RE: Action

Introduction
My desk is both the place where I need to perform and deliver my lifeblood of the company's profit maximization and the place I spend the most time during the week. I have therefore a need to feel at home and could make an effort. And therefore, I am amazed that the office layout has not changed since 1920?

Although many employees live in a knowledge society, so is the perception of work and the workplace remains the same as in industrial society. Instead of talking about stimulation, motivation and associate learning, knowledge, so is working on producing a product to be effective and eliminate obstacles to make it easy for the workers.

Work Environment Authority has a delicate and beautiful mission, which reads:

"Work Environment Authority contributes to a safe, healthy and stimulating work environment"

And they do so by focusing on the major occupational health problems. Fair enough. Accidents resulting in the mutilation and death ought to hear the past. For "healthy" and "developmental" work environment in my view, other psychological and philosophical aspects. For example. it is relevant to ask what it takes to become better employees.

Handler office decor only about functionality?
When speaking work environment, so the focus is indoor environment such as noise and temperature. It can also be about ergonomics and about having the right chair and pay attention to repetitive strain injuries. And then there's the "mental health", which concerns the well-being, bullying and stress to name the major topics.

A good interior design of offices serve multiple purposes, writes OFFICE BAR on their website, adding: "First and foremost, the design support the operations and cooperation is going on at work, while taking into account the working environment.". And then they would a number of practical proposals for the layout. My interpretation of this is that the main objective for businesses is that the employee makes things faster and more efficiently.

But it must only be about functionality? For whether I turn to the Centre for Health , Labour Inspectorate or private advisory companies like BAR OFFICE, so is efficiency, security and functionality the only spoken about.
In an industrial society with assembly line work is the approach useful. But in working with information and silence as well as explicit knowledge, the question about the workflow more diffuse, turbulent and complex.

Conflicts
There can be large differences in how two people solve a task best, and what relation that gives the most optimal working conditions for the individual.

Professionally
Your office is not your home. Yet there may be a need to check themselves professionally or personally at the place where you work. On one side is a recognizable safety factor and secondly it can be glassy and anonymous rub off on the employee's approach to his work. There is therefore a need to find the right balance between professional and homely.

Verbosity
On the one hand, every failure is said to drain knowledge workers to reason and productivity.

"Every ringing phone, instant message, flashing email reminder, arrows of papers Cluttered sticky notes and phone messages and knick knacks and memo posted on the wall - hver These Things slows you down, waste your time and energy, and stress you out . "

Quote from: http://cheerfulliving.com/2008/12/10-steps-to-a-zen-like-working-environment/

On the other hand, continuous interaction with information and social contact with humans a source of joy and creativity. I would argue that the handling of complex relationships and the ability to filter is an essential ability in today's working life.

DR has a good theme "Future Work". Section 2 , I have seen with great interest in relation to the above problem.

Organizational Form
The website fremtidenskontor.dk they write that the architecture must support the organization in order to avoid conflicts in the work processes.

"It can, for example. be if the firm's organizational form and technology based on high degree of cooperation and knowledge sharing, while the physical is built with cellular offices. This will cause problems with achieving the flexibility and mobility needed to create a good knowledge sharing.

The opposite is also often a problem. If the company basically values ​​the individual work and also has open-plan offices, the decor create dissatisfaction among employees. They will naturally do not see the value of the better opportunity for collaboration and knowledge sharing, ie. feel plagued by noise and monitoring. "

Quote from http://www.fremtidenskontor.dk/Mennesker/Organisationsformer/Organisationsform_og_indretning.aspx

Changes in perception of work
Eva Bjerrum, who researches "new ways of working" at Aarhus University, calls for work perceptions change. In a study of an advertising agency, an IT company and a law firm were informal meetings, emails, phone calls and chat between colleagues is not a part of the "real work". The real work was all about immersion and individual tasks. According to Eva Bjerrum, it is a habit that carried over from the industrial society, where the focus is on product while unplanned not necessarily be regarded as work.

Eva Bjerrum have made several good considerations, which I think is relevant to mention. In an article in the Exchange Management Handbooks , she writes, among other things, that the workplace is no longer a place.
Working in teams across departments require different flexibility in the workspace. The same project-oriented work and for some, perhaps so far as to have more managers depending on the tasks.
In the article, she notices that data and information collected through IT is not knowledge. Knowledge is about people. It's about creating the conditions and terms for sharing the physical space as a tool. Openness and transparency in interior design and furniture supports employees' participation and interaction.
Eva Bjerrum notes that cellular office supports immersion, while the open space creates interaction. She therefore suggests that the office layout will be activity based. Half of your time is still not at the table, as otherwise I initially cited as motivation for talking about this topic. There are both internal and external meetings, and informal as well as formal conversations, all happening in other places than just at one's desk.

In the article, she also reproduced DEGWs model for activity-based work. It is similar in some respects for the graphical illustration I found in a (sales) presentation from the " Utilities Council of IFMA . " Common is that different types of work performed at different places.

End

It is excellent and valuable considerations. But DEGWs model needs to take account of human psychology and involves no emotion. For example. I find it hard to see that people can feel they "belong to" a place?
Furthermore, I still think the emphasis is on functionality and performance is still similar to what fits in industrial society.
But on the other hand, the above more than just good ideas for decor from Allbusiness.com which was the first link I found via Google. Here are ideas 1) color the walls, 2) hanging art on the walls. 3) place the green plants, and 4) The selection is not conservative and "blank" furniture.

Part 1 has been designed to outline the excited areas of focus when we talk and think office design and work environment. It is my intention to write a follow-up ( part 2 ), where I will focus on what office furniture today should also have an interest.