Without worries and stress.
The 10 principles of healthy working
You can never save on health and productivity. One is inextricably linked to the other. MeetDistrict therefore puts 10 principles of healthy working first. In this way we do everything we can to make you work smoothly and safely.
Do you have to go outside at work for fresh air? Then never go back inside.
We are all concerned about outdoor air pollution. And rightly so. But there is also such a thing as indoor air pollution. And it often has an even greater impact on our health. In poorly ventilated indoor spaces we become drowsy, get headaches and are more susceptible to viruses.
At MeetDistrict, a state-of-the-art ventilation system constantly supplies fresh air. We continuously measure and correct the amount of CO2 and ensure that there are forty cubic metres of CO2 per person in each workspace. In addition, we guarantee a relative air humidity of 40% everywhere, you won't find any sources of pollution such as smelly carpets in our buildings and we replace our air filters after just one year.
Why are we fanatical about air? Fresh air pumps new life into your brain. It also keeps viruses out of your body: in a well-ventilated workspace, the concentration of infected virus particles is never high enough to infect anyone.
If you literally see the light, you will also see it figuratively.
Light releases serotonin - also known as: the happiness hormone - in our heads. Scientists advise us to 'consume' at least four hours of light every day: sunlight if possible, artificial light if necessary. Less light makes us less productive. Not only plants grow towards the light.
Because we don't easily ignore scientific insights, the windows in almost all of our workspaces reach from the floor to the ceiling. Our offices are no more than ten metres from a window (five metres if, exceptionally, the window does not reach from the floor to the ceiling). And our lamps are replaced long before they break down: this way we can be sure that they always have the right light intensity.
Also ask for a room with a view in the office.
When we go to a hotel on the coast, we ask for a room with a sea view. But in the office, we settle for the facade of our office neighbours. Wrongly so. Studies prove that an office with a view leads to considerable productivity gains.
At MeetDistrict your eyes don't face a blind wall anywhere. On the contrary: they can enjoy the natural greenery that we have integrated into and around our buildings. And if you want to enjoy a genuine Harvey Spector view at work - you know: the Suits lawyer who gets his best ideas when he stares through the window in his Manhattan office - we can recommend MeetDistrict Berchem.
Headphones are for listening to the new Taylor Swift album. Not to protect you from ambient noise.
A workplace in which the noise pollution caused by your colleagues is kept to a minimum has a beneficial influence on the group feeling within a company. That is why we work with sound-absorbing materials in most of our rooms. Nothing is as sad as an office in which everyone has to wear headphones to protect themselves from ambient noise.
But sound, like everything else, is also a matter of psychology. In our silent rooms, we in fact emphasise every sound. In this way, everyone does their best to remain silent. And in other places we even add sound to. In our corridors, for example, we constantly play a neutral ambient sound. In this way, the telephone conversations you have there are not understandable and therefore not disturbing.
Free beer in the fridge: the sign that your workplace is taking you seriously.
"I beg your pardon? Free beer? And refrigerated as well?" Yep. Not that there is a beer smell wafting through the corridors at MeetDistrict. But we do think that successes should be celebrated spontaneously. When you only toast on a triumph weeks after the date, that delicious but oh so short-lived 'how brilliant we are together' feeling is long gone.
Group feeling: Books and books have been written about it, but the essence is and remains: make sure that every individual can belong to the group without having to undermine himself. That is why at MeetDistrict we have as many shared workspaces as private ones. That is why we never have more than 30 people populating a workspace. Personal space is also important in co-working spaces.
Your workplace has to adapt to you. Not the other way around.
In a healthy workplace, the temperature fluctuates between 20 and 25 degrees. Per degree higher or lower, the quality of our work decreases considerably. But of course temperature is also a subjective factor: what is too cold for one is too hot for the other.
That is why the MeetDistrict app allows you to choose exactly where the thermometer mercury should be. The next time you enter the same room, your smartphone will understand that you are back and automatically provide the same temperature.
In our jargon, this is called personality-based working. Translated freely: working is more successful when your workplace adapts to you instead of the other way around. That is also why MeetDistrict is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We don't have to decide when you come to work.
People aren’t full-time equivalents.
Researchers from the University of Warwick have found that happy people at work are up to 12% more productive than less happy ones. Now we do not believe that happiness should always be translated into economic terms. But if you promote healthy work, it is your duty to also contribute to people's mental wellbeing.
How we do this? By welcoming everyone with a smile every day. By providing a canteen full of healthy food. By offering fitness facilities. But above all: by unburdening people. By making sure they have nothing on their mind but ... their work.
And so we guarantee safe and impeccable Wi-Fi connections. Printer and coffee making problems are eliminated in record times. And we give you an app that allows you to do everything that less smart people pay a personal assistant to do: booking meeting rooms, ordering meals, operating the printer, setting the temperature, opening the car park barrier, you name it.
See MeetDistrict as a leasing company: if you rent office space from us, we take care of everything else. Office space with us is not a product, but a service.
Where you work is as important as who you work for.
Those who are 80 today have spent an average of 72 years of their lives in an indoor space. And very often that indoor space was an office. So the quality of your working environment is important.
That's why MeetDistrict's workplaces are located exclusively in healthy, sustainable buildings. With us, there are no depreciated buildings that spread a vintage musty odour even after renovation. Our workplaces meet the highest quality standards.
Pool tables are so 2010.
Companies where pool tables and Nerf guns are part of the office furniture often expect their people to be willing to work eighty hours a week if necessary. The company ping-pong table mainly serves to give exhausted workers the feeling that they still have a bit of a life outside of work.
In our opinion, this is a rather outdated view of work. In an office you have to first and foremost be able to work efficiently. If your working environment is healthy, stress-free and inspiring, you can get more out of your working day, go home early and play pool in a café instead of in the hallway. Much more fun.
A healthy workplace is not a cheap workplace. But it is a profitable one.
There are cheaper workplaces than MeetDistrict. But they usually do not make you more productive. And so they are not cheaper, but more expensive. Choosing MeetDistrict is a very profitable choice.
And it becomes even more so when you consider that working at MeetDistrict helps to attract the best talents on the market. The war for talent is no longer won with football tables and slides. But with a working environment in which people not only work better, but are also simply happier.
These companies already chose MeetDistrict ...
As a permanent workplace, for their event or for their training courses. The ways in which our service is used are countless. A constant is the healthy working environment in which they receive their own people and visitors.
