Workplace design and Employee Engagement

I responded to a message board on LinkedIn this week, the topic of which is how big of a factor is workplace design in terms of employee engagement. Thought some of you might be interested in my thoughts. (there are a few references to other comments made in the discussion string so they may seem a little out of context. You'll get the point):
JC


we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us": Winston Churchill speaking to the House of Lords after the House of Commons was destroyed in 1943.

My firm consults to companies in an attempt to create performance by crafting environments that inspire behavior. There are two main issues I see time and time again when executives try addressing this issue: The first is how little a lot of people know about the effect the workplace has on performance and the 2nd is the simple fact that you can't address engagement by isolating any one component thereof. Engagement is built by the authenticity (Tara and Anne) and effectiveness of your culture in terms of inspiring people to do the things necessary for your business to be a success. The "environment" is the manifestation of your culture. When we talk about environment at my firm we are expanding the definition of the word to include everything that an employee encounters that represents the culture, helps or hinders her from doing her job and in the end drives engagement. not only is the physical space an outward demonstration of how a company feels about its employees, it is also a primary tool for getting work done. If you want your employees to be team players, we can create a physical space for you which is highly destined to make team work more apparent in your organization. Everything from the placement of printers and conference rooms, to the shape of circulation spaces and even how you use color and noise effects the brain (look at the work of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture). We can manipulate these components to trigger certain responses in employees and to make task associated with the behaviors required for strategic success more likely to happen. But for me the more interesting and appropriate part of the study that prompted this discussion came from the notion that integration of workplace solutions are what will drive value. This is the key to the 2nd point of departure we see when dealing with executives. If you are looking to engage employees, and by doing so elicit discretionary efforts towards corporate goals that are appropriate towards achieving those goals (take teamwork again as an example) you must create an ecosystem within your organization that inspires these feelings and these behaviors. That means creating physical environments that inspire and enable teamwork, it also means simultaneously creating a technology infrastructure that does the same, a process regime that does the same, training managers that these behaviors and ideas are important, paying people if they are good at teamwork, celebrating teamwork successes, telling stories about teamwork and yes firing people who don't follow your values even if they are creating financial success, (doesn't need to be done publicly to humiliate, employees are smart enough to see the message). These things must be integrated into a coherent whole, managed by a single executive who has a seat at the strategic table of the organization and given credence by the actions of the CEO. The fact that Michael Bloomberg sits in a cubicle along with everyone else at city hall is not meant to be just a gimmick. Although it could turn into one if the rest of the "environmental" components aren't telling the same story. Its meant as a part of a well thought out manifestation of the culture he wants to build there.

Get this right, show that your are authentic about your culture based on the reality of your entire environmental ecosystem and hiring becomes extremely easy because like minded individuals seek you out. Those that don't fit start to opt out.

If you tell potential employees that you are a progressive, innovative, fun-loving but hard working technology savvy organization, and you then show them around an office space that says anything but this, trust me, they'll understand quickly that the words are not the parent of the reality. Nothing could be less authentic.