Number of employees at the company26-50

What is the measurable positive impact from implementing ESG?

Spike Workplace has been designed to bring together community engagement, social interaction, and placemaking in one place, allowing tenants to feel more connected to the spaces where they work, whilst empowering property managers to be more connected to those in their development, all via a user-friendly app.

Riverwalk Innovation Hub is a major office development situated at the heart of Citywest Business Campus, an award-winning business park, 15km southwest of Dublin city centre, and linked by rail via the LUAS. Flanked by distinctive office buildings and surrounded by a beautifully landscaped environment, with a wide range of amenities and services, Riverwalk tenants include Adobe, Sony, Pfizer, Unilever, Shire, and Sanofi Aventis.

An essential part of Riverwalk Innovation Hub’s appeal is the landscape where people can meet, relax, and work in a stress-free natural setting. Bartra, who jointly acquired the Citywest Business Park with Henley Investment Management in 2019, wanted an effective and modern way to communicate and engage with all tenants and staff across the development.

Bartra worked with Spike to create The Riverwalk Workplace app, a white-labelled version of its Spike Workplace app. The app allows onsite staff to share news and updates about the development via push notifications, while tenants can easily access key information such as FAQs, and onsite contacts, as well as view what services and events are available.

Tenants can also use the app to submit any queries they have to JLL Ireland, the managing agent, as well as participate in online social clubs and forums, allowing tenants to get to know one another and encourage tenant-led events to take place, such as 5-aside football leagues and lunchtime walking clubs, enabling friendships to blossom. The JLL Estate Team has been able to build a rapport with the tenants which has encouraged regular feedback on what they are enjoying the most and what they would like to see added to the campus.

After the Covid-19 pandemic, the JLL Estate Team had the challenge of how to encourage people back into the workplace. The Riverwalk Workplace app played a pivotal role in bringing tenants back into the office and onto the campus. The JLL Estate Team was able to leverage the app to create a sense of ‘FOMO’ or Fear of Missing Out by showcasing the incredible events that were taking place across the development, such as Taco Thursday and regular fitness classes, showcasing the benefits of working at Riverwalk. As well as reassuring all tenants that the campus was following and had implemented strict Covid-19 policies and procedures.

The Riverwalk Workplace app has quickly become an integral part of the Riverwalk experience, with over 500 tenants now back in the office on a regular basis and using the app.

What’s more, the JLL Estate Team has been able to promote local restaurants and services via the app, bringing much-needed visibility and driving increased footfall for local businesses situated near Riverwalk. The JLL Estate Team also worked with Spike to implement a dedicated ‘wellbeing’ area of the app during 2023, where staff can share walking routes and regular fitness classes that are happening across the campus.

Riverwalk is committed to creating a greener future, having achieved both LEED Gold accreditation and EU taxonomy compliance, with the Riverwalk workplace app contributing towards reducing the development footprint and social costs through measures such as improved connectivity and reduced vehicle use. By ensuring that both tenants and staff are better connected this not only has created a real sense of community by empowering tenants to get to know one another and the local area but has also made onsite services and amenities easily accessible. This enhanced social value creation has added extra value to Riverwalk Innovation Hub by enabling an older, albeit upgraded and fully accredited development, to become a highly attractive place in which to work, socialise and play.

Furthermore, the workplace app has supported Riverwalk’s decarbonization strategy by promoting the use of public transport. For instance, via the Riverwalk app, tenants can view a live travel feed of the LUAS, as well as where bike shelters are located, and being able to book onsite communal e-Bikes and Electric Vehicle charging points.
Riverwalk is proud of its biodiverse landscaping, from wild meadows to attract pollinators, bug motels, rooftop beehives and 200+ specimens of plants and trees for fresh air. The Riverwalk app enables staff to promote the natural beauty of the campus by highlighting the various species of plants and wildlife that can be found on site, providing updates on environmental initiatives, as well as even allowing tenants to buy the organic honey that’s produced on site!

By utilising Spike’s workplace app, this has helped Riverwalk become more than a collection of tightly knit buildings. Instead, it has evolved into a vibrant campus environment, fostering a distinctive sense of community and connectivity among like-minded people and dynamic businesses within Citywest, around Dublin, and across the globe. Here, you can feel the energy around you, and ideas have an international edge.

From a company perspective, based on staff feedback, Spike introduced a ‘Charity of the Year’ initiative for 2023, with last year’s chosen charity being Dorset Mind, selected by staff.

Dorset Mind was chosen due to the impact it is having within our local area, and connecting communities and bringing people together is at the heart of what we do here at Spike. As a team, Spike took part in a number of fundraising events and charity initiatives such as the Bournemouth Bay 10km run and half marathon, as well as the Sherborne County Fair Dragon Boat Race, where members of staff, friends, and family picked up oars to raise funds and awareness of mental health in our communities, in a fun competition against many different organisations. We also took part in several beach clean-ups to promote World Environment Day.

Through various fundraising activities, Spike successfully raised a total of £3,125 towards funding Dorset Mind’s mental health programs and activities. These programs include mentoring and support for children, young people, and adults, as well as training for more volunteers to help support our local community. This achievement not only highlighted the generosity and dedication of our Spike community but also showcased the tangible impact of our partnership in supporting mental health initiatives.

We also used our partnership with Dorset Mind to share wellness and well-being initiatives across our clients' communities by sharing a monthly Community Engagement Guide filled with lots of events and content ideas to help engagement across their own developments.

What kind of innovation or technology does the company use?

Traditionally tenant software has mainly been web-based and only accessible via a web browser. However, with research by Salesforce revealing that 70% of employees want the company they work for to provide them with the same level of technology they use in their personal lives, Spike saw an opportunity to innovate the workforce offering.

By providing an intuitive iOS and Android mobile app that can be easily downloaded, makes important information such as policies and procedures easily accessible, with any updates shared quickly and efficiently via push notifications straight to a tenant’s phone, much like the notifications they are used to seeing with social media apps like Facebook.

What’s more, Spike Workplace has been designed to not just be a communication tool, but also to enable tenants to get to know one another via the various social clubs and forums that can be set up, along with highlighting what’s available in the wider community via the ‘around me’ feature. Studies have shown that increasing employee engagement can reduce turnover by 65%, showing the importance and impact that solutions like Spike Workplace can have.

Furthermore, Spike Workplace can be used as a standalone solution or can be integrated with a wide range of systems from access control, and parcel lockers to payment gateways and other third-party services. For instance, by integrating the LUAS travel feed into the app, this ensures that Riverwalk can provide a single app to its tenants rather than having to direct them to various different apps or locations.

By building out the app to be all-encompassing this has achieved an average tenant engagement rate of over 87% across our client base. And by encouraging our clients to drive all processes through the app, such as being the only place for tenants to book the onsite amenities or report maintenance issues, this has helped ensure our app is used much more frequently than standalone apps would have been.

Spike Workplace also has a comprehensive management dashboard that can accessed from a web browser and connects staff to tenants, providing a comprehensive range of estate management tools, including a Help Desk, Tenant Directory, Booking, Delivery and Visitor Management systems as well as a Content Management System (CMS). Web and mobile admin applications are available for various stakeholders across an organisation.

Who are the founders of the company and what is their experience?

Spike has been established and continues to be operated by a core team of senior executives with a wealth of experience in the real estate and video game industries.

Spike’s CEO is Jeremy Heath-Smith who is a highly successful video gaming executive, responsible for the international best-selling Tomb Raider franchise and taking Eidos Plc from a share price of 16p to £45. Jeremy’s visionary traits allow Spike to continue to deliver innovative solutions for the real estate industry.

Adrian Smith, Spike’s COO, is an award-winning video gaming and enterprise software development and product delivery executive. Adrian oversees the development and operations of Spike and leads the teams that design, deliver & deploy our market-leading solutions.

Spike’s CTO, Dan Clapson is a highly experienced CTO working across real estate, video games, and television industries. Dan is responsible for Spike’s continued integrations and information security policies and processes.

What’s unique about Spike is that the founders background in the video games industry has allowed the company to approach the real estate industry with a fresh perspective. Traditionally where tenant and property management software had been geared towards property managers, as opposed to tenants themselves, this often meant that solutions were overly complicated or ‘clunky’ to use, providing a poor experience for the tenant. However, Spike has applied its experience in creating engaging software and focused on developing a ‘tenant-first’ approach to its solutions. Its founders were keen to empower tenants to make it far easier for them to get in touch with their property manager as well as enable them to ‘self-serve’ as much as they can. This has meant that Spike’s tenant apps have an average engagement rate of 87% across its client base and enable tenants to make the most of where they live and work.

What is the leadership style of the company? Is this a sustainable one?

We’re extremely proud that Spike was named as one of The Sunday Times Best Places to Work in 2023. As our team is our biggest asset, we spend a lot of time and effort in ensuring they have opportunities to progress within the company and provide clear growth plans to work towards.

From creating a culture where the team feels open to express concerns and provide feedback without fear of judgment to regular catch-ups and after-work socials, there are always opportunities for the team to get to know one another and voice their opinions. The company tries to foster a diverse culture and encourages employees to celebrate their individuality. For instance, cultural holidays provide opportunities for the team to see their heritage celebrated at work, which can enable them to feel a sense of belonging, respect, and representation. This helps break down cultural barriers and learn more about the world around us.

Spike also operates a flexible working policy where the team can work where they feel most comfortable and productive, as well as opting to conduct the majority of new and client meetings remotely, helping to reduce its carbon emissions and environmental impact. In addition, the company utilises many of the available software solutions on the market such as Microsoft SharePoint to ensure as much documentation and paperwork can be stored digitally without the need to be printed.

Furthermore, as a company working in a sector that is typically male-dominated, we have put measures in place to create a gender-inclusive environment with working patterns to accommodate the needs of both men and women alike. We also participate in celebrations such as International Women’s Day and Men’s Mental Health Day.

What is the company's business model and how is this scalable?

Spike provides its solutions as Software-as-Service (SaaS) which means that clients subscribe and pay a monthly license fee that includes hosting, maintenance, and regular software updates. As Spike Workplace is white-labelled and completely tailored to a client’s development and needs, Spike charges a one-time setup fee which includes the customisation, specific branding/look and feel, as well as any bespoke configuration that is needed to ensure that the portal feels unique for a client.

This means that clients do not have to invest upfront in costly hardware or separate hosting fees, and instead can benefit from a customisable off-the-shelf solution.