Robyn Gray, associate director for Tétris South Africa writes:
What time do you power down your laptop at night? Look at the plug next to your bed. How many devices are plugged in there?
Your answers to these questions have probably revealed you’re at the office more than you’re actually in it, tucking into some bite-sized admin with breakfast at the corner cafe or catching a quick IM meeting from the backseat of an Uber.
Your staff are no doubt doing the same. So, how do you restore work-life balance to encourage happy, healthy and motivated employees when everyone’s overflowing inbox is tagging along home with them?
Make them feel at home with a lifestyle-focused work environment.
At the moment, a fundamental shift away from hierarchically designed offices toward more inclusive, collaborative spaces is taking place.
One major reason for this is the growing platoon of millennials in the modern workforce. These super social and adept multitaskers like open plan coffee-shop style environments, tech bedecked meeting hubs, acoustic pods and
even working from treadmills or barber shop chairs is not an unusual request these days.
As a result, more and more companies are starting to mimic the trendy offices of the Googles and Facebooks of the world. But what if that doesn’t align with your brand… and your older staff just can’t comprehend the idea of morning meetings in an indoor treehouse?
Embracing lifestyle-focused work spaces doesn’t mean your office needs to look like a children’s playground. It’s simply about making the office more flexible to your employee and business needs.
That means the first step to an ideal work space is to understand your company requirements, culture and staff. Traders are bound to their workstations, attorneys require privacy, creatives like space to throw ideas around in so all the lifestyle-focused work spaces for these kinds of employees will need to be different to efficiently support the way in which they operate.
However, there are a few minor changes that we’ve noticed can help to streamline any and every office, improving efficiency while giving it a homey air.
Comfortable soft seating hubs, intimate task lighting, quiet areas, private spaces, warm colour palettes and the smell of brewing coffee are just a few minor tweaks that make most staff feel at home in the office.
But another major standout benefit and consideration of lifestyle-focused work spaces is scalability. Lifestyle-focused spaces allow for expansion without the costs of a new workstation for each new staff member. Instead, employees may move around an environment without desk ownership, working from a pod or quiet room, canteen or bar-height collaboration table.
A lifestyle focused work space that looks and feels more welcoming and comfortable will put your staff at ease, make their work lives more meaningful and will encourage them to invest more passion and drive into a company that is investing in their in-office experience and overall work-life balance.
After all, home is where the heart is. Start your journey to a more lifestyle-focused work space today and get more heart from your staff, as well as a responsive and agile office that changes and grows around you instead of the other way around.
