It has become personal; new employee experiences are shaping new work environments

As anyone in a senior leadership role will note, there is little place anymore for narrow thinking. The world has changed and to encourage a return to workplaces, many leadership teams have worked hard to create more understanding, flexible workplaces and cultures.

Business in the period from around 2005 through to 2020 had increasingly asked more of everyone. The working day had increased by an average of 3.5 hours and the average lunchtime had declined to just 19 mins. In retrospect, one must ask whoever thought that it was a good idea to allow such trends happen. It is not surprise that many became disengaged and fell out of love with the workplace.

EP has been in many discussions across the market, and we have witnessed first-hand how the most innovative workplaces are developing new service offers; ones which are personal to employees, and which do empower the individual to take responsibility for how they manage their time – and why would anyone argue against this? It does illustrate that too many workplaces have become more about command and control than about nurturing individuals. This is now what is changing.

There is a good reason why the one-hour lunch break played such a normal and central role in work cultures over many decades.?However, the change now is how companies are bringing in creative arts to workspaces to allow employees the opportunity to “refresh” by tapping into their creativity – whether art, food, ceramics, pilates, yoga or music.?Feedback and research suggest that such use of space is seeing higher productivity, retention, cultures, team interaction, energy and satisfaction. The business argument can easily be made but it does need to start by empowering employees to have the time to “refresh” during the day.

When one reflects, it is not hard to see why trust has eroded as more and more environments tried to control their people rather than empower; even internal communications became highly controlled. It is natural that there has been a pushback and an argument for basic principles to be once again strengthened.? People today expect to be trusted and have the freedom to decide what works to ensure that they are effective in their work. Is that so bad?

It has also made many leadership teams listen and adapt. Today, leadership has become more about developing frameworks that support people, not dictate and the results are beginning to show through retention, attraction of talent and improved productivity.

In early March this year, EP will be launching a series of discussions and debates on this central issue, employee experience and workplace productivity. It impacts on all companies, on food service in the future, on office design and on the development of new services, so becomes a central discussion which is broad and engaging.

We have also developed, with partners, a new service offering which does bring together food service, art, music, pilates and yoga and we are in discussions both with business and with heritage sites about creating community destinations to help support well-meaning and mind sets.

The world has changed. The individual has become important, and it requires new services to ensure strong productivity.