The Impact of Workspace on Productivity and Company Culture

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Thescalers
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Where you work has a huge impact on how you work — after all, you spend over one-third of your day at the office. Studies conducted by Gensler shows that a well-designed office space can foster healthy company culture and increase the productivity of employees by over 20%.

However, despite the studies and statistics, a significant number of employers still tend to overlook the design of the office space. It isn’t just about Feng Shui or crystals and manifestation; it’s about creating a welcoming work environment and getting the job done. By designing the right workspace, you can bolster your team’s morale, increase employee retention, and positively impact your company culture.

In this piece, we’ll walk you through three ways we enhance our company culture, by creating an office space that our employees love coming back to every single day. And maybe, you can implement them in your workspace too!

1. ‘OPEN’ SPACE AND ‘COLLABORATIVE’ SPACE ARE NOT THE SAME THING

There’s no doubt that the official way of life is always evolving. Gone are the days when you’d walk into an office and see rows of isolated, yet identical cubicles.

A few years ago, when the millennials took over, an open floor plan seemed like the perfect solution. However, studies have shown that open offices are often associated with less productivity, higher stress levels, and low employee satisfaction. And that’s why, to combat this problem, businesses are now shifting towards implementing a collaborative office space.

A collaborative workspace is one that is designed, keeping in mind the different types of work activities your employees perform on a daily basis.

For instance, you can create personal spaces that employees can customize to fit their unique preferences, social areas for collaboration and bonding, meeting rooms for brainstorming sessions, and ‘thinking rooms’ for when they need some peace and quiet. You can also implement breakaway areas and fun features like pool and foosball tables to make the workspace more dynamic, in turn, encouraging employee interaction and promoting healthy company culture.
DID YOU KNOW?

Employees who can move to different areas at work are 1.3 times more likely to be engaged than other employees.
Source: Gallup survey

At The Scalers, we’ve implemented a collaborative workspace where teams can enjoy their own personal space that they can set-up according to their preferences. They also have access to a common area that has a foosball table, a pantry stocked with snacks and tea, and comfortable couches to kick back and relax. Our teams also get unlimited access to the meeting rooms, phone booths, and activity rooms.

2. AN ERGONOMICALLY DESIGNED WORKSPACE IS KEY

When you’re planning your office space, comfort is one of the most critical parameters to consider. With most people spending 40+ hours at work every week, ergonomic workstations are the need of the hour.

In fact, many designers across the globe are introducing the concept of ‘hygge’ into their modern office designs. ‘Hygge’ is a Danish word that is defined as creating a mood of coziness and comfort, which is associated with wellness, contentment, and the feeling of home.

Discover more to know how you can enhance your company culture by creating an office space that your employees will love coming back to.
danwan337
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While both the terms productivity and company culture are different, they are still considered part of employee experience. Employee experience is anything that makes the employee happy. It can be workspace, company culture, onboarding, exit, etc. Before Covid-19, remote working was still a part of the organizational structure, but it only gathered more weightage during the pandemic. The workspace does matter in employee's productivity because when you are at work, there is a sense of understanding and the environment to do your task on time, whereas when you are at home, there are distractions that delay the work. Here is a short glimpse of the survey that you must see https://www.sogosurvey.com/survey-templates/employee/company-culture-survey/
reneeteng
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When I studied and wrote the article about the role of leadership in agile transformation, the importance of culture comes first.

Mike Cottmeyer proposed that agile transformation needs managers to cooperate on the transformation with three common ways to begin transformation:
  • System: the current work frame and the value of the organization. Build a cross-functional team, first focus on value and flow, and then change the practice and culture.
  • Culture: the team mentality and thinking will change the structure and practice of the system.
  • Practice: the method, the tool set or the framework, and then the institutional structure and culture will change accordingly.
You can read more about it here https://bit.ly/3nPh3nS
LexHawk
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Remember that the efficiency of your employee is the key to the success of the whole company. When we moved to work from home, our numbers dropped. So we had to install remote employee monitoring software. It allows us to see which programs our employees are running and which websites they visit and block specific programs and websites. And voila! It works for our workers.
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dhaughey
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Hi LexHawk,

Interested to hear you are using remote employee monitoring software. How did your employees react to being monitored and how has it helped improved productivity?

Duncan
JaneKing
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dhaughey wrote: Wed 23 Dec 2020 7:19 am Hi LexHawk,

Interested to hear you are using remote employee monitoring software. How did your employees react to being monitored and how has it helped improved productivity?

Duncan
I'd really love to hear this as well. It's quite a touchy topic. Normally the word "monitoring ''' usually raises a brow but I personally don't have an issue with it. Infact I think at some point every business will need it to keep track of productivity. I must add that. It should only the purpose of improving productivity and not invading privacy.
"Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all its pupils."
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