Contract furnishings provider, Hightower received multiple awards at NeoCon 2021, including IIDA's 'Best Small Showroom' (under 4,000 sf) and 'Best of Competition' for its newly designed Chicago showroom.
Humanscale welcomes Elizabeth Margles to its Marketing Division in the role of Chief Marketing Officer. Margles comes to Humanscale with twenty years of experience in design, fashion and retail and a background in public relations and advertising.
The exclusive relationship with Kontrol's BioCloud® Technology will provide real-time detection of airborne pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 to help make workplaces safer as organizations return to the office.
The need for more collaboration within organisations seems to have become something of a mantra. And the office design industry is busy trying to capitalise on that need, by offering new and exciting ‘flexible’, ‘open’ office layouts that will help to break down entrenched organisational barriers and enable greater knowledge sharing.
It can be a lonely road for the freelance worker. Lots of work is solitary by nature, but for freelancers who typically work from home or the local cafe, the isolation and lack of collegial interaction can be, well, unproductive.
"When you are your own boss ... you are responsible for everything that you do," Leo Newball, a freelance web developer, said in a phone interview. "I need a space where I can detach from waking up and just working in my bedroom. That wasn't working at all for me."
Company executives and their employees disagree on the type of office space that's best for sparking creativity, new research finds.
A study from the staffing firm The Creative Group revealed that employees prefer secluded spaces when trying to come up with new ideas, whereas company leaders believe open spaces are best for innovation.
Specifically, 36 percent of employees said a private office is most conducive to encouraging creativity, compared with just 18 percent of executives. Conversely, 36 percent of executives think open-concept work environments are best for on-the job innovation, compared with only 26 percent of employees.
Office design has come a long way from the fluorescent-lit cubicle farms of the past. Thanks to mobile technology, changing work styles and the growing influence of millennials, today’s workplaces are now sleek, employee-focused enclaves decked out with lifestyle amenities such as rooftop decks, gyms, coffee bars and lush green spaces.
Companies now see their office facilities not as a cost burden, but as a powerful competitive advantage. According to experts, a well-designed work environment can boost employee productivity, drive creativity and innovation, and help companies attract and retain top talent.
The office of today has evolved, with employees able to enjoy more options than ever before. CBRE president of Greater LA and OC Lewis Horne, who is among the all-star panelists, says today's office has evolved beyond simply desks that are used eight hours a day. Lew describes office space these days as a "strategic tool that can and should be used to attract and retain today’s top talent." As a result, office environments must be "forward-thinking spaces" with a focus on accommodating the creativity and well-being of workers, Lew says.
The workplace has changed dramatically in recent years. The rise in technology and disruptive innovation has led to new ways of working and collaborating, altering the way we work and our work environments. Gone are the days of the cubicle farm and the singular open office. Today, a hybrid of different types of workspaces fuse together to create a seamless work environment that fosters innovation and employee autonomy.
With all of the hype around the modern workplace and alternative work arrangements, you would think that every company is getting on board. If boosting employee productivity and engagement is as simple as good office design, why wouldn’t we all be doing it? In reality though, only one third of American workplaces are keeping up with the demands of the modern workforce. This leaves a huge gap between what employees need to do their job effectively and what employers are actually providing their workers to get the job done.
“It’s both and,” says Joseph White of the open-versus-closed debate that has dominated conversations about the workspace since, seemingly, time immemorial. (Though in actuality, it’s just been going on for a few years.) As Director of Workplace Strategy, Design, and Management at Herman Miller, he believes in the idea of purposeful variety, a practical concept developed over decades across the organization’s many disciplines—and formalized now as a key concept within what Herman Miller calls Living Office®. Purposeful variety runs across all variables—from furniture selection to color to organization to layout—and at its core is a deep and profound understanding of how people in the workplace operate, and what they need.
The survey shows a new trend whereas Fortune 1000 corporations are rapidly adopting flexible workplace strategies while allowing their employees to take advantage of on-demand work & meeting space offerings. In addition to the already common user base of small to mid-size businesses, Davinci noticed fast growing adoption of its workspace and meeting room reservation platform Davincimeetingrooms.com by enterprise companies. Davinci's website and mobile app allow users to search over 4,500 fully equipped work spaces, book conference rooms and day offices, and select a variety of available business services.
The golden arches, a tiny fighting leprechaun, the swoosh … everyone can spot these iconic logos from a mile away, but what goes into that brand recognition? It certainly didn’t happen overnight and its success goes far beyond a logo. In order for organizational branding to be successful it must be purposeful and strategic. A winning brand creates advocates both internally and externally. Employees come to work every day understanding the company’s vision while customers experience first-hand that vision coming to life. This cohesiveness is achieved through corporate culture, ritualization, consistent messaging and a shared passion for the service being delivered.
Just like our recent event in D.C., we brought our general “choice in the workplace” TALK to Chicago at the end of July, but with a twist: we didn’t just talk about choice. Instead, we stacked the panel with designers only, and talked about designing for it. Cheryl Durst, the executive vice president and CEO of IIDA, the International Interior Design Association, joined us again as guest moderator, and Discover hosted us in their cutting-edge, 26,000 square foot Discover 606 space, which the company makes available for employees who are working downtown or need a place to touch down between meetings.
The enduring struggle to improve the working conditions and performance of people through the design and management of workplaces carries more than a whiff of the Enlightenment, a period in which pure reason was seen by its proponenst as more than enough to convince the world of the ways in which we could improve the human condition. It’s a battle that was won in some ways but which continues to endure to this day, as you can tell from the very existence of the latter day evangelists of reason such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Yet one of the issues with arguments based on pure reason is that they leave gaps regarding abstract notions such as love and beauty. When it comes to workplace design the idea of beauty seems pretty important. Yet the very notion that an attractive workplace will make people happier and more productive seems to assume that we can agree on what is attractive in the first place.
According to a survey by recruitment firm The Creative Group, managers and employees in US based ad agencies don’t see eye to eye on the essential characteristics of a creative office. When asked what the ideal work environment is for on-the-job innovation, the top response among advertising and marketing executives was an open plan workplace. Employees, however, seem to prefer more private, concentrated time, with a private office being the most popular option. According to the study of 1,400 US based ad agency managers, executives and employees, over a third of managers favour open plan environments compared to just a quarter of employees. Twice as many employees as managers would also rather have a private office. Around a fifth of both groups opt for a cubicle. Perhaps the most interesting finding of the report is that just 4 percent of both groups think the best option is remote working.
We’re entering a new era of work. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that for businesses to succeed, they need to do more to ensure people are at the centre of their focus. Creating a thriving company culture is key to attracting and maintaining top level talent, increasing efficiency and making work a great place to be.
Not only that, evidence now shows that treating your employees well can boost brand value. It takes more than just putting a ping pong table in the lunchroom and stocking up the beer fridge.
Research suggests that most millennials would even take a pay cut to find work that matches their values, puts their skills to good use in a positive environment.
Normally, Teknion works with clients who are undergoing change management. Recently, the contract furniture company underwent change management itself.
For its 20-member Canadian sales team, the opening of a new Toronto showroom, called the Collaboration Hub, meant relocating from a head office on the outskirts of the city to a downtown address in the emerging south core district.
While San Francisco may be known for having some pretty cool offices, NYC isn't exactly lacking. The two coastal metropolises have a variety of creative and impressive offices to attract talent with the same qualities.
While the ability to focus without interruptions is a top priority for employees, this need is being disrupted by today’s open plan offices.
The latest report from Oxford Economics, entitled When the Walls Come Down, surveyed over 1,200 senior executives and non-executive employees from businesses worldwide and found that modern workplace design was affecting overall productivity levels.
Noise and distractions presented challenges particularly in open plan offices, the report found.
A designer in IA Interior Architects' New York office opens up about the importance of infusing flexibility throughout the end user experience.
In an average work week, office workers spend five hours and forty-one minutes every day sitting at a desk. But research has shown that an extremely sedentary lifestyle is bad for our health – and that even if you’re hitting the gym after work every day, it’s still not enough to counteract the hours spent sitting down at the office.
So today I’m looking at 5 ways designers can create a more active workplace for their clients, in order to improve employee health and wellness, and lower healthcare costs incurred by an extremely sedentary lifestyle.
LOS ANGELES—The gap is closing between creative office and traditional office design, according to architect and designer Ware Malcomb. The firm has completed the Landing at 2040, a single-box creative office conversion project in El Segundo. The property has the amenity package of a creative build, but is designed to appeal to both traditional and creative users.
