In the tech world, the idea of social spaces is already baked in. Many of these tech firms started as garage and basement operations without private offices or even desks and grew into workplace environments where almost anything goes.
These workplaces (like tech industry workers) tend to blur the lines between what’s personal space and what’s focus space and collaborative space. Competition for talent is intense in every industry.
Of the four kinds of spaces that define today’s workplace—focus, collaborative, learning, and social—the social space is sometimes little understood.
But a robust company culture can be the factor in securing the brightest and best talent. As a result, we’re witnessing more companies adopting a similar approach to workplace environments. Even more conservative financial organizations are starting to understand that social spaces have a critical role in developing and maintaining a vibrant company culture and engaged workforce.
Alongside this, we see generational demographic reshaping expectations of the workplace. As Millennials and Generation Z occupy a greater share of the workforce, we see a deeper yearning for an office that’s social, that feels like home or a comfortable third place rather than one that’s formal and utilitarian.
Spaces like the hospitality lounge for tech hospitality company Social Tables in Washington, D.C., are generously-sized, open, loosely defined, and multipurpose by design. Staff can informally gather during the day for meetings and meals or come together more formally for all-hands meetings. It welcomes everyday visitors but easily transforms for large parties or client events, lectures, even a press conference. It communicates Social Tables’ expertise and ease in putting people, spaces, and events together.
Making a case for social
But most clients in more traditional industries don’t come to us with a strong desire for a large new café. Rather they’re being advised by other industry experts to follow a linear process with standardized questions and metrics. They’ve never worked in a place with a third place in the office where people can gather, work, meet and be themselves so naturally they’re skeptical. Will it be a waste of space? They wonder “why do I need a 2,500-square-foot café?” Through an intensive design process and competitor analysis, we help them understand that recalibrating the size of their social or café spaces ultimately makes them more competitive, by providing space for more casual social interaction.
Social spaces are different from specified collaborative areas (where a table and chairs may be set up for on-the-fly meetings just steps away from desks and benches).
Social space is big. Social space defines a working community. It defines a culture.
But, it isn’t specifically programmed. You have freedom of expression in these spaces. A café space or a hospitality-like lobby tends to have very few rules, it’s intended to be free-form, to be flexible, to be used creatively and diversely. It creates the opportunity for people to be communal and social.
It can take some convincing. We hear a lot of “It’s never going to get used. Our people don’t do that, we don’t have a bunch of Millennials running around.” Recently a client was being advised to put together some small breakrooms, two or three small pantries with a table and chairs, a microwave, a refrigerator, and a place to sit—maybe it was 500 square feet total. We said no, that’s not enough and took the client to see National Retail Federation, a once-skeptical client who three years after moving in will testify that a large café space has created a sense of community and really galvanized the company culture.