Another growing trend in today's workplace is the importance of collaboration among employees. Studies from Gensler show that top performing companies spend their time socializing and engaging in collaborative work 16% and 23% more than average companies, respectively. Those top performers consider collaboration to be more than twice as critical to job success. So what exactly does "collaborative work" mean?The most current office furniture is designed to initiate employee interaction throughout the day, thus promoting a more exciting, busy, and overall more creative place to work. With bench desk layouts and low panels separating employee space, workers have the welcomed option to interact with their desk-mate and receive creative and necessary input from others while maintaining enough privacy to work on individual projects as well.
Collaboration doesn't necessarily mean "loud", however. In our own working showroom, benching has kept the noise level of phone conversations and side by side collaboration significantly lower because we're constantly aware of the employee across from us. Previous panel style desks really only provided perceived privacy. Hiding behind panels, phone calls were unintentionally louder due to the cubicle effect of the once popular desking solution.
Not to mention, being confined to a cubicle-esque work space all day doesn't exactly breed happy employees! Employees of the top performing companies surveyed were "uniformly satisfied" with their work environments, further proving the success of collaborative offices.
Amp up your collab potential by providing other informal meeting areas for your employees to sit down together in small groups. This could be in the form of couches and occasional tables in common areas or in simple, small scale conference rooms. Wide aisles in the office also allow for chance meetings among workers without disrupting individually focused work in the office.
Check back on Wednesday to get a closer look at the product we suggest using to get your company operating in an open plan up there with those "top performers".
