Welcome to Top Hat’s new Toronto HQ
Welcome to the new Toronto-based headquarters of Top Hat, an education software platform that focuses on facilitating modern digital communications and learning for classrooms of all shapes and sizes around the world. Top Hat moved into its new office in 2017, around the same time it raised $22.5 million USD from investors, and it has lots of room to grow. Let’s take look around.
Embracing the open office
The main Top Hat workspace looks like many modern tech industry offices. Open and airy, favouring collaboration and face-to-face communication over the privacy offered by cubicle walls. Around the edges of the office are large, open windows to allow in natural sunlight. Boardrooms and quiet spaces around found in the middle of the office.
Collaboration in-person and remotely
Collaboration spaces are walled-off and include the necessary equipment to teleconference with the Denver office or other remote team members.
Nutrition and recreation
Top Hat’s break room offers more than just a coffee maker for its employees. There are a full range of snacks, including cereal and fresh fruit on offer. Employees and sit down on the sofas and enjoy a snack, plus turn on a TV to play some Xbox One video games while they chow.
On-brand storage space
Much like the post-secondary education institutions it serves, Top Hat is a fan of providing locker space. Employees are assigned their own locker and even get a unique name tag. We notice that the employees must trust each other quite a bit, as no one is slapping a combination lock on there.
Town hall for Top Hat
There’s enough room for all of Top Hat’s 200+ employees to meet in this town hall space. On the night of the launch of Sales University, a new recruitment effort, it was also filled by outside visitors.
Remembering company history
Originally founded as Top Hat Monacle in 2009, the ‘Monacle’ was dropped from the name in 2013. Apparently, some users found monocle too hard to spell. But the name lives on in the Top Hat office, thanks to this board room’s name frosted on the glass door.
