Auchan Retail in €17M Paço de Arcos HQ investment

The French supermarket giant Auchan has invested €17 million in a new headquarters in Paço de Arcos, outside Lisbon.

The 7,000 m2 premises with the capacity to support 500 fixed-term contract staff, owned its doors on the same day the Government announced new Covid-19 restrictions which will come into force on Tuesday (15 September).
“This new headquarters of Auchan Retail Portugal aims to help spread our values. It is a building that is open to support service teams, shops and the community. We wanted to create a good, healthy and local environment here, one that will boost the potential for the performance excellence of our teams and responds to the confidence that we place in our staff, exposing them to different working areas, types of work and work technology, as well as a range of leisure equipment and spaces to promote wellbeing,” said Pedro Cid CEO of Auchan Retail Portugal and quoted in a communiqué.
The HQ building has been under construction since last year and is located next to the company’s new hypermarket in the municipal borough of Oeiras.
“With a 7,500 m2 floor area, spread out over three floors, the space can accommodate up to 500 fixed-term contract staff and over 100 flexible staff posts,” says the company.
“The design of the premises seeks to foster staff collaboration and creativity through a hybrid open-plan share model which comprises a number of informal and alternative working areas. The circular shape of the building plan and its low ceiling heights allow for a greater closeness between teams which are strategically distributed according to how their job functions are allied and interact,” it continues.
In practice it also means the different working areas are organised into “neighbourhoods” to reflect the territorial organisation of the company in Portugal by areas of life,” states the company.