What does it mean to have a flexible workspace? Increasingly, there is talk about how having a funky, engaging office design can motivate your employees and improve their productivity. As a result, more and more companies are investing time and resources in creating bespoke, branded spaces.
But even if your office has been professionally designed and decorated to create this motivating vibe, you still might not be getting the most out of your space.
As technology continues to increase our flexibility and mobility in the ways we work, our office spaces should be designed in such a way to reflect this. The days of being married to your designated office space have come to an end.
Whether you have a permanent desk or are just renting one a couple of days a month, it can be incredibly worthwhile to remove any rigidity to your working environment, through the use of hot-desking and communal work areas.
By creating a fluid, flexible workspace that can support new ways of working and collaboration, you will use your offices better while actively facilitating your employees’ productivity and well-being.
So, what are the top 3 benefits of creating a flexible workspace?
3 Benefits of a flexible workspace
1. Community
Since the rise of laptops, tablets and smartphones, there has been a large decrease in the amount of F2F interaction at work; usurped by emails, phone calls and instant messaging.
However, an article in the Harvard Business Review collected some key performance data on workplace design. They found that F2F interactions were some of the most important activities in the office.
Moreover, their data suggests that creating those chance encounters and unplanned interactions improves performance between employees. One of the benefits of a flexible workspace is that, by having unassigned desks and more communal work areas, employees are more likely to move around throughout the day, working in different places and facilitating interaction and collaboration between one another.
Additionally, this can more easily accommodate your flexible workers when they come to work at the office hub for a day or so, helping to make them feel included and supported.
2. Comfort
Having a flexible design for your office also has an important impact on an individual’s workday too. Specialists Herman Miller conducted a study on comfort in the workplace and found that employee comfort directly affects their efficiency, productivity, job satisfaction, retention, wellbeing and at its most basic level, the employee’s health.
Creating flexible workspaces that allow employees to be more mobile and change their surroundings, or at least have a say on where they decide to work, can create really positive results in terms of employee engagement and connectivity.
3. Savings
If you find that your company has a lot of flexible or part-time workers, it makes little sense to keep rigid desk allocations. Adopting ideas such as working at hot-desks or simply having unassigned workstations, can maximise your spacial efficiency for the times your employees are in the office.
This helps reduce cost is by cutting down on the amount of real estate needed to accommodate your workforce.
This is particularly applicable if you find yourself with rows of empty, allocated desks, due to home or flexible workers. Cut the allocation, create a flexible alternative and save money on unnecessary space.
There are a numerous benefits to having a more flexible workspace- not only does it enhance productivity and efficiency, but the associated costs to organisations make it more than worthwhile. Perhaps its time to start reconsidering not just how you design your workshops, but the way in which you work.
