It’s becoming more and more common to have mobile workspaces, allowing employees to move away from cubicles to environments that are more conducive to collaboration.
Sure big companies may have deep pockets, but small businesses do have some distinct advantages, like not having to make decisions by committee and having the ability to be flexible and nimble.
And here’s another one: Small businesses can have any kind of workspace they want—a space that is stunning or fun or very, very different. And there’s a growing cadre of professionals that say the design of your workspace has a direct impact on the success of your business.
One of these is Kevin Kuske, the Chief Anthropologist and General Manager of an office furniture company, turnstone, that specializes in outfitting the offices of entrepreneurs and small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Kuske, who was featured recently on Yahoo Small Business and studies dynamic small businesses, has found that attention to office design and culture has a major impact on business results.
Kuske points to businesses that create a strong “culture of personality,” that blends the personalities of all its employees by blurring the traditional boundaries between work and home. This means the office incorporates all kinds of “stuff” near and dear to its inhabitants—everything from skateboards to teapots to dogs. There’s a freedom in all this, which also helps attract other employees.
The businesses Kuske describes also work hard to foster social bonds among their employees through
incorporating a sense of play in their spaces. While things like ping-pong and basketball hoops can contribute to this, what Kuske is talking about is how spaces are created, how they bring people together and what they convey. One example is a meeting space that exchanged a table and chairs for bleachers—yes, just like the ones you sat on in your high school gym!
Social interaction, culture, a sense of play, brand values—Kuske’s ideal workspaces both reinforce and drive those elements that are the energy, the heart, the DNA of the small businesses they support. And there’s more: He says that workspaces should also incorporate an attention to wellness, so that after a day at work, you leave healthier, instead of coming home less healthy than you were eight or 10 or 12 hours earlier. Think about it: Can a well-designed office actually help improve your health?
Kuske says yes and focuses on a key area that is also getting a lot of attention from health professionals: the harmful effects of sitting all day. Instead, businesses should design spaces that encourage employees to move around and interact.
Kuske’s own business eliminated workstations with desks and chairs for nearly half its employees. Instead, they roam with mobile devices and work in spaces all over the office, like in the kitchen, on a couch or in a collaborative space. Even businesses that don’t have the budget to completely transform their workspaces can create this mobility and variety of workspaces. Activity and noise will escalate, Kuske says—both positive elements.
Any good workspace needs to reflect and contribute to the values and culture and personality of the business. If you’ve created mobile spaces that encourage movement and interaction but the business owner sits in a hard-walled office alone for most of the day, your workspace may be less effective because the authenticity just isn’t there. In the most fun and most productive workspaces, the business’s leaders are fully engaged, right alongside everyone else.
We especially love Kuske’s common-sense justification for spending so much time, attention, energy and yes, even funds, on creating just the right workspace. We already know how important our spaces are because we focus intently on them at home and even on vacation, right? Given that we spend more hours at work—and given that the quality of the space can have a positive impact on the success of the business—why shouldn’t we do the same for our workspaces?
Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net