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?
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