Nerds & Company has relocated within Kennispark to its own office building

Tim Klein Robbenhaar, owner and director of Nerds & Company: ‘The lease on our previous premises was expiring, so we started thinking about what we wanted. We heard that this building on the Palatijn was up for sale, which gave us the opportunity to invest in our own property instead of paying monthly rent. And it’s only a few metres from our old office.’

Hybrid working

Usually, a lack of space is the reason for moving, but not for Nerds & Company. Tim: “We now have even less square metres than we had before. Not because we have fewer employees, on the contrary, but after Corona we started working much more hybrid, which means we have a much greater spread of the number of employees in the office each day. That’s why we’ve designed our new premises much more for hybrid working. We now have several spaces where teams can work well together at large tables with physical workstations, while part of the team is in the office and the other part is at home. Each team has fixed coordination moments, where everyone is always present online or physically.”

Clubhouse function added

Tim: “Precisely because we are all in the office less often at the same time, we find it extra important to organise social activities. Our top floor has a clubhouse function where we have lunch together and regularly organise fun activities. We now also have a roof terrace that we have equipped with a ramp for our colleague in a wheelchair. Of course, it was completely logical for us to take this into account, but it turns out that the UWV (Employee Insurance Agency) has a subsidy fund for wheelchair-friendly facilities, which can be used to finance these kinds of adjustments.”

Short stay options

Despite the fact that all teams work partly hybrid, Nerds & Company ensures that the teams are and remain close-knit. Tim: “We go away for a few days twice a year with the whole company. Last time, we all went to Portugal to learn how to surf together. We have a number of colleagues who work in other countries and even outside Europe, and in addition to always flying them in for these trips, we also make sure that they stay in Enschede for a few weeks afterwards, so that they can work in the office for a few days and then really feel part of the team again, even when working remotely. These colleagues stay in a hotel during that period, but it would be ideal for us if the new residential building also had a number of short-stay apartments. That would offer us many opportunities to have our foreign colleagues temporarily nearby if necessary.

University as a magnet

Tim started Nerds & Company in Albergen with Thijs Geerdink ten years ago. Tim and Thijs were able to take over a company there, so it made sense to stay in Albergen. After two other partners joined, the University of Twente became increasingly attractive and Nerds & Company moved to Kennispark. Tim: ‘Most of our talent comes from the UT and Saxion, and the majority stay with us for years. That was already the case ten years ago, and it still is today. We always have four or five graduates working here, and two or three of them stay on.’ When asked how they ensure that they are visible to UT students, Tim replies: “They actually always come to us; students contact us themselves to ask if they can do an internship. Apparently, we have a good reputation among students. This is probably also because our name stands out and fits in with what they are looking for: fun, but also technically challenging work, for which you have to be a bit of a nerd. Our teams are virtually self-managing, which allows for a free way of working that suits today’s students, also because of the freedom to organise your own time. Apart from the regular coordination meetings with the entire team, you are very free to organise your own time and where you work. As an entrepreneur, I also find this very important. I live in Utrecht and am at the office two to three days a week. The rest of the days I work from home or on the road. If this works for me, it would be strange if others were not allowed to work in this hybrid way. As long as they ensure that they meet the expectations of both us as an employer and our clients. Fortunately, this is self-evident for everyone, especially since we select people who can handle this well during the recruitment process.

Diversity among colleagues

Tim: Our corporate culture fits in very well with how we want to run a business. We don’t have a hierarchy here, we are transparent to all our colleagues and we show them how things are going, including financially. We are a project-oriented organisation, because we have to earn money, but we do so in an open, self-managing and almost friendly way. We now have forty-two employees and we don’t want to grow much bigger. We have sufficient capacity to run projects for large organisations, and growing any bigger would be at the expense of our corporate culture. Eighty percent of our colleagues live in Twente. We also have colleagues in Almere, Amsterdam, Deventer and Utrecht, as well as in Ghent, Aruba and South Africa. The latter two worked at our office for years before they moved, so they know their colleagues and have also been part of the team physically for years. This is an important condition for us, because it becomes more difficult if someone always works remotely from the start; you miss that basic connection with the team. We therefore ensure that these colleagues are physically present at the office for a few weeks each year, so that they maintain that connection. So, it’s quite diverse, but seventy percent are men and only thirty percent are women, so we still have some way to go in terms of equality.

Office space available

In addition to their own office floor, there are two more floors of approximately 300 square metres each available for rent in the building at Palatijn 3. Tim: “We have also included the refurbishment of these two floors, so they are ready to move into. There are no load-bearing walls, which means the spaces can be flexibly arranged to suit your own requirements. Cost neutrality is our starting point, so this is also a great opportunity for start-ups and innovative companies to be located at Kennispark and close to the UT. We know from our own experience that this is a huge advantage.” Are you interested in the office space in the Nerds & Company building? Please contact Tim at tim@nerds.company. Of course, the area organisation will welcome you with a delicious snack platter.