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Office Design and the Future of the Workspace

This pandemic has brought lasting changes to what staff need to stay productive and engaged.

Before the pandemic sent employees to home offices, living rooms, and kitchens, employee expectations were already changing. The pandemic accelerated those trends and brought to light new needs in the workplace.

US Furniture manufacturer, Steelcase, conducted research and uncovered four macro shifts that businesses will have to embrace to meet their staffs’ new needs and expectations.  These are designing for:

  • Productivity
  • Safety
  • Community

Designing for Productivity

Before the pandemic, staff were frustrated with workspaces that didn’t provide opportunities for privacy and focus.  Working from home didn’t solve those issues for everyone as productivity and engagement dropped 12% and 14% respectively.

So what do you need to provide in a workspace to ensure your staff stay productive?

  1. Effective collaboration
  2. Easy access to resources and tools
  3. Ability to focus

People need workplaces that support both collaboration and individual work and are designed to easily shift between the two modes.  Contact us to discuss designing your office in a way that maximises productivity.

Designing for Safety

People’s level of comfort in the workplace will depend on a set of safety standards to help control disease transmission in the office.  Employees top concerns are air quality and adherence to safety protocols so designing an office with systemic strategies to reduce the spread of Covid-19 is critical.  Increasing physical space between desks, reducing density and changing the angles and orientation are all tactics you can use to ensure your office is doing all it can to reduce the spread.

 

Designing for Community

The top two reasons people say they want to be back in the office are to connect with colleagues and to feel a sense of shared purpose within the organisation.  This reasons have a strong correlation to business outcomes, specifically engagement, productivity, innovation, and retention.  As long as staff feel confident knowing that your office has safety at it’s forefront, then they can return to build on the sense of community they require.

Redesigning your space

Businesses can use this opportunity to move forward and build an office space that creates a fundamentally better experience for their staff.  Designing an office correctly is paramount to getting the best out of your staff.

Contact us today to discuss how we can build you the best office fitout Melbourne has ever seen!

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