Natixis' employees can travel around the world in its Villages
French investment bank's "The Villages" project opens new floor and "new cities" this Thursday.
Porto.
· 20 Jan 2023
The entrance to the renovated Natixis Centre of Excellence, in the Porto Business Plaza, simulates an airport. From there, it is the workers who choose the destination: Mexico City, Shanghai, Tokyo, London, Bangalore or Brooklyn. This Thursday, the French investment bank put new cities in the passport of "The Villages" project, a revolution in the office world.
The inauguration was attended by the councillor for Economy, Employment and Entrepreneurship, Ricardo Valente, the CEO of Natixis in Portugal, Etienne Huret, and Véronique Sani, operations director of Global Financial Services of the BPCE group, of which the bank is part.
Since September, Natixis workers could already work "from" Manaus, Santiago, Dakar, Muscat and, of course from Porto, and today there are 12 cities built in more than 3,800 m2, an immersive concept, which includes sounds and smells and, the company believes, is able to "enhance sharing, creativity, innovation, agility and collaboration".
For the Natixis director in Portugal, the "Villages" represent "an absolutely innovative concept and celebrate our diversity, reaffirming the expansion plans we have for this project in Porto".
"It is a format that allows us to leverage real moments of collaboration and socialisation between teams and transform the experience of the hybrid working model. At the Villages, creativity and innovation have no limits", believes Etienne Huret.
Now, from the iconic London phone boxes, a Shanghai tea room, a temple in Bangalore, or while participating in an origami workshop in Tokyo, Natixis employees will be able to continue to develop "innovative solutions for Groupe BPCE's business, operations and work culture around the world".
The Centre of Excellence it has in Porto since 2018 currently employs two thousand people assigned to the areas of Information Technology, Banking Support Activities and Compliance. According to the French bank, "the project in Porto is one of the largest investments in human resources ever made by Natixis worldwide".
