Office Design and Culture must Align!

There are so many trends going on in office design today that is difficult to understand what will work best for your company. You first need to understand the corporate DNA : What is your industry (i.e. legal v. Ad agency), Regional influences (Louisville v. NY, commute time and cost of real estate), Demographics (women v. men, age), Culture, Org Structure (flat or hierarchy), Work Styles (focus v. collaborative). I use the 2 industry extremes to demonstrate the DNA differences needing to be considered in the design. For instance, why would you take away the private offices and corner dream office from lawyers that you want to stay as they get more seasoned, v. an Ad agency that is youthful high energy, hi turn over, and collaborative, where an open and bold design may be best suited for their success.

Also, with Real estate costs being so much lower in Louisville than say  NY or LA- do we really need to do what the major metro areas do? They squeeze employees into small 5' benching desks with the hopes of better collaboration and lower real estate costs. Instead they end up with unhappy employees that wear head phones all day to block out noise, cutting down on collaboration, and increasing visual distractions causing less focus time!

If you find this topic interesting we are hosting a speaker, Kay Sargent IIDA, ASID,CID, LEED AP, Director of Workplace Strategies for LendLease in NY, NY on October 29th. She will help you understand what trends in office design may work for you. Please let me know if you would like the details on this event.