Culture and the Office
The enthusiasm and energy that a great culture bring are crucial to a successful company. Staff work well together, take pride in their work, and company performance gets a massive boost as a result. However, building and maintaining a great culture has never been so challenging. If you’re feeling that your culture has lapsed over recent years then an office refurbishment could be a key part of rebuilding a great culture.
There is no denying the importance of company culture in the 21st century. As the shift to a knowledge-based economy continues, culture is what knits your staff together, making them more than the sum of their parts. One former IBM CEO said: “Culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.”
There are 9 key components of culture. These are vision & values, processes, communication, leadership, learning & development, environment, recognition, compensation, and wellbeing. Your workplace plays a big role in three of those: environment, communication, and wellbeing.
Environment needs little explanation. Your workspace is shaping the attitudes, emotions, and performance of your people every minute they are in the office. As the space where your staff spend most of their working lives, your office has a big impact on how they communicate and collaborate. Given that most people want to spend 2-3 days in the office per week, making sure the office keeps them healthy and positive is also crucial.
In this article, we’ll go through 3 major ways to improve your company culture through office refurbishment. These are creating a brand experience that reflects & enhances your culture, increasing collaboration space to aid communication, and creating an office that improves the physical & mental health of your staff.
1) Create a Brand Experience
Today, attracting and retaining the right people for your business has never been so difficult. Providing a unique brand experience in your office is a key part of creating a great culture. Many people think of office branding as a logo in the reception and a few walls in the brand colours. The reality, however, is that branding is much more than the colours in your space. It includes the entire experience your staff have throughout the day, from the chairs they sit in, to the coffee they drink. It all affects the mindset of your staff. Making sure your office is on brand is crucial to improving the relationship between your staff and your company.
The stunning offices of brands such as Google, Apple, and Instagram are not designed purely for aesthetics. They are designed to provide an immersive brand experience that embodies the company's culture and values. As a result, staff produce work that is much more aligned with that culture, as they are constantly surrounded by it.
How To Improve Brand Experience
To create a workplace experience that boosts culture, create an office that brings your brand to life. The first part to improve your culture through brand experience is to make sure the layout of your office matches the way your people need to work. Is there enough space and the right facilities for your staff to collaborate effectively? Are there too many desks, making your company seem outdated and too formal?
Once the right layout has been sorted, you can move on to the finishes. The most obvious place to start is the walls, both in terms of signage and colour schemes. Digital graphics, graffiti or artwork can also help communicate your brand. It extends to every finish in your space, from the carpets to the upholstery on the task chairs. It’s all part of your brand home, so making sure it contributes to the brand experience will help you build and maintain a great culture.
2) Increase Collaboration Space
Effective communication is at the heart of collaboration. No attempt to improve your company culture will succeed if your people can’t communicate effectively. The workspace plays a big role in communication by providing the best environment for ongoing collaboration. Having your people together in an office that reinforces your culture doesn’t guarantee a great culture, but it certainly makes it much easier! When colleagues only communicate via laptops, it is difficult to build relationships.
Collaboration spaces are different from meeting spaces. The emphasis is on working together, not sharing information. There are many different kinds of collaboration spaces which can range from two-person work booths to large stand-up collaboration tables. It is important you have a variety of collaborative spaces that suit the way your people work. By enabling your people to work together in the way that suits their role, culture will be improved throughout your office.
How to Improve Collaboration
Collaboration spaces are more than just meeting rooms or kitchen areas. 3 years ago, most offices featured about 10% collaboration space. Today’s office designs feature between 30 and 45% collaboration space. If your office is still all desks and boardrooms, communication and collaboration will be stifled, which will be a drag on culture.
Collaboration is not one size fits all. It happens in a wide variety of ways, with different numbers of people. To cater for this, you need to make sure your space is as adaptable as possible. There are a wide variety of movable and modular furniture solutions available from seats to presentation boards. Your people need an easy way to congregate and share ideas, so every collaboration space looks different.
3) Design for Wellbeing
The physical and mental health of your staff is absolutely central to good company culture. If your office is a drab, unergonomic desk farm that provides no sort of inspiration, the personal health of your people will suffer. This will have a very damaging effect on your company culture.
Creating a “destination workspace” that your staff actually want to be in is no longer an option. Today, the the office is competing with the kitchen table. As a result, the office has to be a much better option wellbeing to outweigh the convenience of remote working.
Rising absenteeism is a sign that your culture is declining. Workers in the UK lose an average of 30.4 working days a year due to sickness, or illness-related underperformance, costing the economy £78bn. Even if your people are at work, if their wellbeing is poor, their performance will be far below what it could be.
How to Improve Wellbeing
To improve well-being in your office, biophilic design is crucial. Biophilic design maximises the use of natural resources and materials in your offices, from natural light to wooden surfaces. Modern offices maximising biophilic design have reported a 30% decrease in sickness-related absences. They also reported an increase in cognition and sleep quality.
Having a variety of environments within your office is also a good way to improve culture through wellbeing. This variety will give them autonomy over their working style and environment. Research has shown that employees have reduced levels of stress and increased happiness when they have autonomy. Different zones for focussed working, collaborative working, and relaxation are absolutely essential. Using different furniture and finishes within these spaces will further increase the autonomy of your staff.
Improving Your Culture With Office Refurbishment
Culture is crucial to the successful performance of your business. Organisations with strong cultures have 72% higher employee engagement rates. Having highly engaged employees can lead to a 202% increase in performance. If you feel your culture has been declining over recent months and years, an office refurbishment can be an effective part of a culture reboot. Your office has a big impact on 3 core components of company culture: environment, communication, and wellbeing.
It’s also important to remember that a refurbishment alone won’t improve your culture. Your office refurbishment needs to be combined with an effort to improve all the other elements of culture. If you still have poor processes or compensation, an office refurbishment won’t have the impact on your culture that it could and should have.
Want to learn more about how to decide if it’s the right time to do an office refurbishment? Based on our 15 years of experience, there are 6 main reasons companies do (or don’t) go ahead with an office refurbishment. To learn about these factors, and how to decide if you need an office refurbishment, read our article, Is Now the Right Time to Refurbish My Office?