Spaniard Juvencio Maeztu, the IKEA India chief executive who operates out of the Cyber Hub corporate office in Gurgaon, has no assigned desk or even the proverbial corner room. “…Nothing is better than when we solve a challenge together. I can’t be a part of that if I sit isolated in a big chair in a corner room,” he says.That’s one of the key elements of the radical makeover that the IKEA India corporate office has just undergone. For important meetings or special talks, Maeztu hops into one of the many Mindscapes or smaller cubes that ensure both privacy and silence. He walks up to the Fika area — a coffee zone designed to allow random conversation — where he grabs his java and shoots the breeze with colleagues. His favourite hangout, though, is the quiet zone with a chaise lounge where he can put his feet up and ponder.The IKEA India office has just beaten the head office in Sweden to become the first activity-based IKEA office in the world. “IKEA India is in an expansion phase and the creative and collaborative working style that activity-based working methods support fit it well,” says Sweden-based Maria Heggartry, project leader Hubhult, IKEA of services who is leading the activity-based working (ABW) office projects for IKEA internally.In Sweden, Heggartry’s team is working on a large project to build a brand new corporate office for 800 workers based on ABW that will be ready to move in by September.The new IKEA India office has some obvious cost and business benefits. In a ramp-up phase, IKEA India has been hiring rapidly, and the earlier corporate office could accommodate just 140 people. “We did not have enough work desks. One option was to lease another space and move some of us there,” says Patrik Anbigtoni, communications and sustainability manager, IKEA India, who led this project. With the ABW-inspired makeover, it has 108 workstations, easily accommodates 170 people and is built for a peak capacity of 225. With innovative design and layout, the 23,000 sq ft office has suddenly expanded without any increase in space. The revamp, which cost €0.5 million, began in June last year and was ready by April this year.Before the makeover, the IKEA office was like any other where staff members had their own desks and sat segregated according to the departments they belonged to. With their assigned desks, executives were territorial in some sense and tended to work in silos with little interaction between teams. “We have a growing organisation with a need for cross-functional collaboration,” says Maeztu. The new ABW office is forcing people to intermingle and nudging them to collaborate in unexpected ways.Take the example of Neetu Kapasi, project leader, IKEA home furnishing knowledge: “By changing my desk I meet new people every day — people I may have not been interacting with before. And I have been able to recruit many new participants to my internal home furnishing competence workshops than in the past.”ABW offices use a lot of technology to enable smoother virtual and mobile working. The IKEA India office does that too. Any visitor who is at the reception to meet an executive must punch in his details including the cell number and get his photo clicked. The IKEA honcho gets an SMS alert with the visitor details and also his photo in his mail box wherever he is sitting in the office.The Wi-Fi office has internetbased telephony, which allows workers to ‘carry’ their extension wherever they are working by just punching in their code into the desk phones kept everywhere, including the meeting room.ABW offices are environmentfriendly and a firm step towards paperless workplaces. Before the makeover, the IKEA office had 12 printers. Now it has six. Two design-and-technology elements are helping curb printer usage. One, printers are fewer and further away from the desks, making it a little cumbersome for employees to pick up printouts. Two, the executive must physically be present at the printer and swipe his card to be able to get the prints out. So just pressing the print button isn’t enough to get a printout.Not having dedicated workstations — but just small personal cabinets — also means that employees find it tougher to store printed paper. Varun Vikram, who is part of the furniture and fabric purchasing team at IKEA, says his weekly printouts have virtually halved. Another step towards a paperless office are e-files where all important documents are now stored on a cloud (rather than maintaining hard copies, like earlier).The new office is also prodding its staff to segregate and dispose their garbage rather than just dumping it in bins below their desks. IKEA is now in discussions with DLF, the developer, to pilot segregated trash collection and disposal in the building.There were concerns when it all began. “The biggest was how coworkers would react to not having their own seat. But it has gone down really well,” says Mette Borup (Dorte Mandrup Architects), Copenhagen , an interior debigsigner for the project.Juhi Mathur, part of the communications team, recalls her old desk that was heavily personalised with calendars, planners, sticky notes for meetings and the like all over her pinup board. After a string of preparatory workshops for employees, she doesn’t miss her old workstation that much. Mathur now maintains all her notes and meetings in a diary she carries along. “I love the office. There is so much energy here,” she says.When Borup began designing the IKEA India office, her objective was “to create as many flexible spaces as possible”. For example, initially the quiet zone with a chaise lounge, from where one can gaze into the Gurgaon skyline, was meant for just that. But later the design team realised they needed space for workshops. Solution? Install projectors in the quiet zone and put in some chairs that made the space a lot more flexible in its usage. Even the cafeteria has been designed as a flexible place that serves as a lunch room but at other times is ideal for small meetings as well as town halls (it can accommodate 100, and is equipped with projectors and other like stuff ).IKEA’s Swedish origin does shows up in the colours and inspiration. “We wanted the office to reflect this,” says Borup. So materials were chosen with simplicity and honesty. The office has open installations and a bare ceiling which creates a more industrial feel than a typical corporate office. Some clear and bold colours are used but the base is crisp white, black, grey and there’s plywood to add a dash of playfulness and warmth.So does Maeztu miss anything about the old office? “Looking back, honestly…nothing. Now we only look forward.”