PayPal Canada recently invited members of the media, including ITBusiness.ca, to its custom four-month-old office at Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District. Join us for a tour.
Most office visitors are greeted by an attendant at a desk – and that’s more or less the case at PayPal too. But they wait in front of this eye-catching work by Toronto street artist (and PayPal user) Jimmy Chiale.
Demonstrating PayPal’s modus operandi to support local businesses, Wild North Flower’s Jennifer Fowlow (left) and Jacquelyn Lihou (right) deliver a new “flower bar” to PayPal’s offices every week – and employees are invited to create their own bouquets and bring them home!
It wouldn’t be a tech company without an extremely well-stocked cafeteria. PayPal employees can help themselves at any time to an assortment of fresh fruit, juice, milk, yogurt, cheese, cereal, starchy snacks, and even cold-brew coffee – free!
Though we were informed that today’s breakfast was of especially fine quality thanks to the media event, PayPal employees do enjoy four catered lunches per week, not to mention complimentary groceries from Toronto-based delivery service Urbery.
Another Toronto business on PayPal’s registry, entrepreneur Ryan Thomas’s Nude Bee Honey delivers a range of sweeteners to PayPal employees every week, which we can personally attest go very well with the office’s herbal tea selection.
Just like high school, PayPal employees express their individuality by decorating their lockers – partly since, unlike high school, they’re actually encouraged to do so. (Regrettably, since there were no employees playing, we forgot to shoot a photo of the ping-pong table in front of them.)
Taking up roughly half a floor, PayPal Canada’s open-concept office is designed for 60 workers and currently employs 25.
Though it’s not the first company to name its meeting rooms after random Canadiana, we’d argue that none chose names quite as idiosyncratic as PayPal’s (other meeting room names include “Saint-Louis-Du-Ha! Ha!”, “Horsefly”, and “Double Double”).
PayPal’s offices and artwork, including this second piece by Mr. Chiale, were designed to illustrate the company’s values, including innovation, collaboration, wellness, and inclusion.
As we began writing this after being fed an excellent breakfast, our opinion may be less than unbiased, but we think they succeeded.