The office talks: A space for each task | 6 |
The office should offer a palette of different workspace choices for different work modes. Employees can choose from a variety of settings according to what they are doing throughout the day. Just like having TV shows, food, music, and clothes on demand, the office will have to be adapted to the needs and activities of?employees as an evolving organism.
A “traditional” workspace, whether cubicles or open-plan desks, often means “inflexibility”. Today, this office layout doesn’t make sense anymore – employees perform at their best when companies empower them to work when, where, and how they want to. Creating a more personalized experience in the workspace and empowering employees can be achieved by offering environments for particular types of work: individual, group, creation, concentration, and exchange.
The idea behind activity-based working is that employees will be more productive when they have the right space for each task.
A menu of workspace choices
If employees have to sit or stand in one location all day, every day, they may start to wonder whether their employer values them for their performance or their presence in the office. A study showed that a worrying 78% of office workers would like more flexibility in their work options to be more productive. By aligning the surroundings to the task at hand, you also align your mindset to that task. Also, just getting up, moving to another space, and being more active that way, is healthier than sitting in the same place all day.
A workplace that supports activity-based working should offer a menu of different workspace choices...
Now that working from home is here to stay, employers will have to figure out which tasks are office tasks and flip the mental switch to thinking about how employees will use the space when coming to the office and trust them to use whichever space they see fit for as long as they need. Rather than owning a cubicle, employees will land at different spots throughout the day. Small private offices can be reserved with a phone app or a touchscreen on the door, but collaborative spaces where several people work together are much more popular.
A workplace that supports activity-based working should offer a menu of different workspace choices such as stand-up meeting spaces, seated places for focused work, collaboration settings, break-out spaces, silent areas, outdoor patios, team desks, sit-stand workstations, and lounge areas.
Trust employees to use whichever space they see fit for as long as they need
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Testimonial: Always on the move
It must be said, I don’t like to sit still all the time. Even though I’m working in the internal sales department at Extremis, my colleagues know that they won’t find me sitting at my desk all day. Let me guide you through a typical working day. - Tessa Geloen, Extremis Employee.
8:30: Good morning everyone, but first, let me grab my coffee. Around the coffee machine, I bump in into colleagues from other departments and have some chit-chat.
8:35 – 10:00: Work, work, work and rush, rush, rush to clear my whole mailbox at once. When I get a call, you can find me walking around with my headset. Belgium is not sunny California, but as soon as the weather is nice I’ll be sitting outside in the Walrus. Hello great outdoors.
11:00: I have a short meeting with my internal sales colleagues in the Kosmos in our showroom. While cocooning, we discuss work and can also shortly cover the less work-related stuff. Hello, team vibes!
11:30: Let me take my ball chair to bounce a bit while assisting our clients. Changing up my seating posture helps me to stay alert – a quality that is indispensable for a salesperson.
12:30: Lunch! If the typical Belgian weather allows it, we sit outside, otherwise, we sit in our lunch area. We always lunch together, it’s the perfect moment to get to know each other. After lunch, I go for a short walk with colleagues.
14:00: It’s time for our daily meetings. If possible we do this outside – we have plenty of tables to choose from, if not we head into one of our meeting rooms.
14:30 – 16:00: After the meeting, it’s time for some more work, work, work. Also, don’t forget about coffee breaks. Latte macchiato, doppio, cappuccino, espresso, what shall I pick?
16:00: Ouf! I need some silence to really focus on a difficult task, let me grab my laptop and sit in a quiet place in our showroom. Preferably a spot where I can see the hop fields or the horses running around. Lovely!
17:00: See you tomorrow!
We still have a lot more to talk about! So, what will we?cover in the following weeks?
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