Collaborative workspaces
Historically the heart of the collaborative workspace was the meeting room. However, this setup is not ideal for collaboration. It's restricted and formal. The meeting room still has its place in the office. It can be used a quite space, a workspace and a formal meeting room.
Why is there the need for collaborative workspaces?
The two elements of collaboration have fundamentally changed, both from the perspective of employees, and their organisations.
First, employees increasingly desire for social connection and engagement as part of their collaborative experience. Second, organisations need both operational excellence—and innovation—to succeed.
Operational excellence is related to process efficiencies such as speed of group decision making. Innovation is nurtured through informal, social, creative interactions. This combination of shifting employee expectations of group work experience and emerging enterprise needs is driving the charge towards a greater variety of collaborative workspaces.
What are the advantages and disadvantages?
The main benefits of using collaborative workspaces is that it can foster collaboration, promote learning and nurture a strong brand culture. These interactions and different perspectives are very important when finalising ideas.
However, collaborative workplaces can have their downsides. Collaboration works best in a natural format so if top down management puts too much pressure on the employees to be ‘creative’ it can have opposite effects. Collaboration is very important as too much remote work can create problems such as diminished knowledge transfer, decreased engagement and cultural disconnect.
This short video describes the benefits of collaborative workspaces.
Balancing the collaborative workspace.
The collaborative workspaces need to work in harmony with the rest of the office. It’s about balancing a “me” and a “we” environment to make the most effective process. You don’t need to invest thousands into these spaces such as Pixar and Google have but it’s important to keep the philosophy of coworking in mind when designing the layout of your office.
Have a browse through our product ranges. At Braley Furniture we have all the collaborative seating and soft seating requirements your business needs.
https://www.braley.co.uk/furnitureproducts
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