Employers: if you want more collaboration, improve your space - WTTL Article

Employers: if you want more collaboration, improve your space

MIKE CHRIST

If you want more collaboration, it’s not enough to offer breakout spaces, whiteboard features, and open areas that allow for crosstalk; you have to promote and encourage their use.

Across all industries, employers are working to improve the culture of their workplace. Nineteen percent of all employees admit to being actively disengaged at work. With that disengagement leading to a 33% loss in operating income and an 11% decline in annual earnings growth, who could blame employers for wanting to make improvements? In the face of such surprising statistics, companies must make every effort to create the kinds of cultures that help recruit top talent, retain key contributors, and make every employee happier, more collaborative, more innovative, and as a result, more productive.

Most companies follow similar strategies to foster better cultures. They work to flatten their leadership hierarchies, create new leadership programs, empower their employees, connect teams more authentically, and offer more flexible schedules. But too many of them are overlooking the most effective tool in the toolbox: their office space.

Put simply, it’s hard to create a good culture in a bad space.

Consider the message that your office space sends every day. Convincing your employees that you value their health, well-being, and happiness is more difficult if you put them in an unhealthy, uninspiring, outdated space with few, if any, amenities. Telling them that you care is one thing; showing them that you care is another. The latter leads to more authentic cultural connection between people and their employers.

The space sets the pace The employee productivity benefits of dynamic office space are well documented, but consider also how your space communicates your cultural values to your clients.

When you walk a client or prospect through a space where everyone is working in silence in drab cubicles, you send a clear message: this is a place where people show up just to get their work done and get paid. When you see this, you don’t need to be familiar with the statistics behind how environments like these equate to a lower-quality work product; you can feel it.

Now think about the advantages you gain when you can walk a client or prospect through an attractive, engaging space that serves as a physical projection of a positive, cohesive culture. The message here is different: this is a place full of creativity, collaboration, and positive energy. This is a place where it is clear that the employees enjoy their work. It isn’t difficult to see how that enjoyment can lead to more positive feelings for the prospect, which in turn leads to more prospects becoming clients.

Don’t just create better space — use it For as long as I’ve worked in commercial real estate, I’m still baffled whenever I see a company occupying a dynamic office space that they’re not using to its fullest benefit. They design and build out all the bells and whistles, from an ultramodern café to variable workspaces to flashy conference rooms to fancy fitness centers, but then they don’t encourage their employees to use them.

If you want more collaboration, it’s not enough to offer breakout spaces, whiteboard features, and open areas that allow for crosstalk; you have to promote and encourage their use. More times than I can count, I’ve toured high-end offices full of people who spend their whole work days shut inside their closed-door workspaces. I’ve seen beautiful cafés that no one uses. I’ve seen fitness centers full of machines collecting dust.

So don’t just build the café; fill it with healthy, delicious food and gourmet coffee, and then put the word out that your people are invited to use it whenever they like. Don’t just install the fitness center; promote quarterly fitness contests that bring people together on a non-work-related challenge, enhance overall health, and end in further reward. Don’t just design modern workspaces and expect everyone, regardless of their role, to find them optimal; design every workspace to be flexible enough to fit individual roles.

Culture is king The goal should be to create an environment where your people are excited to come into every day.

Create a place where: • employees can have a wide array of their professional and personal needs met.

• employees never have to worry about going out for coffee or snacks.

• cutting-edge technology always works.

• employees can enjoy the outdoors on the patio or the walking trail.

• health and fitness is part of the corporate priority.

• traditional benefits like insurance and 401(k) are offered alongside nontraditional benefits like rideshare credits, free cell phones and cellular service data plans, and a complimentary annual massage.

These might sound like overindulgent perks, but you would be amazed at how much they help a person connect to the culture you’re trying to create. All of it generates positive vibes, offers chances for people to bond over something other than work, and creates opportunity for collaborative and innovative thinking that is less common in walled-up, closed-off environments.

Most importantly, these activities, amenities, and the space itself send a clear and repetitive reminder of what your company stands for. Show them how much you care, and they will return the favor in kind.

This article is an excerpt from Work Them to Life: Upgrade Your Office Space to Win the Talent War authored by Jim Scalo and currently available for purchase on Amazon.