For most of the twentieth century, office design operated on a simple principle: separate people into small spaces, keep things tidy, and productivity will follow. The research suggests the opposite is true. Comfortable, relaxed, visually interesting workplaces produce more engaged, more creative, and more productive employees — and bean bags have become part of how forward-thinking companies build those environments.
Companies That Are Doing It
The shift toward comfortable, unconventional offices started in the technology industry and has since spread broadly. Companies hiring modern architects and interior designers to rethink their spaces aren't doing it as a gimmick — they're responding to evidence that environment affects output. Here are seven well-known examples.
LivingSocial — Washington DC
LivingSocial built a workspace designed to reflect the company's collaborative culture. Exposed brick walls, old doors and shutters, a common room with a skeeball game and HD projection screen. The office feels less like a corporate building and more like somewhere people actually want to spend time — which is the point.
Zappos — Las Vegas
Zappos kept its low-walled cubicle layout but transformed the ceiling into a living jungle. Employees are encouraged to personalise their spaces — stuffed animals, toys, decorative objects. The result is a workplace that feels inhabited rather than institutional.
Lego — Billund, Denmark
Lego converted its offices into open Code Playgrounds with faux-grass floors and ceilings painted to look like blue sky. Staff sit on the floor or on short bean bags — some with faux fur covers — at small tables, playing with Lego to develop new ideas. Lego management credits the design with measurable improvements in both employee morale and productivity.
ThinkGarden — Milan
ThinkGarden's employees work long hours, but they do so in an office designed to reflect nature — open skylights, flowers, trees, and bean bags that resemble boulders and large stones. The environment is deliberately calming for a team under sustained pressure.
Big in Japan — Dallas
This mobile app developer uses open floor plans with a range of comfortable amenities: bean bag loungers, flat-screen TVs, gaming consoles, and foosball tables. The casual environment is designed to keep people relaxed and engaged during long development cycles.
Google — New York
Google is the most cited example of unconventional office design. Its New York building features rooms with hammocks, soundproofed spaces with musical instruments, indoor bamboo gardens, and rooms filled with multi-coloured bean bags and bouncy balls. Google didn't invent the comfortable office, but it made the concept mainstream.
Hootsuite — Vancouver
Hootsuite's second headquarters is themed around a 1950s ski cabin. Large, luxurious bean bags throughout the space, a twenty-four-hour gymnasium, and a design that makes the office a genuinely pleasant place to spend time — not just where work happens to occur.
What the Research Shows
The Kaiser Permanente case is one of the more rigorously documented examples of what happens when traditional office design is rethought. Researchers studied the offices of technology firms including Pandora, Google, and Oracle, and found a consistent pattern: companies that used design to promote relaxation and collaboration saw better outcomes.
Kaiser Permanente applied those lessons by consolidating 33 small offices into four large ones with natural lighting, bright colours, and unassigned seating. The result was measurably happier, more productive employees. The change also helped with recruitment and retention — the kind of workplace that employees enjoy coming to is also the kind that attracts good candidates and keeps them.
The research numbers support this at scale. The British Council of Offices found that 60 per cent of workers reported increased productivity in comfortable working environments. The What Workers Want Report found that 43 per cent of workers aged 18 to 24 preferred non-traditional offices — compared to only 28 per cent who preferred standard corporate-style spaces. For companies competing for younger talent, the physical environment is a meaningful differentiator.
A Gallup poll on workplace productivity found that the key factor is employee engagement — and that engagement is significantly influenced by the environment people work in. Bland, uncomfortable spaces disengage people. Spaces that feel welcoming and reflect a genuine investment in employee wellbeing do the opposite.
Three Ways Bean Bags Improve Productivity
1. Encourage Collaboration
Productivity improves when people work together rather than in isolation. Oversized bean bags create natural gathering spaces — comfortable enough for two, three, or four people to sit around and work through a problem without the formality of a meeting room. The informal setting lowers the social barrier to collaboration and encourages the kind of spontaneous discussion that generates good ideas. Learn more about working productively from a bean bag.
2. Create an Environment Worth Being In
When workers are in small, drab cubicles with fluorescent lighting and hard furniture, they leave at the first opportunity. When you give them comfortable seating, interesting surroundings, and a workplace that reflects genuine thought about their wellbeing, they stay — and they work better. The environment signals to employees how much the company values them. Bean bags are one visible, practical part of that signal.
3. Let People Work the Way That Suits Them
Different tasks require different states of mind. Deep focus work and casual brainstorming are not the same, and they benefit from different physical environments.
Giving employees a range of seating options — including bean bags for informal and relaxed work modes — lets them match their environment to their task rather than forcing every activity into the same rigid setup. Browse our large bean bag range for options suited to commercial and office environments, or see our post on why workplaces benefit from office bean bags.
