If you think having a magnificently designed workplace will manifest your corporate culture, guess again.
- By Leni Rivera
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- 20 Feb, 2019
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I have worked as both an Interior Designer and Manager of an Interior Design company in Asia and the Middle East, specializing in residential design. When you design for people’s homes, it is imperative that you take into consideration their preferences, their personalities, and the unique ways the family moves around their spaces. Ultimately you create a design that reflects the special qualities that are specific to the family that lives there, so that it forms their foundation to call home.
This is the same way I approach designing the Workplace Experience of a company. It isn’t made up of a collection of design elements, activity spaces, workplace space planning, cafeterias and food pantries that are inspired from other offices worldwide. It is imperative that the company’s entire Workplace Experience is a reflection of their own unique culture, personality, values and mission, so that it belongs squarely to them.
The interior design of a workplace is an essential component of the Workplace Experience because it defines not just the physical aspects of a space, but also how people move (and therefore behave) within it. However just like all components of a Workplace Experience – food services, sports and recreation, employee concierge services, transportation services, etc. – it is only a part of the whole. Workplace design, however enticing and stunning, is not the same as a Workplace Experience.
When one speaks of having an “experience”, they are reacting to stimulus from a variety of human senses all at once: experiencing a roller coaster ride is the physical rushing sensation linked with seeing the terrifying winding track ahead of you and hearing the thunderous roar of the tracks and the shrieks of petrified passengers, with the wind pushing against your face. Alternatively, experiencing a Michelin star de gustation dinner is an experience most would define through the taste buds. But this experience is always complemented with visually striking food arrangements, with guests set against warm ambient lighting and elegant background music, and the experience capped off with exceptional waiter service, making that fat check at the end worth every minute.
Such is the same at the workplace, and the interior design of the space has a huge effect on how it is experienced by those within it. This is why the design is such an important element: the appropriate lighting, where and how workspaces are located, inspirational design elements, color, to the sound engineering of soft vs. hard furnishing and finishes – these all have a significant effect on both the conscious and subconscious mind of the user. However, the physical workplace is not all that makes up today’s Workplace Experience, because there is so much more to reflecting a company’s culture, personality and values.
Let’s take the interior design of a family’s home for example. Design elements will include all aspects previously mentioned, but does it fully represent their unique lifestyle? What kind of food do they eat and what do they feed their children? Do they have a set bed time, do they have story time or do Nannies put the children to bed? Do they like to entertain guests and hold quiet or loud parties? Do they have animals in the house, and do they allow them to sleep and eat with them? What are their house rules – do you have to take off your shoes when you enter the house? What photos and memorabilia do they like to display around their house? Is there a religious altar in the corner, with incense burning? These are all aspects that define the unique qualities and values of the family that lives in that space, and if you are a visitor to their home, (especially if you are a house guest for a weekend), you will quickly get a feel for their personality and values as a family. All of this is seen and felt, beyond the design of the house.
Likewise, a Workplace Experience reflects all aspects that define the qualities and values which a company upholds – from the time you walk into the corporate office (your reception services), to where and how you work (workplace design and technology features), how you meet and collaborate (conference rooms, open area meeting spaces, coffee stations, workplace bars), how you generate ideas and take care of yourself (food service spaces with appropriate food choices, corporate gym, outdoor walking tracks or exercise spaces, recreation or game spaces, sleep pods, inspirational rooms), how you communicate your ideas (internal communication processes and avenues), to how you go home (shuttle services). And as you can see, with all the many aspects that define the experience, each touchpoint will be a reflection of the company’s core values, personality and mission.
Therefore, it is not enough to say that you have a great looking and effective workplace design. That alone does not create an experience for your employees, guests and business partners. And as visually impressive as it may be, interior design alone cannot reflect the totality, complexity, nor uniqueness of your corporate culture. Just as the house alone cannot reflect what actually makes it your home.
This time last year, virtually every company around the world shut the doors of their offices, and those that could, asked their employees to work from home. The definition of a workplace began its unforeseeable transformation from a physical office space to a virtual room from anywhere… or did it?
The reality is that this transformation had already started occurring over a decade ago. The pandemic that struck the world simply caused our perception of the workplace to finally catch up with this reality.
In 2019 (12 months before the pandemic struck), The International Workplace Group (IWG) released their annual Global Workplace Survey report, in which they examined responses from over 15,000 professionals from 80 countries. This report revealed that 70% of professionals globally work remotely at least one day a week, and more than half work remotely at least half of the week.
Working remotely is not a new concept, it was just perceived differently. Companies considered those who worked from home and those who worked in the office, as separate entities. They invested their resources on the workplace experience of the physical workplace, while disregarding the home workplace environment. But the pandemic has altered that perception. Everyone from the top executives down were forced to work from home, and thus experienced together the importance of a consistent conveyance of the company’s culture for all employees, regardless of where they work.
Taking this new perception into consideration, the corporate world is now facing an evolution in how they will redefine their “workplace” moving forward, post-pandemic. Some companies have evolved to a fully remote workforce, shifting the workplace to the home environment. Some have a hybrid approach. And others are adhering to a fully office-based work environment. Regardless of how this is defined, what is undoubtedly clear is that resources need to be invested in both environments in order to ensure that the corporate culture is consistently felt by all employees, anywhere.
To demonstrate how this is possible, here is a model of a potential hybrid scenario with employees working in both locations.
I have been a Workplace Experience specialist for 8 years now, and moved to the Bay Area because this is where the industry is prevalent. When I began developing and running a workplace experience for a company all those years ago, I didn’t even realize it had a name, much less understood the impact it would have on the productivity and happiness of people at work.
What most people seem to get wrong is that Workplace Experience is not – should not be – a mere collection of facility perks and benefits. I learned from that mistake early on, and still witness that mistake being made frequently, even here in the Bay Area. Just because you have a corporate gym on premises, or offer food in a company cafeteria, or designate a space in the office for a pool table, doesn’t mean that (1) your employees will even use it, (2) it will be appreciated, or (3) it will have any significant impact on employee engagement. I have seen free shuttle services for employees being underutilized, food in corporate cafes wasted, free gym classes underpopulated, and facility events fall flat. This is because the biggest misconception about a Workplace Experience is that it will generate a fun, unique, engaging environment all on its own. The mistake is a dependence on a Workplace Experience to create a corporate culture, and not the other way around.
The establishment of a corporate culture that is true to its values, principles and overall mission, is where it all begins, always. This forms the foundation of the relationship between the company and its employees. A solid corporate culture attracts the right employees because people want to invest in relationships that are based on mutual respect, trust, personal growth and a shared vision. But people are also wise to recognize when the company is sincere about its culture, or whether it’s just lip service.
Workplace Experience is the measure by which employees are able to quickly and easily gauge the culture’s authenticity. This is because it is the only element of a culture that can be experienced physically through all the human senses – touch, taste, sound, smell and sight, and so it bears witness to the sincerity of its purpose. That’s why placing a pool table in the office or sleep pods in the corner without having a reason behind their existence will cause more doubt than anything else.
Only if a company’s culture anchors itself on being truly invested in its employees’ health and wellbeing, for example, will facility features such as fitness classes, various healthy food offerings, placement of living plants in offices, allocating special parking spaces designed to optimize step counts, and facility programs aimed at helping people achieve their health goals, succeed. In the same respect, if the office areas of the company executives have vastly higher-end finishes, lighting, comfort and appearance than the work areas of the rest of the company, do you think that employees will believe the company culture supports equality and inclusivity?
And let’s not forget, the purpose of a Workplace Experience is far more than just offering attractive features in a workplace. Its primary function as a tool of the corporate culture is to enable and empower employees to be fully engaged and happy with their work. The scope of Workplace Experience includes the entire journey of an employee throughout their workday – from their transportation to work, their entrance into the facility, the ease with which they are able to access their needs (a meeting room, an appropriate work space, work tools and equipment, locating people and departments, etc.) and collaborate with each other (in engaging spaces, over coffee, with meals, through facility events and programs, etc.), and even providing relief by accomplishing chores before ending the day such as dry cleaning, car wash, or bringing home ready-cooked meals. That’s why Workplace Experience is such a powerful tool. It has within its very purpose, the capacity to directly impact employees’ productivity as well as directly influence their happiness at work.
If a company just throws in facility “perks and benefits” without anchoring them in their corporate culture, this investment will not only be a waste of money, it will be the large elephant in the room that constantly reminds employees of how inauthentic the company is. And conversely, as the only physical manifestation of a corporate culture, Workplace Experience can be the company’s most important tool in expressing to employees their sincerity.
Watch out for my first book on Workplace Experience, coming out this year!
