RE: Action

I am far from expert in the field office decor. But I have felt a need to learn about workplace accommodation - compared to my presence (in the sense physically, but as also virtual) - since made a number of measures to improve the physical layout of the department I move in to daily. Although the ideas for improvement are okay, so I have not been overwhelmed with excitement. The first part - " Functionality, social perception and conflict: Thoughts on office design (Part 1) "- has been for me an investigation of what thoughts others have done on office design with emphasis on the philosophical and psychological rather than physical aspects such as noise , temperature, security, etc..

This second part is for me to dig deeper into the philosophical and psychological aspects of office design and hopefully get closer to what office design does the work.

It is certainly a little ironic that I'm doing me these thoughts when my current job has already been highlighted in various contexts as a company that thinks outside the box or not prejudice the zeitgeist with cafe-inspired decor and various furniture depending on the type of meeting space. But maybe it is just focus and opportunities that provide room to raise its ambitions? It was the first question. I hope you will put a comment on what you're thinking, whether you're reading this a week or a year after the oak has written this post on the blog, because I will definitely need input from others.

Interior: Future work

"We have staged our work such that it is true that sit behind a desk. This is because we do not come away from the typewriter yet. We have a keyboard as on the typewriter and still use paper. Therefore we need to have a fixed location, namely at our desk where we have our folders "
Quote Ivar Moltke, the architect, on http://www.fremtidenskontor.dk/ ... / Tendenser.aspx

Following the Ivar Moltke predicts a change in the workplace. "Joint work requires shared screens" he explains, noting that not all alike and work alike. It can cause more diversity in the furniture selection. The improvement I will look forward to.

Jesper Bo Jensen, futurist, has also made some interesting thoughts on the work of the future. In an article on fremtidsforsk.dk he writes that open plan offices are lavomkostningskontorer that are tried made ​​modern. It is sold with ideas to more employees in the same room creates team spirit and cooperation across the organization and that it increases productivity. But there have been shown to have various negative consequences such as poor work environment, lower productivity and without the positive expectations for increased team spirit and cooperation have been met. One-size-fits-all belong to the past.

In the future we expect that an office building is not necessarily closed and turned off after at. 16:00. This is partly due to the blurring of boundaries between work and leisure, mutual flexibility and changes in work routines. For example. I can imagine teams work on a project in "clock" because everyone has the time right here while they're more on your own at other times.

"It has enough quality for a director to show foreign visitors around, to show the office after office with the same device, but what is really the signal value of this uniformity. It probably just says that we check for alignment of the employees. Who would expect innovation and creativity in these environments? "
Citation Jesper Bo Jensen .

If I have to be innovative, I am dependent on diversity, space (and ability) to fantasize and be naturally creative. That is precisely why we need both efficient as well as creative work environments.

Motivation
Actually I would have used the word stimulus, but after further consideration, it is a term used in connection with babies / children and learning. So to avoid the somewhat unfortunate association, so is my focus, rather than motivation - and more precisely: work motivation.

People's motivation to work may be quite different. Roughly speaking, the various theories descriptions grouped into three different groups:

• Physical working conditions, environment and labor.
• Social aspects. Here, governance standards in the workplace and the like is usually the most important roles.
• Realization. That people have an exciting and challenging work. (Opportunity to show you are proficient)

If I want to influence people's behavior and commitment, I must ensure that the framework for the motivation is there. My question is about our office layout itself can be a motivating factor in relation to behavior?

Self-actualization
Yes. In my view, office layout is a good place to start when talking about the realization of a self. Part of accomplishment and self-actualization is about meaningful content in everyday life. But identity is also about visibility and to mark themselves academically and socially. In the physical space is an opportunity to show his current work and past successes ahead.

Communications
One of the key actions in the daily work, communication with others. The computer, phone, kitchenette, canteen - and where I work too - Friday bar, the garden in the middle of the building and soft furnishings in corners and in some meeting rooms. There are many tools to be in contact with others, and many ways to interact with colleagues.
Ivar Moltke, as I mentioned earlier, suggests that we have common furniture for joint work. Another approach may be functional furniture that requires interaction - without the game becomes an obstacle and a trivial procedure. In an editorial to Task Watch One idea is to ensure the deadline, knowledge sharing and more. I have no immediate additional examples, but the idea is that employees are active and interact, all other things should lead to creativity and new roads. I am sure that the individual in encounters with others will be influenced by others' use of the resource.

Physical working conditions
When I think about physical working conditions, it can be everything from working hours, security, sound and temperature to be about co-workers, wages and the physical place where I sit. Although it may not contribute to increased satisfaction and motivation, then the physical conditions have an opposing effect: that employees are less satisfied and less motivated.
This area is affected in ample degree of labor inspectorates and many others and I have probably nothing much interesting to note in relation to it. But should not I conclude that there are aspects of the philosophical and psychological nature that have an impact on employees in relation to the layout of where and how an individual sits. I return to it in a moment.

Performance - Knowledge and Learning
One of the problems of motivation today is that more employees and managers expect the leader to actively motivate the employee. But what if we ensure conditions for the employee even find the inner motivation?

It may not apply to everyone, but the success and skill is an aspect that gets people to perform again and again. Being able to take responsibility and make decisions is another aspect and a third is to have a need to be with others about things. (It's not something I find on it are freely interpreted from a theorist named McClelland).

Office of the device can be a direct source to encourage employees to work together. I am thinking on the one hand, the physical environment, but it is possible that also virtual instruments can play a crucial role.
At my workplace we are about to install a projector in the department's physical space. The projector will show a site where a limited part of our work are presented and discussed possibly (?) And that content from our Internet services, statistics, absenteeism and other listed. Personally I think it's a really interesting approach.

I have some time ago seen Professor of Anthropology Michael Wesch presents the way the semester he teaches team work together. The following Youtube video is a clip of a long lecture .
The virtual knowledge-sharing think I can gain a foothold in companies. With services like Digg , Del.icio.us , StumpleUpon and the like, which collects information and allows you to comment on it, so users of these services are already trained in community capacity to collect, index, evaluate, and distribute. With these services, we also learned that the mechanisms that people will take part are present. Furthermore, there is the need for communication is also a need for a content. Both the creation as well as the dissemination of content provides incentives for creativity.

I mentioned before Task Watch and claimed that the employee in meeting with other people's work affected. In this context, I imagine also a creative process in the psychological treatment by this social meeting.
Whether there is an acceptance of others' existence and behavior, then relate the individual himself. With mottos like 'Learning by Doing' and 'lifelong learning' creativity is the alpha omega. That's why I think that the office layout also should support learning and learning processes. Even in fields in 1800, there have been intelligent people who have tried something others have not.

Affiliation
In the first part , I write that the office is the place I am staying mostly in the course of a week. Office equipment is so much a question of I and the private. Jesper Bo Jensen mentions that in the future we will also have "the opportunity to create their own private space to work with all the flotsam of our lives as we would have around us, with: photos, important objects, own office materials, etc.. "

If everything ends up in the feature-segregated spaces, learning and mobile devices, so we forget the most important. Namely ourselves. I would feel at home, feeling that I belong where I am. Alienation seems discouragingly gives more sick days and will probably result in either a lack of coherence in his life or that I quit or get terminated. But where is the line between creating a home for oneself, a cozy room with colleagues and the professional workstation where both familiar and strange people coming over?
Depending on whether you work in an individual or an open office and depending on the norm in your workplace, there will probably be different answers to how the border should be drawn. But my point is that the office layout with standardized, anonymous furniture does not help the individual to express themselves. Through impressions and expressions to define and understand myself. This applies both academically and socially. But if I receive no impression or have space to express who I am, how should I feel a sense of belonging? How can I enjoy myself?
For example, an enterprise could choose to let the new employee choose his desk, shelves and "wall" in the form of bulletin board ceiling or anything else where there is physical space to show himself and his work forward. It may be expensive and solutions that link increased to pay is hardly a good idea. For I doubt if the employee has devoted special thoughts about her workstation. "I'm fine with the default desktop - the company will increase my productivity, they must pay", the employee will probably say. And replacement of furniture is not a cheap affair for the company.
I have no doubt that people want to disclose themselves regardless of their otherwise reserved shape of daily life. It's about someone who makes it first and challenge the standards of business and corporate cultures. Otherwise, future offices devoid of individuals, even more so than today.

The anti-end
The big question for me is

How can office design fostering creativity, supporting natural processes around learning and ensure that employees feel they have a sense of their physical workplace?

I have not answered the question above. But I have become even more aware of the importance of it.

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.