Bright team, bright office: These Lockton associates enjoy lots of natural light illuminating their workstations at the new Lockton Place at 3657 Briarpark.
Lockton associates enjoy amenities at newest office building in Westchase District
As the world’s largest privately-owned, independent insurance brokerage firm, Lockton Companies, Inc. provides insurance, risk management and employee benefits solutions from 85 locations in 26 countries. Recently, Lockton relocated its 280 Houston employees from the Galleria area to a brand new office building in Westchase District.
Building a better workspace
“Previously, it could take our associates 30 to 40 minutes sometimes to get to a major traffic artery,” said Clay Brooks, senior vice president with Lockton. “When our lease came up, we decided to look at what made the most sense for our clients and our people in terms of accessibility.”
Lockton conducted focus groups with its Houston employees to determine what they would want in their ideal office. The result of that feedback can be seen at Lockton Place, located at 3657 Briarpark Drive. “Our new location is close to both Beltway 8 and the Westpark Tollway, plus our new parking garage is much easier to get into.” Working with Triten Real Estate Partners, Lockton – which occupies about 80,000 square feet on four floors of the eight-story building – had significant input into the design and amenities of the building.
Designers created for Lockton more open spaces with plenty of windows allowing in natural light. Instead of corner offices for executives, the glass corner windows of the building are reserved for employees at workstations to enjoy as much natural light as possible. “The next generation of insurance brokers works differently and so we want a space that will accommodate how they work, meet and even relax,” Brooks said. “This building was designed to be scalable and flexible to allow for growth within the company, whether that’s adding more workstations or even utilizing coworking spaces.”
Table Tennis and Touchscreens: The break space at Lockton’s office includes an outdoor patio as well as a ping pong table and a touchscreen soda machine.
Convenience and comfort
Lockton’s eighth floor features an expansive break area that can be converted to host meetings as well as social functions and other business gatherings. A ping pong table and a touchscreen soda machine complement an outdoor patio fitted with glass garage-style doors and folding panels that can keep the area cool when the weather heats up. “The space is shaded all day long, so it really gives us options for fresh air with a great view,” Brooks said. “It allows us to host events onsite that can better accommodate the schedules of working parents.”
Other building amenities include a workout facility with showers, drop-off dry cleaning service, onsite car detailing and Grub, a café that offers beer taps, a ping pong table and catering services. “Whether we need food for small meetings or large events, we can simply order it from downstairs, which is really nice,” Brooks said.
“Culture is important to us at Lockton and we wanted to create a workspace that is convenient and comfortable for our associates as well as our clients,” said Yara Klimchak, communications specialist with Lockton. “We plan to continue to grow over the next 10 years, so we’re looking at what our future associates and our future clients want in the design and aesthetics of their offices. We care not only about retaining our clients but retaining our associates so that we can continue to have those strong customer relationships.”
