Sphere is Moving!
16 Jul, 20205 minsToday is the start of our moving day from Kingsway to our new home on Red Lion Street. A big...
Today is the start of our moving day from Kingsway to our new home on Red Lion Street. A bigger new office and a lease that we signed in February of this year to suit our expansion plans that we have been working in since the middle of 2019.
It is with a heavy heart that we move on from Kingsway and naturally, there is an element of sadness and nostalgia with the reality that we have not been able to have one big get together and one last office party together (although our valentines day cocktail evening was a fitting end, albeit we did not know this at the time).
When Sphere moved to Kingsway the business was a year old and made up of 9 people. Taking a five-year lease, with space for 30 people and the costs of a fit-out seemed like a big and scary step at the time...
A year later, we expanded to the floor below too!
We had quickly become 20 people and we knew we would need more space in the future. Yet having two floors and space for 80 people was another leap of faith.
That long term view and confidence to invest in people and belief in our incredible people served us so well then, just as it is doing now. It gave us stability and certainty and a place to make our own.
Kingsway has been an incredible home where we have grown from 9 to 65 people. We launched Sphere Graduate Recruitment, a contract business, a European Business, a US business, a data team a product marketing team and an internal recruitment function that became a people team - all while picking up 9 award wins along the way.
Much of this time blur into one and it has been a collection of so many events, experiences (highs and lows, small events and bigger ones too) and the winning formula of brilliant people, a strong cause and values that matter.
We’ve seen 3 general elections, 3 Prime Minister’s, Brexit, GDPR and we are now living and working through C-19. As a growing business and one that always strives forward, it has been a continually evolving world inside and outside of our four walls.
In so many ways the timing of the new office feels strange. A number of our team remain on Furlough; office fits out cost money; we do not know how often we will work from an office in the future (yet we have the ability in our new home to all be in on the same day, with social distancing measures in place, which we think is incredibly valuable); and now is not the right time to have the fan fair that we would have had with an office launch – be it the costs associated with this or the reality of the world around us.
Yet, stepping away from the short term concerns in these uncertain times we are so excited!
A fresh start, a new home after a period of reflection, where we are taking the chance to identify what we most want to do to become an even better business to work with and for.
A chance to start another five-year chapter.
When I look back on what has happened over the 6 years in Kingsway, the expansion, how we have all matured (personally, 2 home moves and 2 new arrivals into my family) and the sensational personal growth and success I have seen from within our team (17 new homeowners, countless promotions and personal milestones achieved inside and outside of work) and the inspiring successes of the people who we help find new roles and companies who we have the privilege of serving, I know that over the course of the next five years our new home on Red Lion Street will be a brilliant and happy place for us to achieve new things together.
Our values will be the same yet I know we will find new services to offer our customers, more ways to support the wellbeing and growth of our people and we will launch new parts of our business that thrive under the leadership of our existing team and the new people who will join us in the future.
As we quietly close the doors on Kingsway and safely open the doors on Red Lion Street I am grateful and optimistic about the five years ahead.
We all achieve so much more when we listen to others, support others, believe in others and work together. We have already started to see more than just the green shoots of recovery and we can not wait to get back to more prosperity and to being in growth mode again in our new home.
Thank you so much to everyone, past and present, who has played a part in the last six years of Sphere.
Ed Steer
Co-Founder and CEO
