Homesick for the office

It is often only when away from home one realises just how important home is

Where we come from, our home, shapes us and makes us who we are today – for many, it provides a sense of security. Knowing that you have a home gives you the strength to persevere in hard times. It promotes productivity and creativity.

Anyone who wants to carry a sense of home within themselves, needs first to have experienced what home means to them. After all, home is a subjective feeling. Remember the sound of the floorboards creaking in your nursery? Each one of us has different memories - some positive, some not so positive. The rooms and the situations we experienced then, play an important role in the here and now. We understand that the way we design these rooms can influence the specific experiences of their users.

"Home" and work?

In times of change, globalisation, digitalisation, individualisation and, in particular, in times of physical isolation - due to the coronavirus - the concept of home becomes even more relevant, also in regard to our world of work. The boundaries between one's private and professional life are being blurred to an increasing degree (the key word being work-life blending), unforeseeable situations are now a regular part of our daily work and require a high degree of flexibility. Entire teams work across spatial boundaries - and much more successfully than one expected. In order to guarantee stability in systems, processes and organisations during these times - so as to promote feelings of belonging and safety - closely identifying with companies is an essential criterion. To us, the notion of "home" is based on an important collection of ideas - after all, as people, we long to have our place.

The term ‘home’ based loosely on a definition by Gerhard Handschuh, refers to the relationship between people and space. One talks of "socialisation experiences" which define one's identity, character, mentality, mindset and world view. With respect to sociocultural boundary conditions, they differ from region to region. Nonetheless, they are constantly influenced by four dimensions, which have a decisive influence both in a private and professional context. First, the social dimension - the team, clients and colleagues; second, the cultural dimension - the corporate culture; third, the spatial dimension - the office environment one experiences physically; and fourth, the dimension of time - the situations that make up our productive everyday work experience.

Companies have the possibility of creating a work environment that feels like home. But they must take an active approach in order to create such an environment in a strategic and intentional manner. By doing so, they can increase their potential to acquire employees and promote loyalty as well as enhance performance – particularly during times of increasing mobility and decentralisation of teams which require result-orientated collaboration. The current developments make it clear that mobile work is possible in many industries and is also profitable to a certain extent. However, these developments also bring uncertainties with them and a lack of social interaction. They trigger a displacement of values and a change in consciousness. A turning point of this sort may be the perfect time for employers to consider how they can create a specific home environment at work.

Home on the road

While some people are busy speculating whether the classic office is a thing of the past, we advocate asking the question whether the office has now become more of an anchor point in the collective consciousness of the workplace, a place which people return to time and time again, a place one remembers even if it is not possible to visit it for a time. A place where the corporate culture can be experienced on a physical level and which is adapted functionally and emotionally to the needs of the workforce.

If this is successful, then home can be taken along – to one's remote office, on a business trip or even to other alternative places of work. The mechanisms at work here function in a way that they remind one of this very place (the actual office, one's professional home port), the feeling associated with this place and enables people to carry this atmosphere with them.

In extreme cases, an array of colours or a particular smell is enough to trigger these memories and convert them into positive energy. What should employees remember when they think of their work home?

As experts for space and/or people and organisations, we ask ourselves – also drawing on our own experiences – what we can learn from the crisis that can be harnessed for the conception and design of work worlds. We are convinced that the importance of soft real estate factors must increase and that user-specific design will become more relevant in order to impart a feeling of belonging and home in a work context. The office may not only be used as a functional space, but also as an instrument that shapes identity. If we establish offices as homes, however, a paradigm shift is needed.

New work = room + culture

In the context of new work, beauty doesn't just mean the interplay of design, colour, plants, etc., but also hospitality as a whole. That is, which feeling comes over us when we enter a building - and what remains? What do we associate with a visit to a special place, our favourite restaurant, museum or business? It is the interplay of numerous factors which all have in common the ability to touch us. Touching people on an emotional level is a new requirement for offices, but one essential to their survival, if they do not want to vanish into nothing. After all, the goal is to create the right energies, mood and atmosphere in order to create a quality environment and achieve quality interactions.

In the sense of the home environment at work described above, it is of course not only about a space as such, but the collection of spaces and people: that's when one can talk about a house. A house of communication, for example, as a well-known agency group in Germany very intentionally calls its offices. What is behind houses in this respect? Ideally, the houses offer sufficient possibilities for satisfying our individual needs. Our working styles are as different as we are as people. Ideally, we manage to meet our needs with a sufficient number of the right rooms. The aim therefore is to design workspaces that relate to our tasks and which allow people to achieve their potential. In the process, home inevitably also concerns the corporate culture, which, as described above, can be expressed in a physical design based on the relevant philosophy. However, culture is broader than that.

Corporate culture refers, as is known, to behaviour, artefacts, and the sets of beliefs held in an organisation. It is usually specific but can also be loosely put into categories. As a result, there are elitist, performance-based, conservative and people-centric forms of cultures. Corporate culture is the direct outward expression of an organisation. It influences every dimension of relevance to stakeholders: society, customers, employees, investors, management. Corporate cultures determine reputation, success, failure as well as the viability and future-readiness of organisations. Cultures where achieving one's potential is taken seriously, are interested both in individual growth, but also in creating team spirit across the board.

What might seem like a paradox at first glance makes sense. In their wonderful work "Officina Humana", the authors, Jan Teunen & Christoph Quarch, describe it as follows: "People want two things - to be free and to belong. They enjoy working in a team, but they also need room for individual pursuits. They achieve their potential within this field of tension". In other words - an individualised community allows us to better visualise this paradox. If each person in an organisation manages to contribute his or her skills within his or her means, if mistakes and errors are allowed while at the same time maintaining an ethic of achievement: and if solidarity and an attitude where people don't just want to work with one another, but for one another, are valued, then a special culture can grow. Such communities are permeated by a spirit which shapes their identity and produces a positive feeling of home. Through open communication, transparency, staff networking, and valuing diversity, a sense of cultural wealth and psychological security can develop.

Safety first!

A sense of psychological security goes hand in hand with trust. Trust in one's surroundings and environment. If this trust predominates, people communicate in a more open manner, tend to see opportunities instead of risks and open up to their colleagues in a different manner, which can be of ground-breaking importance to an organisation. After all, when in doubt, innovative strength lies in small, tentative and new ideas, which are needed in order to transform the status quo long term.

This is where a so-called error culture begins. After all, cognitive mistakes can occur in the early stages of new projects and undertakings. The art lies in the reaction of the surroundings. If one manages to confront new ideas with respect, sincere listening, objectivity and a results-oriented approach and put one's personal affairs and ego aside, this gives rise to innovative, high-performance cultures.

The importance of high-performance environments is to be emphasised because our explanations regarding home, new work, culture and safety should not be understood as an end in themselves. On the contrary, they must be internalised as integral and intelligent components of a modern understanding of management because they make it possible for us to consider causal associations in a holistic manner. In terms of organisations, numbers continue to be of essential importance, but they are "merely" resulting figures. Clarity in regards to numbers also provides a point of reference and a sense of security.

On this basis, organisations can (re)discover their individual purpose by following their "why?". Knowing our home, valuing our culture, feeling safe and secure; the question that remains is: What would be missing from the world if our organisation didn't exist? This question always goes back to the source of it all and helps to identify actual sources of strength, which are very often accompanied by the motivation of the founder. If organisations again become aware of these phenomena, realign and, as a result, channel their strengths, we experience time and again how unleashing potential works in an organisational sense and how brands can be revamped. The signals and manifestations of a brand then go hand in hand with corporate culture and space. The results are synergy, alignment and success.

Alfred Herrhausen once said: "What we think, we must say, what we say, we must do, what we do, we must be". Home is a source of strength from within us. It is reflected in the surroundings, which we create and in the culture in which we live. It gives us safety and a point of reference - and shapes our identity which makes us courageous. And courage is excactly what we need on the way to "Brave New Work"

Dr. Laura Kienbaum & Fabian Kienbaum