How to design and create the workplace of the future

By Jarkko Sipiläinen | HappyOrNot
3 MIN READ

To create a work environment that would fulfill employees’ needs, give the best support for their core jobs, engage existing employees, and attract new talent is a challenge. The solution is what many companies are currently trying to solve, as with it, comes improvements in productivity and performance, lower employee costs, and a better employee experience.

Engage by Design is a hot topic in the HR world. Deloitte highlighted “New organization: Different by design” as a main theme of their annual 2016 Human Capital Trends Report. While global forces like digitalization and innovation are reshaping the world around us, 92% of Deloitte’s survey recipients rated the need to redesign the organization as a critical priority.

But how are the best organizations reaching the level at which employees seek to work for them out of want, as opposed to need? Typically, this is done by taking care of all elements of employee experience: culture, physical environment, and technological environment. From my experience, most companies focus mainly on the cultural element, while the physical and technological environments – which are just as important factors for the organizational design’s perspective – are often overlooked.

Examples of physical and technological elements are such like internal services and IT-solutions to improve their employee experience. Things like transportation services, restaurant/cafeteria services, mailing services, reception services, employee lounges, IT services and solutions to name a few. These elements exist to support employees to better focus on their core jobs. Just think about such companies in Silicon Valley, where many trendy IT companies offer just about everything (from accommodation, food, and game rooms to bowling alleys!) for free to their employees to facilitate maximum engagement and solidify their image as an exceptional company and workplace to keep and attract top talent.

[clickToTweet tweet=”If you want to know whether your organizational design is working or not, you must measure it.” quote=”If you want to know whether your organizational design is working or not, you must measure it.”]

If you want to know whether your organizational design is working or not, you must measure it. But, as every workplace is unique and the pace of change in work life is rapid, it is crucial to ask constant feedback from employees about their satisfaction with various elements of the work environment.

A continuous inflow of knowledge about the areas of the workplace which are creating satisfaction and wellbeing and those which are hindering happiness gives companies the insights to improve the overall work environment. For example, by starting to fix possible issues immediately and not only after next bi-annual employee survey. By doing so, companies increased wellbeing, engagement, and productivity.

With constant employee feedback, organizations can redesign, adjust, and finetune the work environment to support employees and company’s productivity in the most effective way – and that’s where the magic begins.

Jarkko Sipiläinen | Business Line Director, HR, HappyOrNot