INTERVIEW
Inside Fast-Growing Harry’s, ROOM Booths Offer Critical Quiet
SEBASTIAN HAYTO, BRAND PARTNERSHIPS RICH CHEN, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, LABS
ROOM provides portable, flexible space to Harry’s ever-changing, collaborative offices.
Sebastian Hayto and Rich Chen are longtime employees of Harry’s, the leading men’s care brand.
Our company is chaotic in nature. But it’s a good chaos. It’s cross-functional and collaborative. Someone on the retail team can lean across the table and talk to someone in PR or marketing or distribution. We’re building a lot of things for the first time, so we’re constantly asking each other questions and double-checking work to make sure we’re learning together. Our company values are very centered around collaboration.
The new office in SoHo nurtures collaboration and conviviality, and spaces like the coffee hangouts are important.
Creativity is central to Harry’s success, through both product development and marketing. The new SoHo office hired artist Adrian Johnson to fill the space with creative inspiration.
Life before ROOM
There are pros and cons to an open office environment. Until we met the founders of ROOM, finding a quiet space was tricky. Conference rooms are in short supply, and they’re often a place of refuge. Several times, we’ve taken calls from storage closets or at one of our kitchen tables. Anywhere that you can find some quiet.
“Inside the ROOM phone booths, though, you feel like a king in a castle.”
It’s an elevating experience to have that kind of quiet space — all to yourself. We’re constantly on the phone with external partners. Especially when speaking with our international teams based in Germany and London, it’s critical to have a quiet space. ROOM is exactly that.
The solution for every space
Really, ROOM’s product is thoughtful, because they’ve hit on a pain point of so many young companies. You’re VC-backed and you’re growing fast and you want to capitalize on the momentum, but maybe you’ve signed a 10-year lease so you try to make the most of those few conference rooms you have. As your business changes constantly, so do your needs, but your space usually stays the same until you sign the next lease.
In New York, everyone is fighting for the square inch of these offices. You want to be competitive and it’s expensive to get it.
“Any flexibility you can incorporate into the office, the better. ROOM gives you that flexibility.”
The history of the brand and latest product releases are featured throughout the office to celebrate the team’s achievements.
The 100,000 square foot office supports a wealth of open environments, as well as spaces like ROOM office phone booths for privacy.
The fact that you can move these booths around is perfect. At Harry’s, our teams are changing constantly. Nothing stays the same for very long. Teams constantly move pods, wings, and floors, and this flexibility as we grow is important.
Ideal for moving a million miles per hour
Instead of just remodeling your office, you can easily put up a ROOM booth to accommodate for the changing dynamics of your work. You may be a big company that needs a centralized quiet space or perhaps be a tiny company with only one shared conference room that everyone tries to take over. ROOM’s phone booths work for both.
At Harry’s, meetings happen everywhere. The office is designed to promote different types of collaboration, ranging from formal get-togethers in conference rooms to impromptu conversations.
If you’re a company that's collaborative and you want to move a million miles a minute, it’s important to set yourself up with the right infrastructure. ROOM offers that quiet place, and any fast-growing company could benefit from them.
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