Just over 5 years ago, I decided to start on a journey to make our office an amazing place to work. The first brave step was to cancel the traditional office Christmas party, and instead allow everyone to vote on what to spend the money on instead. 

Year One was table football (and a  Dr Who door wrap to the store room). Getting everyone up away from their desks and doing something even remotely physical during break and lunch times increased office productivity (in terms of volumes of lines of code written) by 80%. Effectively, we almost doubled our team, without any additional salaries. Lots of noise and laughter every day. We also ditched our training room and turned it into a table-tennis room, but unfortunately that only lasted 6 months before we realised we actually needed a training room.

Year Two was coffee. No more instant coffee, instead, getting some proper Nespresso coffee machines and pods. We go through around 1000 coffee pods a month, so its not the cheapest office upgrade. In terms of staff and visitor happiness, it's revolutionary.

Year Three - The Lego invasion (and a soft-drinks fridge). We decided to do a monthly office-wide Lego building project. The instructions sit open on a communal table, and everyone can contribute a couple of instructions every day to allow the creation to take shape. Lots of fun, and a rest for the eyes from screens. A positive step towards a fun environment. For some reason visitors to the office automatically assume that we do no work at all once they see the Lego. A strange side-effect.

Year Four - Apple TV. An unusual year this one as it definitely did not increase productivity. The addition of an Apple TV and 55" 4K TV to our board room meant that during the Olympics, Wimbledon and other large-scale sporting events the team could sit in the boardroom working on laptops with the event on in the background. Subsequently we have added the same 55" 4K UHD TV's and Apple TVs to every office.

Year Five - Gaming. A Harry Potter themed chess set, Abalone, Exploding Kittens, Cul-de-sac, Bananagrams and numerous other games invaded the office last year. Inspired by many staff dreaming up the idea of a boardgames cafe, we decided we could run a trial one internally first, so many lunchtimes are now consumed with complex games that take over the board-room table for days on end.

All-in-all it has been an incredible journey. The difference between the office environment today compared to 5 years ago is staggering. The team who works here actively enjoys coming to the office, its an engaging and tactile place to spend time. Those who regularly work from home fill the office with laughter when working from here, and without prompting make active attempts to work from here far more often than ever before.

Other things we have introduced to inspire and promote creativity in our office:

• Good Weather Policy - if the outdoor temperature rises about 20 degrees C (unusual in Northern Ireland) and its blue skies, then staff may take up to 5 days per year where we close the office completely to allow everyone to go to the beach.

• "Board Meetings" - in conjunction with the Good Weather Policy, we can re-locate our meetings to be held whilst on surf or bodyboards with wetsuits on in the sea. Great fun, and always results in getting coffee afterwards and has really promoted bonding as a team.

• iTunes / App Store Monthly Credit - we allow £25 per member of staff per calendar month and top up their iTunes accounts so that they can buy Movies, Music or any other Apple TV+/Games/Netflix/ Subscriptions

• Christmas closure policy - to ensure that everyone (including me) gets a holiday, the whole office is closed from the Friday before Christmas until the Monday after New Year every year (or a minimum of 2 weeks if it is ever less). We block all email and telephone calls during this time, and insist that no work is done. This precious time is time for family and friends, so we add any closure days on top of annual leave allowances so that staff do not have to worry about saving days for Christmas closures.

• Work Away Policy - sometimes we all need to just get away and work from somewhere else to inspire creativity and productivity. We all jump in our cars and head off to a local coffee shop, restaurant, hotel (or even the beach) and sit on our MacBooks and work from there. The work away policy is activated by a majority of staff wishing to partake. Most recently, we all went ice skating and then went and worked from the IKEA food hall for the afternoon and got to eat lots of their delicious food.

• Staff Meeting Locations - we have stopped doing our whole team meetings in the office and now take it in turns to hold the meeting at our houses (for staff members who are happy to have an invasion). If you are hosting the staff meeting at 2pm, you get to work from home that day.

• Working From Home (Added as a result of COVID) - all staff can now choose if they would like to work at home full time, part-time or none of the time. Entirely at their discretion. The only mandatory thing that they must attend is the weekly staff meeting in person (if regulations permit this).

The Christmas 2019 "upgrade" to the office was to get everyone sitting more comfortably!