All Articles

Canva powers their workplace using Calven

Published on
This is some text inside of a div block.

Learn how Canva optimizes their real-estate and services, delivers a frictionless hybrid work experience and keeps the ‘vibe alive’ for Canvanauts around the globe.

Canva is an online visual communications platform on a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere. Launched in 2013, Canva is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and has over 3,400 employees and eight campuses around the world. 

Canva significantly invests in their culture and employee experience. They have a dedicated global Vibe team whose mission is to deliver an exceptional workplace experience and empower Canvanauts to do the best work of their lives. The Vibe team manages everything from office operations, catering, hospitality, and events, right through to workspace design and office fit-outs.

Workplace challenges in a hybrid world

When Canva were preparing to re-open their offices after Covid restrictions eased, the Vibe team were concerned about delivering a great workplace experience in a hybrid world. They had no way of knowing who would be working where, on any given day, and what the impact would be on their people’s work experience. This brought up new challenges around how to design their workspaces, manage their catering, host events (in-person, remote, or hybrid), coordinate teams coming together, and maintain Canva’s unique culture.  They agreed a shared workspace is the most efficient way to optimize their offices but presents challenges for the employees. They needed to ensure their people were coming in with a purpose, on days their respective team members would be in, and could easily get the resources they needed to set themselves up for their work day.

One day the office is booming and the next day it would be raining and there'd be almost no one in. We had no visibility as to where our teams were on any given day. Facilitating events and activations around the workplace in light of that was really difficult.

Chris, Global Head of Vibe

Canva wanted to provide their people with the flexibility of working in a hybrid way, but they needed the visibility of knowing who was coming in, and when, so they could plan their real-estate, events and services accordingly. Given Canva’s focus on employee experience, the Vibe team didn’t want to add  extra administrative burden by requiring employees to open multiple applications in order to set themselves up for their work day. They needed a single tool that enabled this visibility, and allowed their people to work in a distributed way, with minimal friction.

We’ve got people working from home, some people coming into the office, and a lot of people doing both. Having a tool to help us give our people that flexibility, while providing us with the data and visibility to better manage our workplace operations and services, solves a lot of our problems.

Teddy, Vibe Workplace Lead

Why Canva  chose Calven

The Vibe team recognized this shift to hybrid working brought opportunities to enhance their operations and provide their people with a unique and seamless workplace experience. Nothing really existed in the marketplace that could fulfil this wide need around a new workplace experience - everything from team visibility, managing real estate to putting on events, providing catering, and creating that seamless digital office experience for their people.

We couldn't find a  platform out there that was spanning across all of the things that we wanted to do across desking, events, parking, catering, plus all the integrations we needed to give our people a seamless experience, no matter where they’re working.

Tessa, Program Manager

They chose Calven as their single workplace experience platform as it could enhance everything they were already doing to create a magnetic vibe and culture, while supporting them to deliver a seamless hybrid work experience and optimize their real-estate and operations.

Having a single tool that you can rely on to see who’s going to be in the office, what events are happening, and booking a desk automatically in a really low touch way instils confidence in our employees that we’re invested in their workplace experience.

Michael, Head of Global Spend & Business Systems

Outcomes

The Vibe team recognized this shift to hybrid working brought opportunities to enhance their operations and provide their people with a unique and seamless workplace experience. Nothing really existed in the marketplace that could fulfil this wide need around a new workplace experience - everything from team visibility, managing real estate to putting on events, providing catering, and creating that seamless digital office experience for their people.

1) Optimized the office for better space utilization and  growth

The Vibe team recognized this shift to hybrid working brought opportunities to enhance their operations and provide their people with a unique and seamless workplace experience. Nothing really existed in the marketplace that could fulfil this wide need around a new workplace experience - everything from team visibility, managing real estate to putting on events, providing catering, and creating that seamless digital office experience for their people.

Knowing the seat and parking slot utilization rate helps me to project and manage better possible office operations and real estate expenses.

Chardy, Vibe Lead

2) Frictionless hybrid working

Solved hybrid scheduling and team visibility 

  • Employees and managers can now see when their teams are coming in, and where they’ll be sitting.
  • mart algorithms for allocating desks based on neighbourhoods and employee preferences.
  • Intelligent workplace planning that enables teams to land in the right spaces when they go to any Canva office and for overflows to be planned during peak office times

My favourite feature is just being able to see what days people are in the office and what days people are at home. So you can just look at your team and instantly know when and where everyone is.

Teddy, Vibe Workplace Lead

3) Enhanced employee experience

  • Instant team visibility to see who’s working in-office and remotely
  • Ability to change work location in real-time 
  • Automatic desk booking when work location is set to ‘office’
  • Coffee ordering with in-house barista in just one click

4) Easily plan, manage and promote internal events

  • The Vibe team is now able to centralize events, track RSVPs (whether remote or in-person), have access to  employee interests and dietary preferences and manage event workflows through one platform
  • Employees now have visibility on all events taking place - they’re able to view what’s on, align their hybrid plan with the event calendar, RSVP and manage their preferences all through the Calven app

By partnering with Calven, we're finding ways to make the experience at work less arbitrary and less of a worry for people. Being able to easily book your desk and know how to set yourself up for the day lets you plan your life better, think about your personal choices, and ultimately have more autonomy over your work day.

Liv, Workplace Experience Lead

Calven helps our operations in a global context by allowing us to plan, not just for space constraints, but also getting our teams to come together and collaborate intentionally.

Rena, Operations Business Partner

Download the white paper

Together, we'll enable the future of work

Who we are

Building on years of technology, real estate, and HR expertise, we’re a diverse, global team of change-makers on a mission to shape the future of work.

Find out more

Why we’re here

Today’s workplaces aren’t always enjoyable, equal, productive, or efficient. We’re here to change that by using technology to shape a better experience for everyone.

Find out more
Join Us

Ready to reimagine your future of work?

See how Calven can help you shape better work experiences for everyone.