If you run a company with an office of >10 people and aren’t spending time thinking about how your office space helps or hinders productivity then you’re missing a huge opportunity to impact performance. A 2008 survey suggested that less than five percent of US corporations “tie the workplace to corporate strategy or see it as a tool for improving organizational performance.” For shame!
Outside of your IT set-up, there’s no single greater enterprise productivity factor than one’s environment. 9 of 10 employees believe there’s a correlation between office space and performance [same link as above]. It goes beyond the recruiting/sales factor of “wow, cool offices” and it’s much more about how day-to-day physical layout impacts our behavior. At YouTube, we recently started breaking down some cube-like structures and returning to a more open desk pinwheel arrangement. Huge improvement.
Two fun related links:
Colors Matter – Room color impacts performance. Red rooms are better for tasks that require detail and attention. Blue for imagination.
Cubes Are Killers – Robert Probst, the designer of the cube, now thinks cubes are a bad idea for the modern workplace.
What are some innovation office spaces you’ve seen?
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/hunterwalk
Many many many examples of my favorites:
http://www.evernote.com/pub/bobryskamp/Workplacedesign
bob, you rock because (a) that's some great stuff and (b) i <3 evernote
It is true that the performance of the workers in an office also vary depending on their workplace. The wall colors of an office matter. They should be cool to the eyes so that workers will feel calm and relaxed. Cubes or divisions between co-workers create restrictions. It would be better to do without them because people must interact and relate with each other inside the office.