RE: Action

Introduction
My desk is both the place where I need to perform and deliver my heart and soul to 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 site remains the same as in industrial society. Instead of talking about stimulation, motivation and link learning, knowledge, so is working on producing a product to be effective and to eliminate obstacles to make it easy for the workers.

Work Environment Authority has a fine 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 listen to the past. For "healthy" and "evolving" 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 layout just about functionality?
When speaking work environment, so the focus is indoor air quality such as noise and temperature. It can also be about ergonomics and about having the right chair and be aware of 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 device must support the work functions and forms of cooperation going on at work, while taking into account the working environment.". And then they would a number of practical suggestions for decor. 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 even if I turn to the Centre for Work , Work Environment Authority or private advisory companies like BAR OFFICE, so is efficiency, security and functionality the only thing being talked 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 issue of workflow more diffuse, turbulent and complex.

Conflicts
There can be big 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 mark themselves professionally or personally at the place where you work. On the one hand, familiarity a safety factor, and secondly, the glassy and anonymous rub off on the employee's approach to his work. There is therefore a need to strike the right balance between professional and homely.

Verbosity
On the one hand, every failure is said to drain the knowledge worker 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 dessa things slows you down, wastes your time and energy, and stressed 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, the device must support the organization in order to avoid conflicts in the work processes.

"It may, for example. be if the company's organizational structure 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 reverse is also often a problem. If the company is basically values ​​the individual's work and also has open-plan offices, the device will create dissatisfaction among employees. They will naturally do not see the value of better opportunities 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 the perception of work
Eva Bjerrum doing research on "new ways of working" at Aarhus University, calls for social perception changed. 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 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, focusing on the product, while the unplanned is not necessarily regarded as work.

Eva Bjerrum has made several good reflection, which I think is relevant to mention. In an article in the Exchange's 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 job.
In the article, she notes that data and information assembled by IT is not knowledge. Knowledge is about people. It's about creating the conditions and arrangements for sharing the physical space as a tool. Openness and transparency in the decor 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 subject. 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 on the graphic illustration I found in a (sales) presentation from the " Utilities Council of IFMA . " Common is that different types of work performed at various places.

End

It is good 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 ideas for good design 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) select your not conservative and "blank" furniture.

Part 1 was intended to outline the eksiterende areas of focus when we talk and think office layout and working 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.