Hannaford Scarborough Home Office Renovation

Hannaford Scarborough Home Office Renovation

Hannaford, a northeastern supermarket chain, embarked on an ambitious renovation project aimed at transforming their workplace environment for 1,000 employees. The existing spaces and furniture needed modernization, and there were many code deficiencies throughout the building. Seeing the opportunity to leverage their work environment as a tool for attracting and retaining talent, upgrades to the Hannaford home office in Scarborough, Maine, elevate employee experience through a thoughtful approach to employee well-being and address the needs of a hybrid workforce.

Central to the design approach was the incorporation of ongoing employee feedback providing data to enable decision-making and develop clear goals and priorities for Hannaford’s future workplace. Our process included a workplace needs assessment and space utilization study, incorporating employee surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Informed by employee engagement, a design narrative centered around community and connection emerged, with the core desired outcome of creating an equitable and inclusive work environment in alignment with Hannaford’s positive and welcoming culture.

Our team guided a complete reimagining of the building, decreasing the footprint and leaving room within the building for future growth. Hannaford’s highly flexible workplace strategy takes advantage of team-based neighborhoods where individuals are assigned to neighborhoods with frequent collaborators and not to a seat. Each neighborhood offers a variety of unassigned work settings, offering equitable access to ergonomic, tech-enabled workspaces, comfortable lounge seating, and closed-door focus rooms. The landscape of work setting options was designed to foster inclusion with the needs of a neurodiverse work population in mind. The innovatively designed neighborhood model allows employees of the many brands under Hannaford and its global parent operating out of this building to flexibly move and expand as their business needs change.

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Client
Hannaford Bros.
Location
Scarborough, ME
Square Feet
280,000
Hannaford adopted a model where associates are assigned to neighborhoods based on their most frequent collaborators rather than a specific seat. A pre-pandemic space utilization study indicated that individual assigned seating remained vacant 60% of the work week. To better use the space, Hannaford reduced the number of individual seats and created higher-value, shared spaces. In addition to tech-enabled meeting spaces for in-person collaboration, all associates have access to single-user focus rooms designed to provide employees with the privacy and productivity they need to work efficiently, much like they would experience while working from home.
Reducing the amount of space allocated to assigned, individual workspaces also offered the ability to create culture-enhancing amenity spaces, like centralized, flexible gathering spaces to foster casual meetings and social connection.
Decreasing the amount of space devoted to individual workspaces offered the opportunity to increase access to valuable shared spaces and a much-needed doubling of access to meeting rooms.
Recognizing the importance of bringing people back to the office in support of community and mentoring, SMRT worked with Hannaford to create amenity spaces that generate excitement for a hybrid workforce to return to the office, like a large, light-filled fitness center. SMRT’s focus on employee health and well-being is reflected in the design, promoting community and connection while ensuring the safety and comfort of Hannaford’s employees.
Design features include the use of color, natural materials, and graphics to enhance wayfinding and sense of place to create visual landmarks throughout the building.

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