Is the workplace the new company car?

As reward professionals we focus our time and efforts on finding ways to engage our staff with our reward programmes.

It may be a shiny new benefits programme, an all singing all dancing recognition programme, or an employee share plan that gets employees talking. But what about the workplace? Considering our staff spends a large percentage of their waking hours in the workplace, shouldn’t we be finding ways to use the workplace as an engagement tool as well? The Garden space at Reward Gateway's new offices

“Where once companies would have offered a company car, they are now using offices as a way of recruiting and retaining workers. A groovy workplace is a magnet,” says Jeremy Myerson, a teacher of design at the Royal College of Arts and a specialist in offices.

According to Coby Lerner, strategist at Brightspot Strategy, a successful workplace, like technology, is made up of both hardware and software. "The ‘hardware' is typically informed by long-term business planning and includes the built environment (walls, furniture, etc.) and the services offered (tech support, conference services, food service, etc.). The ‘software’ is about the way people interact in the office; the norms, behavioral patterns, and rituals that define and support an organisation’s culture,” says Lerner.

New London office

The topic of workplace has been a key focus at my company over the last eighteen months whilst our new London office has been in the making. We’ve been dealing equally with the ‘hardware’ and the ‘software’, designing an office which Glenn Elliott our founder & CEO says “embodies what the company strives to help its customers achieve every day: attract, engage, and retain employees.”

The project (and the end results) have been nothing short of amazing, with the office opening on Monday 4th July, showcasing how a workplace can truly reflect a company’s personality and impact employee engagement.

On the opening day I asked one employee what they thought of the new office, and they said to me that it re-connected them to the company in a new and different way. Wow, who knew an office could achieve such an powerful and immediate impact!

Getting the workspace right at your company is key to employee engagement, but as with any reward programme, it needs to be done correctly. Get it right and it can keep your employees happy, engaged and inspire them to be more productive and creative, get it wrong and it can actually reduce employee morale.

Here are two things to keep in mind when getting it right at your organisation:

1) Reflect your mission, culture and values

Just as we design our reward programmes to reflect and align with our mission, culture and values, so should we design our workplace to do the same. By doing this we’re constantly reminding our employees who the company is and what it stands for.

It doesn’t have to be difficult (or expensive) to do - put signage on the walls showcasing your company values, hang pictures of your employees and/or products, just do something!

At Reward Gateway we used our mission, culture and values for design direction, and also adhered to Dieter Rams’ ten principles for good design. We use them when designing our products, and when I saw them for the first time I thought that many would work well as principles for designing reward programmes. Here they are:

Innovative
Makes a product useful
Aesthetic
Understandable
Unobtrusive
Honest
Long lasting
Thorough down to the last detail
Environmentally friendly
As little design as possible

2) Drive performance

As reward professionals we understand how reward programmes, when properly designed, can drive performance. So can a workplace if properly thought through and designed.

Our new office, for example, has been created as an agile workspace featuring areas for collaboration, teamwork, and private thinking. This reflects the diversity of both the team and the work, providing diverse workspace to support and drive performance.

According to Sevi Rahimova, Reward Gateway’s creative director: “It wasn’t just filling the blank space between four walls, our office is our home. We knew that with the right design, furniture and layout we could help our people be the best that they could be, free them from the chains of designated desks, give them the tools that would make them more productive, more connected, and most of all happier at work.”

When designing your workspace consider what performance is required to drive your organisation. Is teamwork and collaboration key, are quiet and reflective spaces required, do you need creative space, space to de-stress, or areas to think more creatively or have fun?

Review these and use them to help you develop a workspace to support your organisation’s business objectives.

In conclusion, keep in mind that like reward programmes, not all workspaces are created equal. Consider what will best align with your organisation’s mission, culture and values (so who you are) and drive performance (so what you aim to accomplish). Make it your own and something which will work effectively to drive your employee’s engagement.

Debra Corey is group reward director at Reward Gateway.

This article was supplied by Reward Gateway.