One of our owners, Ron Carucci, says, “Take four walls and a roof and fill it up with people, and you’ve got yourself an organization.” While we often talk about the systemic happenings inside those four walls, there are a number of trends changing the way the four walls and a roof are set up. Below are a few workplace trends worth paying attention to and learning from as you think about how to arrange your company’s walls.
Co-work
More than 160,000 people worldwide are members of over 3,000 co-working spaces, according to a recent report by DeskMag.com and Emergent Research – up from just 20,000 workers in 500 spaces in 2010. While the assumption is that co-working spaces are mainly for entrepreneurs or solo practitioners, a growing number of remote employees are using co-working spaces as their office. Co-working advocates say that sharing a space with leaders from different industries helps them think about their own business more creatively. Co-workers also speak highly of the community that is formed through organized lunches, evening happy hours, lectures, and forums.
Pair Up
Picture computer programmers, and you probably think of flannel-wearing, coffee-drinking workers at individual workstations, each working on his or her own line of code; but, just like the rest of us, developers never work alone. They routinely test, patch, and review each other’s code, and swap notes to make sure different sections of programs operate together. Some programmers even take things a step further, working in pairs. They sit side-by-side at one monitor or share a screen from across the Internet. Advocates of pair programming say that while the practice may boost costs, the benefits to code accuracy and knowledge sharing far outweigh the price in labor. It is interesting to think about what other forms of industries could benefit from work being done in tandem.
Spread Out
Recent studies show that reducing workspace crowding promotes happiness. When people feel crowded, they often feel stressed, which influences their satisfaction with the workplace. In fact, people who work in high-rise buildings already feel more crowded than people who do not, While finding more space is difficult in dense urban environments, architects are now using this information to create lighter, brighter spaces, as well as rooms with high ceilings or mirrored walls so that there is a perception of less crowding. Offices are also being designed to orient individual workspaces to be turned away from potentially crowded spaces like break rooms or meeting rooms.
Connect Globally
Creating opportunities for global teams to interact while sporting a single, global company culture requires creative thinking for the design of a workspace. Cina Gorman, Global CEO of Great Places to Work Institute says, “The ultimate goal is to create one workplace environment despite employees being on the road, working from home or even in foreign locations. Business process and the pace of innovation will improve through enhanced relationships and collaboration as facilitated by technology.”