Heneghan Peng developed a space for Airbnb that provided areas for collaboration, private meetings, and flexibility to support the various tasks of diverse employees.
A couple of weeks ago we blogged about office design for introverts and extroverts and how as commercial interior designers, we can develop spaces that can suit the needs of both personality types. In that blog post we discussed ways that we can improve productivity and well-being for all employees, but we also asked you to take part in our survey regarding your experiences in your workplace. Today we’re following up on that survey to show you the results we found.
Interestingly, of those surveyed most of you said that you were introverted. So, either introverts are more likely to take surveys related to this topic since office environments of late have been designed for introverts, or we just have more introverted readers. Either way, keep that in mind when we review the results.
One quarter of office workers do not feel their workplace supports their needs as an introvert or extrovert.
As you can see overall, most of our readers are content in their workplace and feel it meets their needs as introverts, but a small portion of us are struggling. If every business out there could improve the productivity of those 25%, imagine the increases in profitability they would see. From the perspective of an interior designer firm, updating your space to ensure that each of your employees have what they need to perform their job is a great investment.
75% of our readers felt that they could be more productive at work if they had a choice regarding where they work today, and if they can simply customize their workstation.
It’s interesting that none of our readers felt that having an open workstation or enclosed office were important for their efficiency at work, but that having flexibility between the two was ideal. By providing a mix of closed offices and open workstations as well as private meeting spaces and collaborative areas, we can make a large impact on our workforce.
Each of us is different emotionally, but we also need to consider our diversity on a physical level. By allowing our employees to customize their place of work either by allowing places for personal items, or by providing choice for a task chair that best suits their needs, we can improve the health of our business as a whole.
It’s also not surprising that many of us feel happier when we have a connection to the outdoors. By planning our offices to offer access to natural light and exterior views we can help our employees feel more content.
Three quarters of those surveyed felt that their workplace did provide those most important things for their career success.
Based on the answer for the first question, it isn’t surprising that a similar number of readers responded that their workplace does not provide them with that one most important factor for their productivity at work. We can do better to ensure that our employees are successful at work simply by providing them with a choice of where they would like to work, and by allowing them to customize their workstation.
Overall, we can see that our survey supports current research indicating that flexible office environments with dedicated quite work zones are ideal for the success of a business and its employees. Thank you to all those who participated in our survey!