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CBRE Meeting Room of The Year is reaping the rewards of success in Europe

The CBRE Meeting Room of the Year competition for the best office space was started in the Czech Republic in 2014, from where it has gone on to be successfully implemented in other countries. It is called “CBRE Office of the Year Award” in Austria, “Office of the Year” in Slovakia and "The Most Office” in Romania. In May 2017 the competition will be launched in Poland and will be called “Office Superstar”.

The mission of this competition is to spread the idea and awareness of quality work environments among professionals and the general public. The competition evaluates companies in several categories in terms of design, originality, innovation, practicality and attractive working environment for employees and visits some of the companies in person.

The competition has involved over 339 companies for all countries since the inception of the competition in 2014. The competition began in the Czech Republic (www.zasedackaroku.cz) before gaining an international dimension, with “Office of the Year” in Slovakia (officeroka.sk), “CBRE Office of the Year Award” in Austria (www.awards.cbre.at) and “The Most Office” in Romania (www.themostoffice.ro) joining in with their own competitions.

Petra Lávičková, Head of Marketing & PR at CBRE Czech Republic:

“We are really proud that the “Meeting Room of The Year” project is successful in other European countries. The competition participants have the opportunity of being among the leading companies that set office trends, with the possibility of meeting interesting people, gaining creative inspiration and interesting business contacts, all while being written into the history of the modern working environment.”

Among the winners there are such companies as Google, IBM Slovakia, ARKON, Expedia, Automic Software, Ernst & Young, Erste Group Bank, GSK – Glaxo Smithkline Pharma, DOKA, Mars Austria, IN-SPIRO, Air Bank, J & T Banka, Ogilvy & Mather, JetBrains, LIKO-S, Etnetera and Paper Hub.

The jury in each country includes leading personalities in the architectural and real estate sectors. The jury in the Czech Republic is comprised of Eva Jiřičná – the world-renowned architect, Biljana Weber - CEO of Microsoft in the Czech Republic, Marie Passburg - Managing Director of Skanska Property Czech Republic or Richard Curran - Managing Director of CBRE. The jury in Austria includes Andreas Ridder – Managing Director of CBRE Austria and Chairman CEE, Astrid Müllner – Director of the Editorial Department of “Die Presse”, Iris Einwaller – Member of the Management Board of Immobilien Magazin Verlag and Epmedia and Christian Traunfellner – Country Manager Operations Austria at Immofinanz.

The jury decided on the basis of the evaluation criteria in terms of design, originality, innovation, practicality and attractive working environment for employees and personally visited some of the companies.

The success of the competition is supported by partners and media partners that are leaders in their fields in the market (Skanska, Microsoft, Steelcase, Philips in Romania there are Academic partners like Bucharest University of Economic Studies (www.ase.ro) and the National School of Administrative and Political Studies (www.snspa.ro); in Austria there are partners like Die Presse, Immobilien Magazin, Immofinanz, SIGNA and Vitra.)

In each country the registered companies come from various industries – IT, banking, architecture studios, marketing, outsourcing, FMCG and shared services etc.

The competition in the Czech Republic is supported by a special project carried out in cooperation with Forbes entitled Humans of Offices (humans.forbes.cz), which is precisely about the very people who spend much of their day in offices. The competition in each country is officially culminates with an awards ceremony.