The prospect of a new, or re-designed, workspace provides an opportunity for deepening the connection employees have to their work, each other and their company's vision. "More than ever before, it's critical that organisations attract, inspire and retain capable and progressive people. A custom-built workspace is a vital but often underutilised resource for attracting talented employees and creating conditions that enable them to innovate," deputy managing director of Australian workspace design and manufacturing company, Schiavello, Peter Schiavello, concludes.
The workspace-performance link
Financial and technological reasons are important reasons for thinking strategically about workspace - but not exclusively so. Poor workspace design has been linked to decreased motivation, lower levels of productivity, feelings of isolation, obstructions to effective teamwork, higher levels of employee stress and turnover, wasted work time, reduced decision-making quality, employee turnover and sick building syndrome. When it comes to thinking about what makes workspace effective, issues related to functionality, safety and physical comfort make it to the discussion table. Workstation size, furniture, partitioning, storage, noise, light and ventilation are important considerations. Increasingly, attention is being paid to factors such as informal communication and the ability to switch between individual and teamwork.
Opening connections
Since the 1980s, there has been a shift towards more open office layouts. For an increasing number of companies, such a shift is a strategic one. For international law firm Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, the desire to be part of growing trends towards openness, comfort and employee wellbeing played a key role in the design considerations for its new head office in Japan. Hisako Iwai notes, "the expansion of the office was timed perfectly to put our ideas towards the company's future into effect. We aimed to create an office environment to provide a high quality legal service and to enhance the organisational functions, corporate structure and staff support system."
Now quite familiar with the notion of knowledge workers, it is not surprising that the shift away from enclosed offices has moved way beyond the option of high partitions and cubicles. The vision of an office space filled with employees sitting uniformly in rows of desks is consistent with a desire to eliminate communication. By comparison, clusters, pods, hives and dens are examples of workspace configurations designed to reduce hierarchy, encourage communication and facilitate faster decision making and transparency.
Unilever's Asia-Pacific regional office was recently redesigned to give it a whole new lease of life. The company requested an open concept - in line with Unilever's new branding of icons. While the design concept is relatively simple, the very essence of Unilever's requirement, which is to offer a fun and relaxing area for its staff to work in, is captured. Many offices have separate colours for different departments including the breakout areas, but Unilever chooses to keep its colours the same, emphasising the connection between work and enjoyment. Unilever's corporate colours - orange and green - are splashed throughout the breakout areas and some office areas to reinforce the vibrancy of the organisation. Not surprisingly, the pantry is decorated with lively colours and images of happy people on the walls, and products such as ice-cream are available for employees to snack on as well, creating the perfect environment for productive workers.
Consistent with the assumption that work is a social activity, design trends have seen the size of individual workstations reduce and spaces that support collaboration, impromptu interaction and employee mobility increase. Both teams and individuals can be beneficiaries. Teams, including departmental structures, can be better positioned to meet tight deadlines and perform multidisciplinary work through increased opportunities to source information and develop new ideas. Individual work can also benefit from the efficient sharing of information and the receipt of prompt feedback.
The workspace can also be viewed as a tool for leveraging employee learning and development by enabling access to company 'know-how' that circulates informally. High levels of access and proximity to others - including management, shared information displays, glazed partition systems and breakout areas are workspace design characteristics that facilitate opportunities for individuals to participate in a dynamic and everyday learning process. Unilever put this in practice, by deciding to integrate its management with its employees. Instead of having separate rooms for managers, the only way in which they are differentiated is by having acrylic panels acting as low partitions at their workstations. The rest of the employees' workspaces are individualised by translucent acrylic dividers.
Cultural manoeuvres
Reinforcing, or contributing to a shift in, organisational culture, the workspace can help employees to 'find their way'. The reinforcement of company values and brand attributes was a critical consideration for KPMG throughout the design process for its new headquarters in Adelaide. Facilities manager, Belinda Powell comments, "in line with KPMG values, we wanted the business to demonstrate it was open with communication through transparency and the encouragement of teamwork."
Workspace can also act to reinforce a cultural commitment to environmental sustainability. Determined to demonstrate leadership in green practices, sustainable materials and methods of construction were design priorities for Zero Waste SA's new headquarters. Chief executive, Vaughan Levitzke explains, "we needed to show that we're putting our money where our mouth is in terms of leading the way, not just in waste management, but also sustainability. We thought it would be very useful to have a case study that others can either emulate or learn from".
Personalising space
For employees, corporate social responsibility counts and so does the opportunity to make decisions about the workspace, especially when it comes to personalisation and privacy. In a recent study conducted by Schiavello, 58% of employees participating in the first stage of a research project investigating various psychological and ergonomic aspects of effective workspace design felt very strongly about the importance of 'workspace-personality fit'. Further research revealed that the desire and ability to personalise workstations was a key issue. The display of photographs and visual accessories, the leaving of work on desks and the re-orientation of furniture also emerged as common behaviours performed when personalising workstations. Higher levels of workspace personalisation were also associated with the ability to adjust privacy levels and to reconfigure open workspaces into smaller areas for working in groups as needs arise.
Relationships are the key to enabling organisational innovation. People really matter and so does the space they work in. It is time to blur the distinction between workspace and HR strategy and facilities and people management. Thought about strategically, the socio-spatial relationship can be an active agent in the realisation of business objectives - and with imagination, exponentially so.