Over the past decade one organisational trend has been somewhat interesting to watch – the design of workspaces. In the most part it has been for flexibility and efficiency. Sadly, what has not been sufficiently considered is ‘the human factor’. More recently companies are getting more innovative in workspace design. For example, Googles campus is designed to maximise chance encounters; Facebook has gone for the single [mile-long] room approach; Yahoo has recognised the value of ‘water cooler’ discussions in innovation and decision making; and many others are creating indoor and outdoor mingling areas to promote human interaction. What each of these companies has recognised is that ‘The Human Factor’ matters in workspace design. More recent research findings have revealed that there is a tight correlation between personal interactions, performance, and innovation. Where humans collide, ideas spark.
Affectionately termed ‘silo-busting’ requires space that many ‘efficiency’ focused corporate floorplan designers would have nightmares over. However, this is just one more transformation needed to support workers in the information age, over the industrial age.
For remote workers and telecommuters, online mingling zones can effect a similar outcome.
Offline or online, mingling spaces improve performance. But are we taking it too far for the introvert? Are we forgetting about the value of diversity that is such a hot trend in boardrooms.
Personally, I think we need to spend more time considering the diversity of ‘the human factor’ and ensure that all employees are enabled through a workspace that meets their needs. Let’s not be too hasty to get captured into the net of the latest trend. After all, how do we really know whether any of these approaches are effective.
One good improvement would be to move away from only using the efficiency key metric of cost per square foot to determine whether a space is optimal or not. Other metrics need to be considered; those which impact performance in work environments.
High Performance Spaces
In our attempt to design high performance spaces, data captured using a variety of tools [from simple network analytics to sociometric badges that capture interaction, communication, and location information] have begun to reveal the hidden secrets of good office design in terms of performance. Using attributes such as density, proximity of people, and social value, results show that face-to-face interactions are by far the most important activity in an office. This includes chance encounters and unplanned interactions both inside and outside the organisation.
Spaces can even be designed to produce specific performance outcomes – for innovation, for productivity, or even both. By combining such data with standard performance metrics such as total sales or number of new-product launches, the effect of a workspace on the organisations bottom line can be tracked, and tweaked as required.
Adopting a high performance workspace attitude requires a recognition that office space is not just an asset, but a strategic factor of growth. Moving away from the focus of trying to improve utilisation per square metre to performance outcomes approach shifts that mindset from bricks and mortar to innovation and growth.
So what can we do to improve innovation and productivity in the workplace?
We might consider how to:
- Merge digital communication patterns with physical communication patterns to increase the probability of creative interactions.
- Provide workspaces that meet the needs of different types of personalities
- Redefine boundaries between workspace and life space
- Find ways to increase interactions between physical and teleworkers.
- Provide energizing zones for ‘renewal moments’ or increasing physical activity whilst working
- Consider the emotional factors of how a human connects to a workspace – something that ‘hot-desking’ failed to fully appreciate.
In other words, we can design workspaces to reflect how people want to communicate and work; one where features valued by workers are more important than cost and efficiency valued by shareholders.
In an April 2012 HBR article, “The New Science of Building Great Teams.” Pentland identified three key elements of successful communication:
- Exploration – interacting with people in many other social groups
- Engagement – interacting with people within your social group, in reasonably equal doses
- Energy – interacting with more people overall
His data supported the concept of promoting activities to increase the likelihood of collisions – the more collisions the more positive outcomes.
Outcome Specific Spaces
Pentland also considered outcome-driven designed spaces. For example, spaces to improve productivity should promote engagement to get teams to interact more. In a call centre this might result in a complement of walled-off workstations with adjacent spaces for small-group collaboration and interaction – the crucial collision space.
An organisation focused on innovation and change might benefit from increasing engagement but from open, public, and flexible space that values exploration in open spaces but also allows them to huddle in closed group spaces for brainstorming and to shape ideas. Moving workspaces more tightly together does not increase interactions.
It all comes back to being clear about what outcomes is desired, and developing a workspace pattern that works for that particular outcome. One design does not suit all. Outcomes are behaviour driven. Find ways to increase the desired behaviour and it follows that the outcomes will improve.
The key takeaway is that managers need to understand what they are trying to achieve before changing a space – engagement and retention, productivity, decisions, or creativity and innovation. Put ‘The Human Factor’ back into workspaces.
Author: Gail La Grouw. Insight Mastery Program Director, and Strategic Performance Consultant for Coded Vision Ltd.
