There has been an ongoing debate around open versus closed office spaces and which one is better. Open offices tend to enable collaboration, yet they are also prone to cause distractions and noise. Closed offices and cubicles tend to allow for more focused work, but they can also be a bit depressing and not encourage collaboration and communication. So which one do you go with? […]
Although most people don’t think about it this way, your organization’s physical workspace is a symbol. What does your symbol reflect to employees and outsiders? […]
For all the talk a few years ago about the benefits of open offices–they facilitate collaboration and communication and make everyone equal, for example–some people are now backtracking. It turns out not everyone is thrilled with open offices because of the noise, the distractions, and the germs. Open offices may not be all they were billed to be, but does that mean organizations should go back to the more traditional, closed offices? […]
Many people today hate cubicles and see them as an outdated part of the office that confines and traps employees. But the history of the cubicle is quite interesting. Watch the new video here. […]
When you think about designing your house and floor plan, you consider how every room has a different purpose. You eat in the dining room, cook in the kitchen, lounge in the living room, shower in the bathroom, sleep in the bedroom, and you may even have outdoor living spaces that serve different purposes like relaxing or al fresco dining. So when we are designing our physical office spaces, why don’t we take the same approach? There is a lot of debate over having an open versus closed office floor plan, but those debates are missing the point. […]
In the past, we thought of work as being in an office… a place that we commute to daily. Now with the prevalence of WiFi people can work from any place, at any time. This means that work is much less about a place to go and more about a work mode. It’s about switching your mind into the action of working from wherever you may be. Today, I’m working while filming this video at the beautiful Luxembourg Garden in Paris. You may choose to work in an office, a coffee shop, a Breather unit, or from a garden a thousand miles away from your home! Work is a state of mind, not a place. […]
First impressions are important. When you meet someone for the first time appearance matters. If they show up disheveled and not “put together” then you get a very different vibe versus if they show up with their hair combed and a nice outfit versus if they show up in something casual. Each appearance gives you a different vibe. The same feelings happen when employees walk into a workspace. If an employee walks into an office and all the walls are stark, everyone is in cubicles, and people are dressed suites and ties then the vibe might be boring, not innovative, and very conservative. Now imagine walking into a different workspace with an open floor plan, touch screens on the walls, and workers buzzing about actively engaging with each other. This typically gives off a vibe that is more about innovation, collaboration, and engagement. […]
I define “employee experience” as an organization creating a place where people want to show up instead of assuming that people need to show up. This shift from “need” to “want” is the fundamental change that organizations around the world are starting to experience. This is why we see so much investment in new offices spaces, health and well-being programs, maternity and paternity leave, healthy foods, workplace flexibility, and so much more. There are a lot of things that can go into creating an employee experience but the good news is that every single company regardless of their industry, geography, or size, only need to focus on three things. […]
This is part of a series of posts exploring the employee experience, that is, creating a place where employees actually want to show up, not where they need to show up. This series will explore what I define as the three employee experience environments that all organizations much focus on which are: physical, cultural, and technological. This is a growing area that I am extremely passionate about because it sees organizations shifting away from thinking of work as a utility to actually focusing on creating what Pat Wadors (the chief Human Resources Officer of LinkedIn) calls “beautiful experiences.” […]
Over the past few years there have been many discussions around the death and disappearance of the office. Most believed that with co-working locations, the spread of Wi-Fi and mobility, and the rise of co-working locations that there would be no need for an office anymore. We would all work from anywhere and everywhere and this was of course a fair and reasonable prediction. But, it’s not entirely true. Our traditional idea of an office is in fact disappearing, that is the row of cubicles lined in a building that looks and smells like a hospital but the office itself is far from dead![…]