Insights from the forefront of future of work thought leadership

Did you know that a majority of the world’s population (58%) spend one-third of their adult life at work?

If you do the math, it makes sense that wellbeing in the workplace is so important. After all, if your workforce is spending so much time at the office, making sure everyone is well-looked after means better productivity, performance and happiness at work, which then translates to improved revenue and retention.

Strong leaders acknowledge today’s ever-evolving workplaces, and are always looking for ways to shake up the traditional office space, factoring their people into the commercial design.

That’s why last week, we hosted a lunch and learn on the ROI of workplace wellness and discussed how to produce the best results for businesses through workplace wellness with a panel of experts:

• Dr Debra Villar, Director at Complete Corporate Wellness, a company that provides health and wellness programs for the corporate sector.
• Jack Noonan, Vice President Australia & New Zealand at International WELL Building Institute, which is leading the movement to promote health and wellness in buildings and communities everywhere through their cutting-edge WELL Building Standard™.
• Annelie Xenofontos, Senior Workplace Strategist at Axiom Workplaces, who leads the strategic thinking process that creates intelligent workplace design outcomes for our clients.

So, how do you produce maximum productivity and performance in your people? Here are some of the insights our panel of experts shared:

What are three things organisations can change to encourage workplace wellbeing?

Workplace wellbeing goes hand in hand with a solid culture in the business. It’s not as easy as just getting a massage therapist in for a few days, as Villar explains.

The key elements needed for a successful wellness program are:

• Leadership buy-in: It’s imperative that the leaders of a business are on board and driving wellness initiatives. HR leaders and managers then need to promote it around the business. It’s also a good idea to have a ‘wellness champion’ on-site to continually ensure that programs are carried out on the daily, and that employees have a point of contact if they are unsure of how to make the most of these initiatives.
• Holistic mindset: A wellness program shouldn’t just be aesthetic, it needs to cover all the bases – nutrition, a healthy mindset at work, and continual learning.
• Measurable data: No matter how your business defines ROI, you need to be able to measure data around participation rates, performance and productivity so that you can manage all pre- and post wellness initiatives and see real ROI. Villar recommends that organisations embarking on wellness improvements use just one provider to keep things constant. For example, if you’re getting a new office fitout to include a communal space for yoga classes, your chosen workplace design partner is best-placed to help you measure against the relevant metrics before and after the fitout.

What are some easy ways to improve the quality of your environment?

The first step to doing this is to ‘use data to understand where you’re at first,’ says Noonan; without knowing where you stand currently, you won’t know how much you need to improve. This includes tangible elements such as the building itself, and intangible elements like HR policies around issues like mental health.

Then, it’s about changing mindsets. How can we change the question around wellness to be less about ‘how can we do less harm’, to ‘how can we do more good?’.

Instead of focusing solely on minimising harm (with things like asbestos, poor lighting, and poor ventilation), Noonan says that businesses should also speak to occupants to learn what they actually want, and invest in people and HR policies. Combine these elements, and organisations can see a huge return on investment.

It’s not news that changing our environment can make an impact on staff wellbeing. But with a new project, businesses are usually thinking solely about the cost of the fitout – when in fact, 90% of the cost of your business goes to your people, according to Noonan. So investing in the fitout is part of investing in your people, and if you see improved staff performance, attraction and retention, then there’s your ROI.

Noonan also reports that some commercial fitouts pay for themselves through ROI in less than 3 months.

From a physical standpoint, what changes should business leaders implement in order to improve wellness in the workplace?

Over 50% of Australians have at least one prominent chronic condition, yet most organisations say that they have no budget for wellness initiatives. If you consider the cost of absenteeism (currently at $44 billion per year across Australian companies), it’s easy to see how a wellness program will pay for itself in the short- to mid-term.

Additionally, you don’t need a big budget to start implementing wellness-led activities in your business, even small things can make a big impact. For example, encouraging employees to take meetings outdoors, creating a walking club, providing healthy snacks in the kitchen and encouraging people to stand up and walk around every 15 minutes.

Noonan also encourages creating a supportive environment; allowing people to come and chat to you if they have an issue about their health. He also revealed that more than a third (39%) of potentially preventable hospitalisations are due to chronic diseases; however, only 1.5% of health spending goes to the prevention of chronic diseases. He opines that in relation to our buildings, there are so many ways to design our workspaces that can encourage physical activity and prevent chronic diseases. An example is to prominently feature staircases instead of elevators in a building design; if you make wellness easily accessible and inviting, people will want to take part.

How can organisations collect and use data to help them continually improve their wellness programs?

There are a few ways to measure your wellness programs:

• Participation rates: How many people take part in your wellness initiatives? If the number isn’t too high, it could indicate that the programs aren’t relevant or difficult to access.
• Health data and outcomes: If the wellness program is customised to the health needs of employees (through needs testing and health risk assessments), then metrics against employee health can be used, e.g. absenteeism due to falling ill with the common cold.
• Satisfaction measures: For example, how happy the team is with services, worker’s compensation, sick days, stress leave and other data from HR.

In talking about data, it’s important to note that with certain programs, you might see immediate change, but no sustainable difference in the company. For example, after a physical challenge intended to promote health, you may see staff losing weight – but what about their health in the long-run? Noonan says that it’s important to also consider wellness initiatives that take into account long-term health and wellbeing, and that’s also how you retain staff for longer.

Want to learn more about wellness in the workplace?

Download our eBook, The fundamentals of wellness and wellbeing in workplace design, which discusses the seven principles of designing for wellness and wellbeing at work, including agility in the work environment, the impact of technology and the demands of a multi-generational workforce.

And don’t forget to stay tuned for Part 2 of this blog, where we cover the experts’ discussion on industry trends relating to workplace wellness! Subscribe to our blog below to make sure you don’t miss out.

Once you’ve decided you’re due for an office revamp, it’s time to engage the services of a professional to ensure the entire process goes as smoothly as possible.

While it is perfectly sensible to search for ‘interior design firms’ or ‘commercial fitout companies’ or ‘office refurbishment businesses’ in your area, you may in fact be wasting an opportunity to reap maximum benefit – and ROI – from your workplace redesign.

Consider, instead, enlisting the services of a workplace design partner.

What is a workplace design partner?

Most office refurbishment companies tend to approach a workplace design project from a purely aesthetic point of view, quickly producing design concepts without taking the time to truly understand your business, its culture, and your future goals. This means that, while these concepts are impressive and visually appealing, they won’t necessarily deliver much in terms of tangible benefits or ROI.

A workplace design partner, on the other hand, won’t even put pencil to paper without gathering extensive insights about your business, learning about your strengths and weaknesses, and factoring ways in which to accentuate the former and minimise the latter into their design.

For example, is your culture one that thrives on collaboration, or solitary contemplation, or perhaps both? Is your company using certain technologies, or moving to new ones? How can the redesign further facilitate communication, or promote health and wellness, or cater to a multigenerational workforce?

Advantages of a workplace design partner

Here are just some of the benefits of working with a workplace design partner:

They’ll develop a workplace design strategy

The best workplace design partners will take an evidence-based approach to the design, creating a strategy that is carefully tailored to your employees’ preferred ways of working, your company’s culture and aspirations. (Not to toot our own horn, but this is a particular strength of Axiom’s.)

They’ll point out things you may not even have considered

The best workplace design partners are extremely detail-oriented, and will not only consider how a design looks, but also how practical and functional that design is. They may even assist you in cutting costs by helping you to determine things like how much office space you really need with greater accuracy.

They’ll think outside the box

Your business is unique – your office should be too. A great workplace design partner will be up to date with the latest trends, changing regulations, and new materials and technology, and they’ll be able to apply this knowledge to ensure each design is fresh, modern and will last long into the future.

What to look for in a workplace design partner

In order to help you find the right workplace design partner for your next fitout, here are some questions you should ask during the vetting process.

1 . What is their process like?

You want to ensure your workplace design partner is really going to take the time to get to know your business inside and out, so you get an outcome that everyone loves, but that also helps them perform at their peak. It’s important, therefore, to look carefully at the process your shortlisted design firm takes, and ensure information gathering and analysis is a key part of that process.

2 . Do they have a wide range of experience?

A workplace design partner that’s produced great results for clients in diverse industries shows that they can create a design that’s highly customised to your business. Be sure to look at case studies to get an idea of their previous projects.

3 . Do they deliver on time and under budget?

A workplace design project that is delayed or over budget can have negative repercussions on the business, so you want to be sure your workplace design partner has a proven track record of delivering projects on time and under budget. It can also be useful to talk to previous clients to find out more about what it will be like to work with them.

At Axiom, we have extensive experience using an evidence-based approach to design office interiors for a range of clients. Could we be the right workplace design partner for you? Contact us today for a free consultation.

With the so-called Silent Generation and Baby Boomers delaying retirement, Gen Z workers just starting to enter the workforce, and Gen X-ers and Millennials also in the mix, today’s workplaces are more diverse than ever before. But a diverse workforce also means that there are often conflicting preferences.

Millennials, for example, prefer to blur the lines behind home and work, favouring residential looks for their office spaces that evoke the comforts of their living spaces. Baby Boomers, however, have reported feeling uncomfortable about this trend, preferring more delineated lines between home and work.

This difference in preferences of course has important implications for your next office fitout. After all, the last thing you want is to have invested all that time, money and energy into an office relocation, only to find productivity and employee satisfaction plummeting as a result.

But how exactly do you keep everyone happy and achieve maximum ROI from the new office fitout?

Here are our top 5 tips for designing for a multigenerational workforce.

Focus on functionality

Forget the ping-pong table and beanbag chairs for a second, and ask yourself, ‘What is it that employees actually need to be able to do over the course of the working day?’

Is it a creative agency that needs a space dedicated to brainstorming? Is it a finance organisation where people need quiet, private booths for deep concentration?

The tasks your employees need to perform, as well as your company culture, will have a marked effect on the types of zones and features your new office needs.

A large formal conference room with water views, for example, may look terribly impressive – but if most of your employees prefer to collaborate informally and in small groups, this space is going to be underutilised. And an underutilised space is simply a waste of money.

That’s why, at Axiom, we are big proponents of evidence-based design, which configures the design around actual evidence regarding the culture of the organisation and the ways in which your employees prefer to work (as opposed to assumption-based design, where you impose a design that you think will work, and expect your employees to adapt to it).

Find common ground

It can be easy to get hung up on the seemingly irreconcilable differences between generations – for example, younger generations might want more spaces to socialise, while older workers might want private offices that reflect organisational hierarchy.

But there are also many similarities, and these similarities can be the key to designing a workplace that makes everyone comfortable and productive.

Both Baby Boomers and Millennials, for example, want to feel they are doing meaningful work, so finding ways to reflect the company’s mission and its positive initiatives through a workplace redesign can help boost employee satisfaction.

This is precisely what we did when we overhauled our own head office. Our new design showcases our vision and innovation, with our mission statement, ‘Creating thriving workplaces’, visibly emblazoned on the wall as you enter the space.

Most generations also value mentorship and personal connections with their employees, which could be fostered by including more informal socialising spaces or introducing collaborative technologies, to help bring disparate generations together and encourage knowledge sharing and mentorship.

Provide flexibility

You can bridge the gap between generations even further by being clever with how you utilise spaces and what types of furnishings you use in order to make the space as flexible as possible. Indeed, flexibility is a key consideration when it comes to attracting A-grade talent.

Having a variety of spaces, for example, such as quiet spaces; small, informal meeting rooms; collaborative areas; and large gathering areas for town-hall meetings, will ensure that workers of all generations can find the conditions they need to operate at their peak.

You could also use flexible desks that can be configured to standing desks, or movable desks that can be easily wheeled into a variety of configurations to easily transform spaces as needed.

It doesn’t have to be fancy – at Blue Chilli, for example, we used simple stools and stackable crates that could be easily moved around, allowing people to gather informally, socialise or take a coffee break wherever and whenever they saw fit.

Prioritise employee buy-in

A successful multigenerational workplace depends largely on employee buy-in, which is why it’s important to communicate regularly with employees not just before an office fitout, but also after, to help make the integration into a new space as smooth as possible.

Having clarity around how new spaces should be used, for example, can help ensure that employees understand their purpose and use them appropriately, and that there is no anxiety or conflict arising from misunderstandings or different expectations.

Training is also important – after all, there’s no point investing money in the latest cutting-edge technologies if employees don’t know how to use it.

All these measures can help staff adapt quickly to their new environment, to ensure you start reaping the goals of the fitout as soon as possible.

Get an outside perspective!

When contemplating an office fitout, it can be difficult to wade through all the data, as well as people’s many opinions, all on your own. It can be helpful, therefore, to have an outside perspective from an expert to provide a neutral, evidence-based view.

At Axiom, we have extensive experience designing for multigenerational workforces, so if you want an office fitout that has everyone – no matter what age they are – looking forward to going to work, we can help! Contact us today for a free consultation.

You have a niggling feeling. It’s been bothering you for some time. Your work colleagues are getting snippier every day. There’s a bruise on your leg from when you accidentally bumped into that desk (had it always been there?). You’ve just had to push back yet another meeting because the meeting room was booked until next Tuesday.

Is it time for a new office space?

An office redesign or relocation takes time, resources and planning, so you want to make sure you’re making the right decision if you’re considering a refurbishment or move. So here are 5 tell-tale signs your business may be ready for a new space.

1. You’re crammed in like sardines

You probably thought it was no big deal when management decided to move the rows of desks just a few inches, so they could fit another row in – but now you can’t even move your chair back without bumping into the person behind you.

This might seem like just a minor annoyance – but lots of minor annoyances across lots of employees can quickly add up to major problems for your business.

Here are a few ways you can tell if the office space is overcrowded:

• OH&S incidents are on the rise: When space is overcrowded, people bump into desks, equipment and even each other more often. This could potentially lead to a rise in the amount of sick leave taken.
• There are more employee complaints and workplace conflict: Like bickering siblings who have been sitting in the backseat for too long, forcing employees into each other’s personal space can quickly make tensions rise and tempers flare. This can even lead to more absenteeism and a fall in productivity.
• Full and booked-up meeting rooms: Are meetings often delayed because employees have to find extra chairs to squeeze around the conference table? Are the meeting rooms constantly booked up, forcing employees to delay meetings in order to find an available slot? Do a sizable portion of your employees have to stand when you have company-wide conferences? These indications certainly point to overcrowding – and all that precious time lost finding seats and rebooking meetings is time that could have been spent putting value back into your business.

2. Your employees have nowhere to relax

When businesses try to squeeze employees into every nook and cranny, often one of the first spaces that gets encroached upon is breakout areas. Not only does this mean there are often lines to use the microwave and coffee machine, it also means that more employees resort to eating lunch at their desks, which is not so great for workplace morale.

Studies have shown that when people eat together, work performance actually improves, and people are also more altruistic and helpful to boot.

But you simply can’t reap any of these benefits if people don’t have anywhere to hang out together.

3. Your company culture needs a revamp

Sometimes the problem is not the lack of office space – it’s a lagging company culture.

You may, for example, have accommodated for new employees by leasing out another floor in your building. Your employees now have all the space they need – but collaboration has taken a steep nose-dive, because employees no longer interact organically like they once did.

Or you may have just undergone a period of massive turnover, which has perhaps brought in some new values and ways of working, or even introduced some bad habits.

Or the company has naturally grown and branched into new markets or new products, but in the midst of all that, your company culture has fallen by the wayside.

Whatever the reason, it’s important to be proactive. A strong company culture is the bedrock of a healthy company – it unifies employees behind a cohesive identity, and helps to validate those values that characterise your business. It also helps attract and retain top talent, while contributing to a clearer brand identity in the mind of your clients.

The physical environment can have a marked effect on company culture. If, for example, creativity was an important value in your company, you could encourage this by introducing brainstorming rooms with more of a casual set-up, and whiteboards on the walls, so people can take down their ideas.

A office redesign, therefore, might be the perfect opportunity to revive and enhance the positive aspects of your company culture – and perhaps even mitigate some of those not-so-positive ones.

4. The paperwork mountains are starting to take over

Growing piles of paperwork on people’s desks are another sign your office space might be in dire need of an upgrade.

It might seem innocuous, but if people don’t have anywhere to store documents, then messy desks won’t be the only issue – documents will get misplaced, more errors will be made, and employees will waste more time searching for the information they need. And your clients will likely be the ones who suffer.

Sure, you could get some more filing cabinets – but these will take up even more valuable real estate, making the office feel more crowded than ever.

When considering an office redesign, therefore, it’s worth putting some careful thought into not just how much space your employees need, but also how much space your documentation requires, particularly if you work in a paper-intensive industry that requires extensive record-keeping.

5. The location is not so hot

It might not be the office space that is the problem, but rather where it is. Maybe you moved the office there several years ago, having been told it was an area on the way up, but things didn’t quite pan out that way.

Or maybe you opted for a location a bit further from the action, because, at the time, you couldn’t afford the exorbitant city rents, and now you can.

Or maybe the location was at the epicentre of the industry once upon a time, but, over the years, businesses – and your clients – started moving elsewhere.

Being in a good location can have lots of benefits to your business – it can put you in closer proximity to your clients, it can help attract and retain top talent, and it may even save you a lot money if, for example, you manage to get into an up-and-coming neighbourhood before the rent hikes start.

Yes, an office redesign or relocation is a lot of work – but staying in an office space you’ve well and truly outgrown will be far more frustrating and costly in the long run.

If you’re relating to one (or more) of the above signs and think an office redesign might be the answer, we’d be happy to talk about your options. After all, understanding what solutions make the most sense for your business is the first step to creating a refurbishment or relocation plan that stays on schedule.

Whether you’re moving to a new office space, or refurbishing an existing one, a workplace redesign requires getting buy-in from senior leaders in your business before you can start putting a plan in place.

Sure, you could tell them a workplace redesign delivers a whole host of benefits – improved employee wellbeing and performance, better ability to attract top talent and increased productivity, to name just a few – but this isn’t enough. You have to be able to prove the return on investment (ROI) that a workplace redesign will deliver.

The best way to do this is by building a solid business case, laying out the cold, hard facts, and demonstrating beyond a doubt that a workplace redesign is the best thing for the company.

Here’s how to go about building a business case for a workplace redesign.

Step 1: Crunch the numbers

One of the biggest things the C-suite really want to know is, how will this workplace redesign affect the bottom line?

A sensible place to start, therefore, is space and operations costs.

In a traditional office, only about 45–50% of the space is occupied at any one time – and you can expect this number to drop even further as people adopt more flexible ways of working, such as having four-day weeks or work-from-home days. With a workplace redesign, you can effectively reclaim all this lost space.

So do the math:

• What are you typically paying for each workstation/square metre?
• How many workstations/square metres could you potentially eliminate in the workplace redesign?
• What do you stand to save in operational costs, like energy, cleaning, facilities maintenance and security?

It also helps to be proactive about exiting your lease – while it can be tempting to simply hand over a cheque to avoid ‘back to base’ obligations, in reality, cash settlements are often inflated by landlords. Taking steps like getting a second opinion and negotiating can save a lot of money – meaning an even healthier ROI.

2. Focus on the value-add

Saving costs is of course important, but a successful workplace redesign will deliver tangible benefits long after the big move too. After all, your employees are the company’s biggest expense, so even incremental improvements on their comfort and productivity can have a marked effect on the redesign’s ROI.

Here are just some of the ways a workplace redesign can have a positive effect on revenue:

• Lower attrition: Replacing employees can be a substantial cost – according to the Society for Human Resource Management, it costs a company on average 6–9 months of an employee’s salary to replace him or her. Workplace redesigns can help lower attrition by creating a desirable environment to work in.
• Less absenteeism: According to the World Green Building Council, one company in the UK saved £28,000 in absenteeism costs by moving their office to a ‘green’ building.
• Better productivity: A study by KPMG showed that Dutch company Heerema Marine Contractors’ move to new sustainable headquarters was expected to reap productivity benefits worth €42 million over 20 years.
• Better ability to attract top talent: Consider how much time and money you spend trying to find the right hires for your business. A redesign can help make your workplace more desirable to potential employees.

3. Rely on evidence to get the best results

In order to reap all those benefits, and provide employees with a workplace redesign that will work best for them, it is important to use evidence-based design.

What is evidence-based design?

This means that, rather than creating a design based on assumptions, and forcing employees to adapt to their new surroundings, you instead configure the design based on the culture of your organisation and the ways in which your employees prefer to work.

For example, an open-plan layout might save space and increase collaboration – but it may not necessarily be the best arrangement for your sales team (or the department that sits adjacent to your sales team) if they spend all day on the phone.

Evidence-based design can help ensure you get maximum ROI from your workplace redesign, ensuring it is tailor-made to deliver happier employees and greater profits.

It is prudent to enlist the help of professionals for this step, who will approach your business from a multidimensional perspective and make sure to ask the right questions, before creating a design based on data and a thorough understanding of your organisation.

At Axiom, we like to think of ourselves, not as an “office fitout company”, but rather a “workplace change partner”.

Need a hand?

If you’re planning a workplace redesign and need some help backing up your business case with cold, hard data, Axiom can help. We’ll work with you to carefully audit and analyse your needs, so you get a design that’s a perfect fit for your business. Contact us today!

When it comes to open-plan offices, there are generally two schools of thoughts. As Ethan S. Bernstein, associate professor at Harvard Business School, puts it:

You hear so much said about how much people don’t like open offices, but there’s also so much said about the vibrancy of an environment when you open space and data up, about the collisions and interactions that will happen there. For me, the promise of open offices was at least as compelling as the traps. Would everyone bustle with productive collisions, or simply put their big headphones on and become numb to the space?

Together with co-author Stephen Turban, Bernstein sought to find the definitive answer.

Using sociometric badges to accurately measure interactions in the workplace, they conducted a study comparing the behaviour of workers before and after a shift to an open-plan office.

The results were startling.

They found that, after the move, face-to-face (F2F) interactions decreased by around 70%. Electronic interaction took up some of this slack, though, increasing by roughly 20–50%.

This seems to suggest that, rather than collaborating more with their fellow employees, people were actually withdrawing.

So does this study signal the death of open-plan offices?

The findings are compelling. But we don’t believe it tells the whole story. If you’re considering whether the move to an open-plan office is right for your commercial fitout, here are some other things you should consider.

The missing pieces of the puzzle

A scientific study has to be rigid, to ensure you’re actually testing the variables you want to test. But a real-life environment comes with a myriad of other factors that will affect whether a move to an open-plan office is successful or not.

Becoming ‘open-plan’ is about more than just tearing down walls. After all, if you’re simply taking things away, then it should come as no surprise that your employees aren’t exactly going to be thrilled.

For example,

• Are you adding a variety of functional spaces – like quiet booths, social areas and collaboration zones – to give employees plenty of options depending on their needs?
• Are you repurposing that extra space in a way that benefits employees, whether that’s by installing a coffee area or gym?
• Are you considering how factors like noise, daylight and views will affect employees?

Had these sorts of factors been considered in the study, it’s likely the results would have been different.

Even Bernstein himself admits:

There might be other things a manager could do to mitigate the potential negative impact on interactions: hybrid or flexible spaces; train people differently; allow work-from-home time; set a tone and work culture that tries to deprogram us from our natural instincts to respond the way these organisations did. There are those who love open offices, in part because organisations mitigated the downside with other deliberate managerial actions.

Face-to-face (F2F) vs. electronic communication

According to the study, F2F communication dropped dramatically after moving to an open-plan office. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

Electronic communication is the normal form of communication for digital natives, more of whom are entering the workforce each year. Indeed, many are more comfortable with this form of communication than with F2F interactions.

There’s also no evidence that one form of communication is better than the other, and with the wealth of digital collaboration tools available to us today, it seems crazy to give our employees great tools and not expect them to use them.

These days, effective collaboration is highly dependent on these tools – as well as on having great spaces to spontaneously huddle without having to book a meeting room a week in advance.

It’s about change management

Successful open-plan offices come down to change management. After all, you can’t just take people’s offices away and expect them to be happy about it. If, however, employees feel they have been able to contribute to discussion and voice their needs, they’ll be much more receptive to the arrangement.

You may even find, after gathering feedback, that an entirely open-plan office isn’t in fact the best thing for your particular company. While private offices are certainly less space-efficient, they’re worth at least putting on the table as an option.

Once the decision has been made, employees then need to be primed for the transition.

As Axiom Workplaces’ Annelie says, “The behavioural aspect is really important…getting staff ready, getting them excited, and making them aware that the whole space now belongs to them. Shifting their thinking to taking greater ownership of the space is really important and actually builds a stronger culture.”

Consider how you can make the path to change as smooth and stress-free as possible for your employees.

What is right for your organisation?

In the end, it’s not really about whether open-plan offices are “good” or “bad”. It’s about what type of commercial fitout is best going to serve your organisation.

If you’re not sure whether an open-plan office is right for you, we’re always here to help – just get in touch.