn in soft curves. By day it is tables for four, sofas and standing desks, citrus aroma, daylight. For seminars the single-seat sofas face a lectern and two roll-down screens — 120 people. There are sofas for visitors at the back, a standing table with a whiteboard for quick meetings, and window-facing counter seats that fill up every day. The green on the floor is not only decoration: the walking routes are carpeted to soften footsteps.
03 · Welfare
Care rooms inside the office
A massage room with in-house therapists, free up to four times a month, in every office. A sick room to lie down in. Disinfectant and everyday medicines on every floor, gargle in the toilets.
04 · How they work
ENERGY, macalon and the two-station rule
ENERGY is a package of eight programmes for engineers and creators: a free-agent right to request transfers for growth; an engineer concierge who handles meetings, admin and expenses; private remote work for childcare or nursing care; a subsidy list for skill-building; working abroad for selected engineers; engineering camps in a lodge to launch new services; a company-wide tech conference; and TechCyBAR, an internal magazine for technical staff.
The macalon package — “mama, CyberAgent, long” — is nine programmes designed so that women keep working here: a monthly special day off whose name, F-kyū, hides the reason; fertility-treatment leave and counselling; egg-freezing support up to ¥400,000; working from home when a child is ill; half-days for school events; help with unlicensed nursery fees; subsidised lunches for mothers living in the same ward; and a parents’ newsletter. Rent support pays ¥30,000 a month to staff living within two stations of the office and ¥50,000 anywhere after five years. From the third year, five extra days off a year; a retirement bonus that starts accruing at 30; company-approved clubs (CArcle); free flu shots; and counselling the company never hears the content of.
