“Today’s conservative business leaders are often ignoring a brilliant opportunity to get more out of the people working for them.” Mette Keating of InDeVision looks intrigued as she contemplates the question of how businesses are so incredibly slow to leverage what she describes as an obvious and simple part of an organisation – the physical workspace. She goes on to emphasize that the design and layout of your office space can play a decisive role in the success of a business organisation.

What inspires people to achieve their goals? How do business leaders inspire their people? It is different for everyone, of course, but a common factor that has a profound effect on everyone, whether at home or in the workplace, is the design and layout of the physical environment by which they are surrounded. It absolutely does matter which colour is painted on the wall and how the desk is placed in a room.

Mette Keating knows a great deal about how we all are affected by our physical environments. Mette Keating expanded her business well over three years ago from Copenhagen, Denmark to Toronto, from where she is drawing most of her ideas and inspiration.

She has found that she was thrown a few decades back in time, at least in the majority of business spaces she has come across in Canada, but is also optimistic that more and more modern and innovative business leaders are recognizing what she is preaching. She is leveraging their office space for success by designing it to meet their staff needs for the way most innovative companies work today. One of these companies is Mozilla Corporation, creators of the Firefox browser that InDeVision recently helped out. Pictures of their newly redesigned workspace in their Toronto office are sprinkled throughout this article.

A Brief History of Office Space

• In the 18th century we saw the first office workers evolve. Their function was very practical, rewriting documents and bills. Using mainly old-fashioned ink in the beginning, later moving over to pens, as we know them today.
• In the beginning of the 20th century typewriters revolutionalized the office environment, as did women. The women only had entry-level positions, but they knew how to type. The open office complexes had their glory days.
• A few years after the typewriter the telephone appeared and the office was now open to the world outside the walls of the office.
• The latter part of the century saw technology advance which changed how we organise our work and our work environments.
• Through the 1990’s the focus concentrated on “knowledge management”. Many companies invested many resources on expert knowledge, intranet and knowledge databases. Fitness and eating healthy became part of a ‘modern’ company.

Today’s Office Space
Today most modern companies do recognize that IT solutions and systems alone can’t solve the great challenges that they are facing in providing innovation and knowledge management throughout their organisations.

The Internet and the last 20 years of technology advancement has revolutionized need for the physical space. Working communities are becoming mobile and spread globally. The need for the physical office space becomes less and less important in order to be able to do your work as long as you can get on the company network… as I’m sitting at home writing this article…work-life balance is becoming part of a ‘modern’ company.

Future of the Office Space
A couple of new generations and their work habits have entered the work environment and they are growing . The millennial generation (1978-1999) already outnumbers the baby boomers at their peak and in just the last four years they’ve grown from 14% of the work force to 21%, nearly 32 million workers in the US alone and growing. This generation work more ad-hoc and on-the-go than any other. We are finding that they expect more from their environment. A work environment  is not ‘just’ a place where you work. It has to be fun, cool and fulfilling. They are energetic, tech-savvy and full of ideas. They approach work in a different way than previous generations and that needs to be considered if they successfully will be part of a team and a company.

Companies are all different and people work differently.
One solution doesn’t fit all. There is a big difference between 100 people sitting in a call centre and a work environment where project groups are divided up into teams of 10-15 people that are divided by innovations rooms, cafe environments, brainstorming nooks, collaboration space and meeting rooms. You have to look at what is going on in each company, who is working there and how they work.

Generally larger companies can save on square feet by creating more open offices spaces than smaller companies. Smaller companies that might not necessarily save on square footage can easily create much better use of their current space by limiting hallways and offices that in many cases are empty most of the day. Instead they can create more ‘hotel stations’, a café area, kitchens, interesting meeting rooms, projects group rooms, and more.

The key is to use the office space as a strategic tool. Know what you need, recognize the possibilities, hire experts, involve your staff and get it done.

Here are some guidelines when creating an open concept:

1. What is our vision and goal with our office space?

• If you don’t have a clear vision it loses credibility among staff
• Discover if your type of work fits into this type of setup
• Get expert assistance and use common sense
• Decide how much staff and who needs to be involved
• Involve the chosen staff

2. Staff needs to know exactly how much say they have in the process

• Who will sit where
• What are the rules in the ‘new’ office setup, limit noise and be considerate
• Clarify what to expect from the new setup
• From talk to action

3. If you are a big company, start with a pilot project

• Remember to think your use of technology into your plans
• Purge and think smart about how much filing you really need. Create a library with needed literature that staff can share rather than each member having a copy.
• Consideration, consideration, consideration of each other is a golden rule

4. Today and the future

• It will be a continuous process that will need to be nurtured
• Important that you as a leader, lead by example and take part of the open concept. Private meeting spaces can be shared.

Our recommendation is to also seek expert help with the following. Other important factors to consider when setting up your ‘new’ space fostering innovation and productivity:

• Colour isn’t just colour – it can stimulate the drive, growth, focus, grounding and communication within your staff
• Light isn’t just light – it can cause headaches, stress and lack of focus
• Does you space reflect your product value and you commitment to your customers, suppliers and staff
• Is your space welcoming and caring – a direct catalyst for staff engagement and success!

Have a happy and successful workday!

Mette Keating is the principal of InDeVision. Her firm has offices in Canada and Denmark and takes a Danish, human-centered design approach to commercial interior design.

Tags: commercial interior design, Danish design, human centered design, human centred design, Indevision, Interior Design, interior workspaces, Mette Keating, redesigning workspaces, workspace redesign

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