In recent years the trend in workplace design has been a one-way move towards encouraging greater interaction in offices, away from closed spaces and cubicles and towards open-plan working and activity-based environments, supplemented by communal areas designed to bring people together and encourage staff from different departments to meet and share ideas. Social cohesion is what we call business friendliness, and the whole basis of it is that you recognize that everyone brings to work with them a bunch of knowledge and some energy. Regardless of what your day-to-day needs are, you get to know more people so you can both share your knowledge, feel comfortable to challenge people and know what they know. The workplace needs to not create barriers to that, but also to provide facilities to encourage that.
Globally, the emphasis is now on creating workplaces that are not only functional and attractive but also conducive to establishing and supporting social cohesion, collaboration, interaction and engagement. There is an appetite and growing recognition that a great workplace experience can impact engagement, morale, energy and performance. It is imperative to raise the level of awareness of different ways of looking at the design and the delivery of the workplace, and how the workplace can be used as a powerful tool to transform the employee experience and improve an organization’s bottom-line.
The most valuable assets in a modern organization are its employees who are generating the value and returns in the business. So, the onus is on employers to create environments that generate positive workplace experiences and provide workers with the tools to boost wellbeing, engagement and productivity, and enable them to perform at their best. Designing the best possible workplace and employee experience is crucial to recruiting and retaining the best talent too.
