I have worked with various clients across the globe who are determined to transform their existing way of working by moving to a new way of working and/or design that better aligns with their culture and business strategy. Practically speaking, this usually entails moving from an office-intensive model to a more open environment or even the move from an assigned cubicle-based environment to a free-address (no assigned seating) environment. Upon reflection, I realize that I too have worked in a number of environments; cubical, office, open plan, hoteling, hot desking, activity-based working, team-based working, from home, from coffee shops, from the airport, from the beach, from my bed with Ellen on the TV.
With a background in psychology, learning and development, change management, and workplace strategy, I suppose it’s not surprising that I often find myself contemplating how I learn and the process behind why we work the way we do. Certainly, the evolution of how we best “work” is quite an interesting question, and for most of us, is directly associated with our educational experience.
Back in our ‘play pen’ days we were provided with a designated space to play and learn within the boundaries of four walls, safely under the watchful eyes of our parents. In preschool and kindergarten, students are typically clustered at group tables for work and play and store their belongings in cubbies. The child learns in this communal fashion, interacting with fellow children and teachers. Then, in grade school, each child has their own assigned desk in a specific classroom. This is often a very difficult transition for some children, as they are moving to a much more structured environment. Their classroom becomes their ‘home base’, and they do all of their learning here (except for specialized activities that require different rooms like music, physical education, etc.). In middle and high school, each student has their own locker, and they move around from classroom to classroom. The locker is the central repository for their belongings, but all learning and working takes place in different settings.
College is similar, where there are different spots for different activities. Classrooms here act as meeting rooms and students are provided with an array of choices for where to complete individual work (gym, library, lawn, study halls, cafeteria). These choices empower the student, making them responsible for their own learning and allowing them to work in the environment that best suits them on any given day. Students are also introduced to dorm rooms as a ‘home base’ and have access to shared amenity spaces (like many offices do) depending on the university, such as student lounges, libraries, event spaces, and more.
Throughout our education, we are taught that we are being prepared to live in the “real world”, in a professional world. As they grow, children and young adults are certainly afforded an increased level of trust and responsibility in the progression from preschool up to university. Yet many of us find that once we enter the professional workforce, we are made to revert back to more of a play pen or grade school style of working, far from the intellectually empowering workstyle we experienced in college.
Many offices are still designed (usually inadvertently) in a manner that dissuades employees from circulating around the office and collaborating with colleagues. Rather than being provided with the technology (laptops, iPads, etc.) to work in different locations that support their ‘best’ work, employees are tethered to their cubicles. This design discourages the kind of serendipitous encounters that can lead to knowledge sharing and creative problem-solving. Young professionals just out of college thus transition from a university level (free address) working model to a traditional level cubical one and begin developing behavioral habits that foster silos and do not reap the benefits of shared thought and action (collaboration).
For many professions, an assigned seating work style supports their way of working and is the best and most productive solution. Traders at financial firms have very specific setups such as 4 to 8 large monitors specifically tailored to each trader’s needs and preferences. Employees at architectural, engineering, and scientific firms need extremely powerful (and thus often bulky) computers, multiple monitors, and desk space for plans and schematics. These kinds of environments are thus not often suited to cookie cutter free-address ways of working but require more strategic intervention.
There is no doubt that what works for one person/department may not work for another in drawing out the benefits of unassigned seating, but the benefits of a thoughtful and well implemented free address workplace speak for themselves; increase in collaboration, increase speed of knowledge sharing and decision making, increase in morale, increase in wellbeing, increase in productivity, development of new skills across teams, increased diversity of thought, enhanced in speed to market, increased ability to attract and retain talent, and more. Planning your company’s work culture and workplace strategy carefully and empowering team members with more choices and options for how and where they work can keep your company’s employees out of grade school.
There is no one size fits all and I believe that every solution is wrong until you find the right solution for you. Workplace change takes time, leadership commitment, buy in, budget, a willing culture and a good strategy – you can’t have any one of these without the other.
Here are some examples of how to foster better working environments if you’re not yet ready to take the leap to developing a new workplace strategy. They will also serve in preparing for any future workplace initiative by building change resilience.
Connectedness – Develop initiatives that encourage staff to get to know each other beyond their immediate teams.
Team building – Identify your team’s strengths on an individual and team level. Discuss in teams what makes your team successful, how your build a sense of community and what individuals priorities are.
Appreciation – Work with teams such as HR and Events to host an event that celebrates what makes your organization unique; your values. Give examples of how staff at all levels can live these values daily.
Leadership Training – Push for leadership to learn of different management styles, it is likely that any future workplace environment will not be successful if leadership is not open to change.
Evaluation – Changes do not happen in isolation of the rest of the organization. If you don’t already know, find out what works and what doesn’t work from organizational, departmental, managerial, team and individual levels. e.g. corporate communication methods, team structures, style or places of collaboration, internal events, incentives, etc.
