Beyond The Cube

June 7th, 2010 in Trends    No Comments

Beyond the cube, workplace design now embraces such lofty concepts as enhancing communication, facilitating work-in-process, managing technology and providing an up-to-date alternative to “cube life”. Sound too easy? Let’s break it down.

• Planning principals begin with storage and work surfaces, not cubicle panels.
• Natural light is shared and collaboration is enhanced.
• Work in Progress is displayed & organized as the user wants it.
• Wires, cords and connections are smartly managed and easily accessible.

Access to natural light can be increased by lowering panel height. If privacy is then an issue, incorporate translucent privacy screens. (more…)

Does Your Current Workspace Support Your Workers and Their Work?

June 7th, 2010 in Design    No Comments

Gone are the workplace concepts of the 1970’s. Floor plan designs created isolating and non-stimulating environments. Physical barriers of cubicle design, circulation patterns, and the lack of daylight views for most employees blend together to inhibit collaboration and inspiration.

Teams are therefore slower complete tasks, thus affecting team, and individual results.

Workplaces also must be reinvented to accommodate new technologies, beyond just the impact of wireless technology. New hardware and software is causing workers to think and behave differently, and therefore, accomplish daily tasks in a new way. (more…)

Workers’ Ailing Health Problematic; ‘Presenteeism’ Bigger Problem In Tough Times, Experts Say

August 23rd, 2009 in Health    No Comments

This article addresses “presenteeism,” the productivity lost by employees who are on the job but accomplishing little because they are distracted or suffering from fatigue or depression. The author believes this issue is particularly important now that many employers are financially unable to invest in infrastructure enhancements, making worker productivity more important than ever before. A recently completed multi employer study measured the total costs of employee illnesses. (more…)

Office Designs

August 13th, 2009 in Trends    No Comments

Current economic conditions are causing many firms to cut back on real estate costs. Other companies are simply looking to rearrange things to eliminate the morale-sapping empty offices resulting from firm layoffs. This article looks at three design trends that have emerged to address this situation and create engaging environments for creativity and productivity. (more…)

Tear Down This Wall – Creating An Open Workplace Environment Can Heighten Employee Collaboration, Creativity, Satisfaction, Quality Of Life

March 1st, 2009 in Design, Office Management    No Comments

[This article is the second of a two-part series based on findings from the 2008 Gensler Workplace Survey.]

In this article the author revisits the Gensler Workplace Survey and briefly touches on the nature of the four work modes of focusing, collaborating, learning and socializing. She briefly touches on the major findings discussed in the first article, noting that workers put as much effort into collaborating, learning and socializing as they do on focusing by themselves and that employees at top-performing companies believe that time spent on non-focus work is more critical to job success than do workers at average companies. (more…)

Working Around the Water Cooler

February 1st, 2009 in Design, Office Management    No Comments

Working Around The Water Cooler; Research Findings Suggest Socialization As Critical To High Performance As ‘Heads-Down Work.’

[This article is the first of a two-part series based on findings from the 2008 Gensler Workplace Survey.]
In the current knowledge economy, both individual and team efforts are used to drive business performance, with success arising from intangibles such as ideas, innovation and employee engagement. This article looks at the 2008 Gensler Workplace Survey, conducted in the U.S. and the UK and explores its insights about how people work, the amount of time they spend in specific work modes and how critical each mode is to productivity and job performance.

The article identifies four work modes that employees engage in:

1. Focus. The ability to devote uninterrupted effort (thinking analyzing, creating, producing) to a particular task or project. Average 48 percent of employee time.
2. Collaborate. Working with others to plan, strategize, problem-solve, create. Average 32 percent of employee time.
3. Learn. Concept-exploration, memorization, discovery and reflecting. Average 6 percent of employee time.
4. Socialize. Plays a critical role in fostering the social networks that move knowledge through an organization to create innovation. Helps to create common values, collegiality. Average 6 percent of employee time.

(more…)

Obesity And The Workplace: Current Programs And Attitudes Among Employers And Employees

January 16th, 2009 in Health    No Comments

Today two out of every three American adults is either overweight or obese and it’s predicted that by 2015, 40 percent of U.S. adults will be obese. Furthermore, notes the article, “Nearly 80 percent of obese adults have diabetes, coronary artery disease, high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, or gallbladder disease. 40 percent have two or more of these conditions, with obesity linked to 400,000 deaths per year.”
For employers, this health catastrophe translates into high medical claim expenses, ever increasing short- and long-term disability expenses, higher absenteeism and falling productivity even when employees do come in.

This article explores the results of two major national surveys that shed light on these issues. The first survey examines weight-management programs offered by employers to counter obesity. The second survey explores employee views about these programs. The article briefly discusses the survey methodologies and then goes into some detail about the findings and their implications. Among the more interesting results:

• 71 percent of employers overall and 92 percent of employers with over 5000 employees agree that workplace weight-management programs are appropriate and effective in addressing their concerns about medical expenses and lost productivity;
• 80 percent of employees surveyed felt that weight-management and health lifestyle programs belong in the workplace, with only 10 percent (largely lower income, less educated workers) strongly believing that such programs interfered with privacy;
• 55 percent of employees agree that “seriously overweight or obese employees raise premiums for everyone”;
• Employers were more likely to believe obesity a result of poor lifestyle choices (93 percent) or preventable (87 percent) than “out of one’s control” (41 percent) or futile to treat (18 percent); while
• 81 percent of employees felt that obesity had a genetic component, although only 11 percent felt strongly about this.

(more…)

Do Open-Plan Offices Drive You Up The Wall?

July 21st, 2008 in Design    1 Comment

The first half of this article explores the advent and growth of the open-plan office design and its building block, the cubicle. Readers are introduced to the original 1960s vision of bland partitioned desks that “disappear” into the office, and so avoid the vagaries of fashion. Each workstation would be overlayed by its occupant with individualized decoration that would turn it into “a small slice of home.” Then, the author laments, skyrocketing real estate prices brought on corporate cost-saving measures that squeezed more and more people into less and less space. (more…)