The blog of Affordances LLC.
How to Create A WFH Setup That Works For You
Many of us have been working from home for almost two years. At the beginning of the pandemic a lot of companies started giving their employees stipends or letting them take pieces of equipment from work to enable them to be more productive. However, in many cases no real guidance has been given as to how to create an actual basic setup on a budget.
For that reason I have put together this simple guide to hopefully help people like you reading this find the resources you need to work more comfortably from home. I recommend you do your own further research and figure out exactly what equipment works best for you and the way you work at home.
Disclaimer: This is not medical advice and if you are having pain or other physical discomfort issues you should discuss your work setup and any issues with your medical professional and your company.
Setup 1: The Basics For Less Than $400
Something I should mention out the gate is that your best bets for finding quality used furniture are likely to be Ebay, Facebook Marketplace, or your local thrift store. Buying new if great if you have the money and want something with a warranty. However, there is so much used furniture and equipment out there right now that you can easily put together a good wfh setup without breaking the bank and help keep some stuff out of landfill!
The Basic Setup:
Monitor - Asus Monitor - Retail $140 - Facebook Marketplace $60
Desk - Wayfair Desk - Retail $200 - Facebook Marketplace $150
Chair - Herman Miller Setu Chari - Retail $400+ - Facebook Marketplace $100
Total Cost: $310
Getting a decent setup at any price really is achievable. It just requires some digging and knowledge. Don’t worry I’ll be putting additional resources at the bottom of the page. For now, let’s get into the more complex setup.
Setup 2: The Upgrade
So you’ve been working from home for 2 years and your company has thrown an additional stipend at you. You’ve already procured your desk chair, monitor, and desk. That’s great! Now you can move into professionalizing your setup further. In this setup we’ll add some lighting, a camera, and an ergonomic keyboard / mouse. If you need more info on why lighting is important to make you not look like the shadow monster from the Ring read this article. Our goal here is to still keep total setup under $800 and to think sustainably by buying second hand.
The Base
Monitor - Asus Monitor - Retail $140 - Facebook Marketplace $60
Desk - Wayfair Desk - Retail $200 - Facebook Marketplace $150
Chair - Herman Miller Setu Chari - Retail $400+ - Facebook Marketplace $100
Total Cost: $310
The Additions
External Camera - Logitech Brio - Retail $160 - Facebook Marketplace $100
Keyboard - Ergonomic Keyboard - Retail $45 - Dont buy these used…or do it’s up to you.
Mouse - Logitech m720 - Retail $40 - Again I’d recommend buying new.
Lighting - LumeCube Edge Light - Retail $120 - Facebook Marketplace $85
Total Cost: $330
Total Setup Cost: $640
For The Trendsetters, Designers & Individualists
Some of us may want something more personal, stylish, or frankly the best possible piece of equipment. There’s options for people like you as well. There’s been a great number of companies reducing the size of their office footprint and with that lots of great designer furniture has been making it’s way to people trying to keep it out of landfills. I’d highly suggest you look at options like ReSeat before you buy new.
Lastly if you’re looking for design inspiration for your WFH setup I’d highly suggest Pinterest as an option but Apartment Therapy has a ton of great articles / inspiration as well for individuals.
Make It Personal
For a lot of us, working from home is the first time we actually have the ability to make our work space ours. Offices have always offered this to an extent but constant reshuffles / reorgs make this a hard thing to maintain. Take your time, find your pieces, and make it personal. Taking time to make your space personal will make your work more pleasurable, even if you are on never ending zoom calls.
Additional Resources:
Three Areas Companies Should Consider When Adapting Their Workplaces To Covid-19
Three Areas Your Company Should Consider When Adapting to Covid 19
When 2020 started the word pandemic was something you would only hear in blockbuster movies, video games, and TV shows. Where we are now doesn’t feel nearly as exciting but is equally as frightening as some of those films. However, even as many people have begun to settle into the routine of working from home (or wherever they happened to be when the shelter in places went into affect ) there’s thousands of people trying to figure out what Workplaces will look like when we finally go back to them. We think some (not all) of the adaptations we will see can be broken down into three categories; construction, culture, and operational adaptations. We have left architectural planning out of this post as that is not our field of expertise.
Construction
As we begin the slow ramp up to being back in the workplace we can expect many of the projects that were halted to begin their process of moving towards construction. When they do they should expect extended time frames for the construction of their spaces. General contractors need to adapt to the new social distancing rules and we have already seen multiple guides from contractors requiring more stringent check in processes, health checks, and applying rules limiting the number of people on a job site. All of this will result in safer conditions, but also in tasks taking more time. Teams that manage construction will need to advise their clients closely on this to avoid issues with the delivery of spaces.
Additionally we can expect to see longer lead times for furniture and other manufactured goods. Many of the factories that make these goods have had to shut down, but there will be a pent up demand from many projects ramping back up at the same time. We believe there should be an expectation as well for there to be a desire to use new types of materials like copper.
Culture
Many companies have shied away from allowing employees to work from home. The argument has been that it would not work, or that it’s just not right for their culture and employees become disengaged. We believe many companies will realize that many more people than they thought could, can work from home. Companies will need to set a strategy for who can continue to work from home, how many people can come back to the office as currently designed, and how they will handle requests to not come back to the office. They will need to do this before the doors open again.
More employees working from home, coupled with new social distancing guidelines, will result in the de-densification of the workplace. Over the past 10 years companies have squeezed in ever smaller desks into the open office. They have moved from the individual to the communal. Unfortunately this will have to adjust to the new health information we have available and the norms of the company along with it. It may be commonplace for even people who currently shared private offices, to request that they have individual offices for health reasons.
Companies will also have to decide how they handle HR policies such as sick leave moving forward. If employees come to the office sick, should they be sent home immediately? How does the company enforce this policy without violating privacy? There are many questions to answer.
Operations
The way workplace teams operate their spaces will have to adapt alongside the culture of the office. Some of the changes we may see within the way we operate our spaces may include requests such as on-demand cleaning of desks. Any office with communal space will need to be cleaning more actively and more frequently to prevent the spread of germs.
Savvy operations managers will likely also look at how people enter into and move around their spaces. Automatic door openers and closers, infared temperature sensors, touchless security readers, and even self cleaning surfaces will likely come into the forefront of solutions.
It has been a blessing for employees that many technology companies and companies that have been influenced by the “Google effect” of the past 20 years, now operate cafeterias. These beautiful spaces promote culture and also are a heavy piece of operations teams workload. However, communal troughs of food, with common utensils might be a nightmare for people returning to work in a Covid-19 era. These programs will need to adapt and operate akin to restaurants (if not more stringently) in order to survive within workplaces. Every program will have to work to regain employees trust by informing them about their response and teaching new habits to current employees.
So What Is There To Be Excited About?
This sounds like…a lot, doesn’t it? Yet when writing this, we are not downtrodden. We are hopeful. Over the past 20 years there has been a very disjointed effort for improvement and many times too much focus on the glitz and glam of spaces. For the first time in this century, we have a problem that all of us in Workplace Experience are trying to adapt too. We are all working on the same problem and trying to solve it. This is why you see so many people (now myself included) pontificating on the internet about what comes next.
This is an extremely encouraging fact to me. We believe that if we are willing to share what we find, what we learn, and what we enact as a response to this issue - then we will all be able to overcome it. We will be able to bring our employees back to workplaces that they enjoy, at least the ones that don’t work from home now.
Looking At Your Workplace With A Diversity and Inclusion Mindset
There’s no one way to approach Diversity and Inclusion initiatives. However, we’re very lucky as Workplace Experience professionals to be able to take an active and vital role in improving the setting for these initiatives. If you work at a company that is embracing diversity and inclusion, the below is simply a group of thought starters based on previous experience, pain points, and ways you could easily push forward to make spaces that better accommodate all users. The focus below is mainly on inclusion, but we will be following with more blogs on Diversity as well!
Room Schedulers and Wayfinding
I started my career when we were still using paper schedulers at Google. That feels like a long time ago. Today most companies have a room scheduler on every room that looks something like the below.
Conference Room Booking System by TEEM
Unfortunately the way these are typically mounted (too high for people in wheelchairs), the way the display is designed (no accommodation for color blind users), and the way the casings work (do not have Braille to accommodate blind users) - is sub par in terms of inclusion. How could we change this and easily make it better? A few suggestions are to simply move the scheduler down on the wall, create displays using already known best practices from UX design, and to simply add Braille to the physical sign. Some quick sketches of how this might work are below - but please forgive my terrible skills at drawing:). Again these are just a place to start!
Move the scheduler down to a lower position for wheelchair accessibility.
Adding typical UX standards for color - blindness accommodation is easy! Also adding Braille will help your meeting rooms feel more welcoming for blind users. Yes, it’s a legal requirement, but often one people get wrong and don’t update often.
Conference Room Seating
As space planners we typically try to maximize the number of seats we can fit into a conference room. This helps our ratios and helps us to make sure that the room feels full. But if a room is already tightly designed, and it’s not easy to move chairs around already, what does that mean for a user in a wheelchair? Could you imagine having to come into a meeting, or an interview, and attempt to move a chair out of your way? It doesn’t seem very welcoming at all.
But what if you thought about designing your conference rooms differently? What if you left a spot at every table for users? You could easily make sure that this is done by leaving one space open, and adding a simple symbol to the end of the table. This will help people know that this is a dedicated spot, and also let your facilities team know not to place a chair there as well. A simple example is below.
Leaving space creates an invitation.
Place a symbol at the end of the table to help note that this is a dedicated space. Bonus if it’s the new more inclusive ISO symbol.
A Mindset for Inclusion
As I said a few times above, this is just a beginning. These are simply thought starters that are based off my own experience and pain points I’ve observed. So how can you think about Inclusion and go further? I’m a big believer in research and that you should do your own to figure out the best way forward for your company. As a start I’d suggest the below:
- Research what the legal requirements are in your region - Are you ahead of them or not even meeting them? Are they progressive, or are they falling behind the rest of the world? What standard should you use as your base?
- Consider each area of your space and think about ways in which they could be more inclusive.
- Put yourself in their shoes. Use empathy to think about how users with difference physical abilities will utilize your space. Empathy is a powerful tool.
- Try it out! Why not create a prototype for your idea and quickly implement it. You might find that it is well received and then have the buy in to keep pushing forward with further initiatives.
There’s no perfect way to start, but starting is the hardest part. Once you start thinking about your space with an inclusive mindset, the rest will follow.
What Is Workplace Experience, And How You Can Create A Great One For Your Team
Learn what Workplace Experience is and how you can create one for your team.
So what do you do for a living?
I’ve often had the funny experience of having to explain what I do for a living at social gatherings. I love being a part of the Workplace world. Due to this, I typically quickly overwhelm the person inquiring about my career with far more information than they probably wanted. After their eyes glaze over they focus in on the one part of the explanation they are familiar with. “Oh you work in facilities.” “Oh you work in design?” "Oh you work in real estate." These are just a few of the common responses.
However, I’ve also found that even as an industry we often have a difficult time defining what Workplace Experience IS, and how it fits into the grand scheme of the global business. A side note here that companies call the Workplace team a variety of names as well, which adds to confusion. Workplace, Operations, Facilities, Office, Places team are just a few of the names the industry uses.
The rest of this blog is simply my attempt to help bring some clarity to the confusion based on my experiences, observations, and the way I see the future of Workplace Experience developing. This might be hubris, but I beg forgiveness as I feel this is something that we as an industry really need to define. So if nothing else, I hope this gets you thinking.
In the beginning...
In a land before computers and skyscrapers, there were people who managed businesses. Often these businesses physical space were managed by partners and clerks, the same people who managed the actual business. The clerk to me has always represented the earliest verison of a Workplace persona. As time went on and people started working in larger more complex companies, they moved into a time of secretaries managing offices. Though these individuals worked hard and surely created incredible organization, there was a discernible lack of upward mobility for the individuals, and not much desire from comapnies to creatively improve upon the Workplace.
As we moved into the modern era there was a move to office managers. Those team members who help to run every factor of an office. These captains of their ships could be responsible for anything from payroll, to minor HR items, to events, and even to managing the facilities. While this is still the norm for many companies, there is a distinct shift towards a new type of professional and organization style for Workplace Teams. This shift involves moving away from a specific subject matter expert leading the team, to a multi-disciplined individual leading the way for teams with varying responsibilities / skills.
Workplace Experience
Workplace Experience is, simply put, the totality of the experiences any person has in the space controlled by your company. For employees the Experience starts when they are recruited, and it ends on their last day as they leave the building. Throughout that time their Experiences should be consistent, enjoyable, and with limited encumbrances. Consistency will help lead to greater productivity, and overall a better outcome for the company and employee mutually.
Why even call it Workplace Experience instead of just Workplace? Experience also denotes a rising movement noted by many research firms and architectural firms as well - people don’t want things to just be good enough. People want a great experience, especially in the place they spend more time than at home, the Workplace. According to Gensler’s recent Experience Index study, “creating a good experience isn’t enough; the best places—ones that engage people’s emotions and keep them coming back—have to be great.”
Workplace Experience professionals, thus, need a variety of skills they need to draw from, and or people skilled in a variety of disciplines they need to utilize in order to manifest such Experiences. These disciplines include space planning, project management, real estate, interior design, wellness, event management, procurement, food / beverage, and vendor management. What’s more they need to have excellent communication skills to keep up with the constant communication / feedback loops that exist in today’s modern companies.
Workplace Experience is a very complex field. However, if you break it down into it’s main disciplines, it becomes easier to understand. Then it just becomes a matter of effort and care, not money.
How You Can Improve Your Workplace Experience
Over the next two months I’m going to be putting out a series of blogs that sum up my philosophy on Workplace Experience. The first blog is going to touch on how the scale of your company relates to Workplace Experience (from here on referred to as WX). From there we will touch on the varying disciplines that are a part of WX and how they can best be utilized to help create a unique, and consistent Experience for your team.
I hope you’ll join me.
Designing A Workplace For The Five Senses
Museums are beautiful places. I personally enjoy aimlessly walking around a museum and taking in the history that lies within it's walls. What I cannot understand, is why anyone would design their space to feel like one? Museums specifically put the focus on the objects they are displaying, and on nothing else. They are not spaces meant to house humans (not living ones at least). Yet, many people insist on designing workplaces as museums. When the majority of us spend more time in our workplaces than at home, we can ill afford to be in a place that is cold and inhuman. What can we do to make our spaces feel more human?
One place to start is with Ilse Crawford’s concept of designing for the 5 senses—designing for the human experience. It is just as relevant to Workplace as it is to the residential or hospitality fields. As she states in her book A Frame For Life,“At best, an office can act as host to the people that work there—creating the best emotional and physical conditions for them to do their best and an atmosphere of trust that they will do this—and as a space that facilitates co creation among staff and clients.”
Now, how can we start creating a human centered Workplace Experience by designing with the 5 senses in mind?
Sight
Are you designing your Workplace with one type of fluorescent or LED light across the entire space, or are you actually considering the type of work your teams will do in each space? Different types of work require different lighting. Programming in the right kind of light can make a big difference in productivity and how a space feels.
Sound
Have you considered what kind of sounds you do (or don’t) want people to hear in each specific area? Have you ever accidentally placed desks for quiet work right next to a kitchen with a loud blender? Designing with intention by defining what the sound levels are for each space in your Workplace will cut down on complaints and foster happiness within your team.
Smell(S)
What’s the first thing a guest would smell when they walk into your office? Is it the smell of freshly ground coffee? Or is it the smell of the trash cans that weren’t emptied the night before? Smell is typically the last thing Workplace team considers when designing a space, but it can have a major impact (good or bad). Even just the absence of smell is not a bad thing necessarily, as smells can be polarizing. Considering what smells are produced by your space, and where they flow to, is important either way.
Touch
Touch is such an incredible sense and it can be used for so many things in Workplace design! Every day we touch hundreds of objects. Each object we interact with can inform us, guide us, or even remind us of something. The textures of objects in a room can even change the way we experience that space. The textures of furniture can make the room feel more warm and put us at ease. Would’nt you feel more comfortable having a difficult meeting in a room with a soft - inviting chair, rather than a room with a hard plastic chair? Little human-centered details can make all the difference.
Taste
Taste is one of the senses that can immediately spark joy. When we taste something delicious, it can change our whole mood. Employee food programs are a great way to help brighten people’s day, while improving their health as well. Psychologically, people will cultivate a positive association with the space in which they had that delicious food memory.
Human Centered Experiences
These are a few examples of how to apply thinking about the 5 senses to your Workplace, creating a human-centered design. In reality, it takes time and effort to consider these things. Considering them, however, is something your company should begin doing immediately. When you start to design your spaces with the human experience at the center, then you will be creating great Workplace Experiences.
The Workplace Experience Job Titles You Should Retire In 2018 And What You Might Replace Them With
What’s in a name?
While it might be a popular trend for companies to say that “titles don’t matter,” unless you’re staying at that company forever - your previous title might matter to your next employer. However, there are a lot of titles in Workplace that simply no longer apply. If your title is Receptionist and you run a catering program, it might be time for a change. Read below for a rundown of titles to change out to progress your Workplace team into 2018.
Take a moment and think about where your org is headed and what your team members do.
Old title: Office Manager
New Title: Workplace Experience Manager
The Difference: There are definitely office managers in the world, and they’re great. They might run a medical office, dental office, or they may work at a larger corporation. That said, the job specifications in forward thinking startups and other fast scaling companies does not translate to “office manager.” Workplace Experience professionals run events, design spaces, establish norms, and help keep company culture strong.
Old title: Facilities Manager
New Title: Physical Ops Manager
The Difference: Facilities management is a field unto itself, and deserves more respect. That said, when talking about FM at younger companies, the FM teams typically get handed a whole plethora of jobs that don’t fit a typical FM role. Just a few examples; educating users on why things went wrong and how they’re getting fixed, researching and integrating new forward thinking solutions to better improve indoor environments, and creating nationally used standards and processes (and updating them every year as the company grows 2-10x). There’s a lot more customer facing burden out on these teams at young companies.
Old title: Receptionist
New Title: Concierge Services
The Difference: Every company I’ve worked at or had close colleagues head off to in the past 8 years have had roles called receptionists or front desk coordinators, but does this really cover the scope of what those team members do? No! Today these team members manage programs from the desk. They do all the hard work behind the programs and wind up with a plethora of odd assignments from different parts of Workplace. It can be a great learning experience for the right person. All the while, they’re expected to greet guests, work with vendors, and give candidates a great experience. They’re the first and last person people interact with, and their position should be seen as vital, not just someone who “receives” people.
Old title: Likely Does Not Currently Exist
New Title: Wellness Specialist
The Difference: Over the past decade there’s been an increase in awareness of health in the workplace. This includes not just physical, but mental health as well. Think beyond ergonomics and “health week.” These future teammates will help build mindfulness programs, fitness programs, and even help develop healthy standards for internal food programs. Remember, healthy employees are productive and happy.
Thanks, We’ll Keep Our Current Titles
I am of course just one person and have a particular point of view about where the future of workplace is headed. However, all these titles are is suggestions. I would propose that if you want to create a workplace that is progressive and cares for employees (and cares for those who care for your employees) you will at least consider looking at your current org. Think about customizing your teams titles to their actual roles and your company culture. It might just make a difference.
Why You're Not Improving Your Workplace, And Three Things You Can Do About It
Endless amounts of research has been done on the subject of how people work in and interact with their space on a daily basis. Many have come to consider it the differentiator between a great workplace and an average workplace. More and more people want to know how to make their space the best, or how to make a space that attracts the best talent. How do you compete as a smaller company with the likes of Google and Facebook? The easiest answer for many, is to try and copy what those highly ranked companies are doing. However, those companies have spent countless amounts of time, dollars, and research into optimizing their spaces to attract / retain top talent. To be honest though, even they’ve gotten a lot wrong along the way. So how can you avoid getting it wrong, or at least learn from their mistakes? Below, I will describe three common elements to creating a great workplace, that are very easy to get wrong.
1) Open Space Planning Vs Providing A Way for Everyone to Work the Way They Want
The open space plan is one of the most controversial subjects in workplace. Countless articles have been written in regards to the horrors of lost productivity and privacy. However, many large / succesful companies are using this method of space planning. There’s a major caveat here though: the succesful ones, are also providing a menu of other types of spaces for employees.
When you open your space up to increase collaboration you also have to give your employees options to work in other ways than just at a desk. The same way not everyone likes to work in a closed office, not everyone likes to work in a coffee shop. There’s no one type of employee. It’s important to study your employees and make calculated decisions as a company as to how your employees work together. You can then create a menu of space (open desks for collaboration, conference rooms for meetings, libraries for seclusion, etc).
2) Food programs that increase productivity and encourage community vs Junk food and Energy Drinks
The endless food and beverage offerings of large tech companies are legendary in the tech communities. “I heard they have pho every day!” When focused in the right way, a good food program can help foster community, improve the health of your employees, and optimize your employees time. Now before you go installing a kitchen in your office and pumping out endless pizzas, you should step back and ask yourself why you’re providing food to employees, and what kind of program you want to create?
Mmmm pizza
Believe it or not, your food and beverage program needs clear goals and strategy. When you reach a point of wanting to provide a service such as this to employees, it’s important to take a moment and formulate a plan. Are you trying to get your employees to maximize their time at the office? Are you trying to get your employees to build better relationships with their teammates and other coworkers? Do you want employees staying after hours and just socializing in the office? Once you start to answer some of these questions you can begin to look for more resources to help you implement the proper way.
There’s no one size fits all solution. You need to customize your programs to your company, culture, and employees.
3) You should be Collecting and Utilizing Data to make decisions and improve your workplace.
It’s very normal for companies who are just getting started to quickly throw desks into a space, and throw up some meeting rooms. You’ll buy some whiteboards and maybe some couches too. However, once you start to scale up and grow past your first 100 employees, it’s important to start making data driven decisions. If no one’s using the couches, or that 50 person board room you thought you needed, then it’s probably time to make some changes.
Without data - you're just in a maze with no clear direction.
If you measure how your employees utilize their space, what foods they do / dont eat, and even how they feel about the temperature of the office - it can help you build better spaces as your company grows. However, collecting utilization data is just the first part of the puzzle. You also need to dedicate time and resources to actively researching best practices and how the workplace is constantly changing.
Custom Solutions Are Key
In summary, looking at your workplace strategically is vitally important to your company as you grow. The earlier you begin to look at your workplace as one of your greatest assets for increasing productivity and the overall retention of employees, the better prepared you will be for growth. There’s no one size fits all solution to workplace programs. You need to customize your programs to your company, culture, and employees - or risk falling behind the competition.
Having trouble finding open restrooms at your company? You may have a gender diversity issue.
How legal requirements can highlight diversity issues at your company.
It is well known that many technology companies have struggled and continue to struggle with gender diversity issues. One of the more peculiar trickle down effects, or indicators of a diversity issue is the complaints you often here in the hallways of many offices. “I had to check three bathrooms just to find one that was open.” “I had to wait for 20 minutes, what are people doing in there!?!” The voice of these complaints in my experience, has most often been men. Why are there never enough stalls? Is the company too cheap? Are people working in there? The problem is a bit more nuanced than one may think.
How Many Bathrooms Do We Need?
OSHA requires companies to maintain specific numbers of toilets to employees. Those ratios are then broken down into male and female restrooms, "unless they can be occupied by no more than one person and can be locked from the inside." At a workplace that is 50 percent female and 50 percent male, this would work. However, how does this work in the technology world, where companies average between 55-84 percent men?
This variance is where the law highlights the issue. If you start hearing men grumble about not finding a restroom but you never hear any complaints from women in your office, what does that indicate? If you have counted the restrooms and you're meeting code requirements, you may need to dig deeper to solve your problem. In the end, you may find the cause is a gender diversity issue. Now what can you do about it?
Working Within the Current Law To Improve Experience And Inclusion
The easiest solution is very simple. Within the same OSHA guidelines you’re able to make all restrooms gender neutral and provide a common area sink. Provide full height stalls with individual air feeds / vents, are lockable, and why not some music to improve experience? Your employees will appreciate the privacy and better experience as well. Not only will you have gender neutral restrooms that help show you understand gender is non-binary, but you’ll also be able improve the lives of your teams.
This is a great first step, and it really is a great path forward for showing your employees you care about inclusion. However, it's really just a bandaid for the larger problem. If you're a workplace employee (or anyone at a company for that matter) and you see something like this start to occur, maybe you should sit down to talk with your diversity team instead? You may find you can work together to bring the issue to light internally, and help make some change that lasts. Maybe you can even get the funding to build those nice gender neutral restrooms.
Alternatively, you can take the advice of a friend of mine when I ran this issue by them: "People should just stop hiring men until the problem fixes itself. Diversity problem solved. Bathroom problem solved." Simple.