Want to create a more innovative workplace? Here are tips to get you started
Redesigning your workplace requires an important phase of preliminary research.
- Set out the business objectives you want to achieve.
- Benchmark the offices of your competitors.
- Analyse those areas of your organisation that you want to improve.
- Look at case studies.
- Explore planning constraints.
- Align your business model to the building model you have in mind.
- Don't leap before you've learnt!
Involve your key managers and employee teams in discussions about potential changes. Hold staff meetings at the outset of the project to enable people to input into the brief and 'own' its objectives. If you're relocating, take people to the site for training and orientation before they move in.
A total revolution is often no more difficult to achieve than a partial one. Organisations that have compromised to win the consent of reactionary senior colleagues often regret it later, realising that if they had toughed it out they could have got away with a more ambitious agenda, to everyone's benefit.
If the boss of your organisation is committed to the project, he or she will be a key champion and resolute supporter, capable of fatally undermining any opposition by example. So make sure the Chief Executive is on board.
You may need to use external design or management consultants to supply expertise that the organisation lacks, but be careful to balance their use with internal champions, drawn from all ranks of the organisation including the most junior.
It is better to trial new office designs at the periphery rather than at the centre of the organisation. If you can model a new style of office environment within one division or section of the company, amongst the most positive group of staff you can find, radical change will be much easier to sell to the rest of the organisation.
Experience of having the builders in at home will remind everyone of how easily interior-remodelling schemes can go over budget. So set a realistic budget at the outset with some contingency in case unforeseen structural or electrical problems force up costs.
Everyone can get excited about the opportunity of creating a new-look office and overlook the underlying organisational reasons why changes are being made. State clearly at the outset what you expect the new environment to achieve in terms of communication, morale, teamwork etc and share this with the design team.
Moving to a completely new way of working - from a cellular office to open plan or hot desking, for example - can be a culture shock for many staff. So supplement design changes with staff training workshops to reassure and educate on what is expected in the new environment. Make sure everyone understands the new protocols.
Successful pilot schemes should be widely promoted and publicised inside the organisation 'to encourage the others'. External publicity can also enhance an organisation's image as a progressive employer.
Once the workplace design job is done, don't just leave it to gather dust. Conduct a post-occupancy survey six months down the line so that you can asses staff reaction and make necessary adjustments in line with feedback. Nothing is ever perfect first time around.