In a 2006 survey by Management Today magazine, virtually all
(97 per cent) of those responding said that they regarded their
place of work as a symbol of whether or not they were valued by
their employer. Yet only 37 per cent thought that their offices had
office design ‘with people in mind’, and no less a third said that
they were too ashamed of their offices to bring back colleagues
or clients.
This is the kind of gap which should worry management and
which, were it to occur in any other discipline in business, would
almost certainly get urgent attention in the boardroom. So why
do so many companies continue to dress the office design in rags in a
country which must, in the face of growing international
competition, earn its living by its wits?
The answer may be that a company’s most natural response to
that same force of competition is to seek to drive down its costs
and office design represent a cost that is both readily identified and
readily comprehended. As in so many facets of life, however, a
preoccupation with cost may actually destroy value: but the ways
in which office design can create value for a business, not just through
economy but also through improving the effectiveness of its people and
broadcasting positive messages about its values, are inadequately understood.
Professional planning allows the connection between office design
and business performance is therefore both important and timely. It
provides a positive route map for those facing the challenges and
opportunities of addressing their business’s accommodation
needs; and it does this by:
• summarising what we actually know, so that we can embed this
learning in good practice and avoid re-exploring the same issues
• summarising what more could be known, pointing to the need
for further research on your office design
• proposing a framework for the analysis and application of
accommodation factors which affect business performance
• suggesting a standardisation of the language and protocols by
which this subject is pursued, so that we can accumulate a
growing body of knowledge on office design as national
importance.
None of this will throw up easy answers, and one by-product of
employing poressionals should be the abandonment of the very
idea that there might be a single answer to any user’s question
a holy grail of office design, it does, however, point the way by which
individual users might find their answer, and demonstrates that
the effort is worthwhile.
For those who get this wrong, the best they can hope for is a
missed opportunity; and the worst is nothing less than the loss of
their key people as a consequence of growing dissatisfaction
with their office design.For those who get it right, the
reward, if not the holy grail, can be something almost as magical.
http://www.interiorsgroup.co.uk
Filed under: General, Business, Office Supplies, Communications