CNO Stories

Early in the COVID pandemic, CNO surveyed our associates and spent a lot of time rethinking how we work and how our offices might support a new model.

Not a surprise, our associates told us that they wanted flexibility and a mix of working from home and from the office – essentially a hybrid workplace.

“We knew we were not going to return to the same work experience we left in March 2020,” said Matthew Woodruff, vice president, facilities. “We not only actively planned for associates to return to the office, but also reinvented how we work with a new reimagined workspace to complement. Quite frankly, our Carmel offices needed a makeover - a fresh, new and modern look to inspire and engage our associates.” 

At our corporate headquarters in Carmel, Indiana, we did major renovations on about 7,000 sq. ft of workspace, completely gutting one floor of our building. We wanted to pilot new spaces and configurations to support the new hybrid workplace. And, we wanted associate feedback about how they were working in these new spaces to potentially expand to other floors, buildings and other corporate locations in Chicago, Philadelphia, Orlando, Milwaukee, and Birmingham, Alabama.

The majority of associates coming into the office will do so to collaborate and host team meetings. In the newly renovated space, associates have use of new, large collaboration spaces, project zones, and Microsoft Teams-enabled meeting rooms. For times when “heads down” work is required, we have new quiet zones, focus rooms, and phone booths.  

Another noticeable difference is our associates no longer have permanent desk spaces as we’ve moved to a hoteling environment. Associates can pick whatever space works for them while they are in the office. In fact, we encourage associates to test out new spaces while they are in the office and pick a space that works best for the time they are in the office.

Check out our new spaces in our Carmel, Indiana headquarters.