Organic Workspace

In the past twenty years or so, there has been a major shift in the way work is done. With the rise of the knowledge-based economy, rapid advances in technology and concern over carbon footprints, the traditional workplace model has grown obsolete. Increasingly, we all work in more distributed ways. We take work with us on the road, interact and collaborate with others using an ever-increasing variety of communication tools. As you think about the changes in your workplace, you may want to consider some questions:

When you walk through the main office during any time of the day, how many desks are unoccupied?
Have you considered how many location based work processes are slowing your team down?
Have you considered how many tasks performed every day in your organization could be made portable and more efficient?
Do managers in your organization still believe that workers need to be seen to be managed?
What is preventing your organization from adopting new and more productive workplace models?

We are seeing a move to more collaborative workspaces as shown below:

AN organic workspace is one that changes and evolves as an organisation evolves to support the business needs and direction.

Europlan’s showrooms demonstrate examples of organic workspaces that promote the move to more activity based working workplace designs.

Based on insights derived from the Organisational Culture Model from Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn’s work on the “Competing Values Framework”, which categorises companies as being influenced by one of four organisational cultures, Haworth has conceived four distinct workplace area designs:

Collaborate -do things together; value drivers are commitment, development, communication, e.g. Apple.
Create -do things first; value drivers are innovative outputs, transformation and agility, e.g. Google.
Control - do things right; value drivers are efficiency, timeliness, consistency and uniformity, e.g. McDonalds.
Compete -do things fast; value drivers are market share, achievement and profitability, e.g. GE.

Workplace design can then follow the drivers of each culture:

For more information and ideas contact us or come in and see us.