Though Salesforce is scaling back its office footprint and has yet to set a return date for employees, the company is deploying a new strategy to get employees back in the same room.
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The software firm has inked an agreement for a 75-acre resort in Scotts Valley, California, that will serve as a training, meeting and events venue for the company’s 70,000-person staff, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The property, dubbed Trailblazer Ranch, has been operated by nonprofit 1440 Multiversity since 2017. It will host Salesforce employees for work and wellness purposes, combining meetings with activities like yoga and hiking. The woodsy retreat counts 140 rooms, meeting space, amphitheaters, a communal dining room and fitness rooms among its facilities.
It will host 10,000 employees this year starting next month, with even more employees expected to stay at the retreat in 2023, Salesforce Chief People Officer Brent Hyder told the WSJ.
Salesforce’s deal with 1440 Multiversity is an interim one as the company seeks a longer-term location, the company said in a statement. CEO Marc Benioff previously told the WSJ that the company was “looking at maybe buying a large piece of land, maybe a large ranch in the United States or some other type of acreage where we can build the next generation of Crotonville,” referencing the retreat built by General Electric Co. in the 1950s.
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Salesforce has shed notable portions of its San Francisco office space over the past two years. It gave up its biggest portion to date last month when Sephora inked a 286K SF sublease deal with the tech firm in the biggest new office lease in the city since 2019. The company still leases 881K SF at the city’s tallest building, Salesforce Tower, and owns about 900K SF across two additional buildings in the city.
Salesforce plans to maintain employee flexibility in the future, but will prioritize in-person gatherings for company culture purposes, it said in the release.
“Finding ways to connect is the number one thing Salesforce employees asked for in our last employee survey,” Hyder said. “We need to bring back the spontaneity and joy that comes from being together in person, now.”
It plans to do this through Trailblazer Ranch, a “gathering place where employees can forge trusted relationships with their colleagues, learn from one another, get inspired, grow in their career, get trained on the company, and give back to the community in a fun and safe environment.”
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