The appetite for storage it seems is huge, but how much do we really need? Looking at our own office, we need a certain amount of storage space for reference materials, project files, and drawings. Design is a paper intensive business, but once the project is finished we scan everything and keep all the past projects in digital format.

Lesson 1: Even though we need to keep our finished projects on file, we rarely refer to these files. We learned that happens at most our clients offices as well, files might need to be kept for legal or other reasons, but once a project has been completed, an order placed, the files are hardly, if ever, accessed.

Personal storage: Here too, I want to speak from my own experience, I have one pedestal at my desk. This pedestal is full…with stuff for which I have had not had the *cough* time to sort out: name cards that I have received recently (about 50 in a box) that still need to filed, meeting minutes, receipts, drawings, CV’s, post-its, pens, paperclips, note books, more name cards, keys, notes, glue sticks, digital recorder, credit card, dictionary, photographs, post cards with invitation to opening parties (in 2006), data CD’s, sunglasses, warrenties, more post-its…

Lesson 2: most personal filing cabinets are transit boxes for stuff that does not have an immediate permanent location in the office. The transit usually goes from wallet, bag, pocket, top of the work suface (clean desk policy!) to the pedestal, personal filing cabinet. 90% of the stuff could be thrown away or filed digitally.

No. (But if implemented in the right way: Yes)
Even though we will do interviews, questionnaires, staff reviews, polls etc… the issues involved in the design of the work environment are so complex, so broad that in the end it is impossible to please everyone.
In order to be able to keep all the issues together it is crucial to know what to keep and what to forget from the analysis phase of WorkVitamins. I call this “selective listening”. After all, the basic idea of WorkVitamins is that the process is not a cure to a problem, but a suppplement to change. WorkVitamins is preventive rather than reactive and this is sometimes difficult to see during the design process.
As the WorkVitamins procedure starts with a Shared Workplace Vision (read more about the process at vanderarchitects.com) the vision can only be set by those who steer the company. The direction of where a company is going needs to be clear, and well defined. If that is not the case the rest of the staff will not be able to understand the purpose of WorkVitamins. Actually, if not communicated well WorkVitamins can easily create the opposite effect: confusion and revolt.

If for example one of the issues that has been identified during the Shared Workplace Vision was to improve team communications, every one in the organization should understand why team communications is important to the company. If the implementation of the spaces that will encourage team communications will have an impact on the overal space plan, this too needs to be made clear. If not, a territorial battle over personal space will unleash and will severely damage the implementation. Thus the importance of “selective listening” during the analysis: to understand and identify the elements that could potentially emphasize as well as damage the implementation of the Shared Workplace Vision.

Why indeed…

Happy 2007!
Here are some tips to make your work environment a success. In order of importance:

1. Keep it clean: As a student I worked in a restaurant for 4 years. We worked in an open kitchen, so there were no secrets, as the customers would be passing all the time. By allowing a full view into the kitchen (and even into the area where the dishes were done) we were open to the scrutiny, or better to quality control all the time. Was it any wonder that this restaurant was the most successful in town? I think the analogy makes more than sense for the office, keep it clean!

2. Keep it open: The analogy with the open kitchen in the restaurant makes sense in terms of keeping the office open as well. Ok, there are privacy laws ( Even in the kitchen we prepared our sauces etc…during the day when the restaurant was closed), but these laws should not stop you from keeping the office (to a certain degree) wide open. Offices should be filled with light and provide as much uninterrupted views as possible. If rooms need to be partitioned off, glass should be used as much as possible.

3. Storage, desk size: The smaller the desk, the less clutter will fit on it. The less storage you have the less unnecessary stuff you can keep. Work light!
4. Use an expert: to design and implement. Do I need to say more?

In no particular order:

1. Fear of change: people are creatures of habit. Change does not come easy, it requires effort. Thus the road of least resistence is followed and some (most) offices today look like offices of a century ago.

2. No Vision: Offices have a strategic value, which in most cases is completely undervalued by those who should set the vision for the company. Company reports or mission statements should be replaced by a couple of pictures of the office. “We did great this year, profits went up by 200% look at our office, it shows!”
3. Functionitis: A disease often found in offices where both the managers and the staff have the illusion that everything in the office should be related to function. Sufferers of functionitis believe that when they sit at their desk they are working.

4. Departementalization: Or not being able to look outside of the box, or in case of the office, not be able to think outside of the department which leads to the partitioning and the walls that are a sign of failure. Yes, office workers are a lot like dogs. (the difference is that they don’t pee to mark their territories….)
5. Cancerous growth: Just like a garden an office needs weeding, regular cutting and pruning.
6. Don’t care: No one cares for a rented car as it is only rented, not owned. An office should be “owned” by all who use it.

An interesting article in this month’s HBR on sleep and performance. Professor Dr Charles Czeisler , an expert on the biology of sleep talks about the fundamental biological issue of sleep.

He points out the importance of employees that are well rested as crucial to their performance.

“…our ability to sustain attention and maintain peak cognitive performance has to do with the total amount of sleep you manage to get over several days”.

Lack of sleep over prolonged periods of time not only leads to reduced performace, but is similar to cognitive impairment levels equivalent to drunkness.

“It amazes me that contemporary work and social culture glorifies sleeplessness in a way we once glorified people who could hold their liquor… The analogy to drunkenness is real because, like a drunk, a person who is sleep deprived has no idea how functionally impaired he or she truly is.”

Studies have shown that the 20 minute power nap in the afternoon is really a way to regain power and a booster for productivity.