What Is Workplace Experience, And How You Can Create A Great 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.