How Collaborative Office Space Promotes Productivity

Who said walls don’t talk?

The walls in your workplace, along with the interior and layout, have a lot to say about your business and the vision of your company. Financial health, work theory, and employee engagement can all be effectively expressed in the decor and furnishings for your office.

Any business scaling up or adding talent to its team should give attention to the advantages of turning monotonous office space into creative environments.  And truthfully, to do this, you don’t need to make a billion-dollar investment. With minimalistic changes to your office environment and infrastructure can stimulate healthy employee productivity and engagement. 

How Office Environment Affects Productivity

If you are struggling with the correlation between a collaborative office space and company performance, read on. We cover five  main benefits below.

Enhances Work Performance

A collaborative workspace can have an impact on facilitating and nurturing the rapid development of your organization. Designing open and collaborative office space directly impacts your employee’s happiness engagement with coworkers. This quality of life improvement will ramp up your company’s overall productivity and performance.

A study by Harvard Business Review found that employees who operate in open, collaborative spaces scored six out of seven points on thriving in the workplace. When employees are happy and thriving, they’re likely to be more productive and efficient during the workday. Another study discovered that teams in collaborative office environments stayed on task sixty-four percent longer than their isolated counterparts.

Attracts Qualified Talent

To remain competitive and continue to deliver quality services, your workforce needs regular healthy infusions of new talent. Since millennials have hit the floor, you may have noticed work environments have become much livelier and more exciting.

Today’s Gen Z fancies creative spaces. They want offices that are flexible, collaborative, and promote value. It’s ideal to design and invest in a professional office space that is going to attract the best talent.

When potential talent visits, if they don’t feel that they belong in your workplace, they’re not as likely to accept your job offers. On the flip side, if your workspace offers an environment your prospective employees find appealing, you can win them over instantly. Furthermore, a study done by Hassle Studios found that your organization’s workspace has more influence on job seekers than the salaries you offer them.

Promotes Social Interactions

But they’re here to work, not make friends.

Work relationships are essential to employee well-being. It’s about much more than just “getting along” with co-workers. As human beings, we crave connection and contact with other people. Leadership needs to understand just how vital social connections in the workplace truly are.

Social psychologists have been researching the human need for belonging for many years. They have found that a sense of belonging is a key intrinsic motivator. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs lists a sense of belonging as one of the major needs that motivate human behavior, like food, shelter, and safety.

Strong social connections will make people happier and physically healthier, which translates into work performance. Leaders who actively support social connections within the workplace and encourage employees to form strong relationships with each other help build a successful workforce.

Teams become better at working together, from working together, which is better facilitated by collaborative workspaces.

When you enable your employees to collaborate with leadership, you will eventually enhance their degree of loyalty and engagement. So, remove those barriers and cubicles to promote open discussions. This will prove to be a massive asset for your organization as it improves communication among the employees.

Helps ignite a community spirit

A collaborative office space can help workers feel more connected to their teammates and your company’s mission. This sense of pride and community at work will lead to positive contributions to your company’s efforts and can also improve staff engagement and retention.

Research also indicates that organizations that cultivate a sense of community are better at supporting employees when collaborating on creative work. Other activities benefit from a community-spirited foundation, including social interaction and the sharing of knowledge and experience.

Employees that report feeling a higher degree of community spirit within the office are also more likely to say they work in a pleasurable environment, compared with those that don’t. In fact, there’s a massive difference; out of the employees who feel their environment promotes a sense of community in the workplace, eighty-four percent feel their workplace creates a pleasing environment to work in, compared to eleven percent who don’t feel the same sense of belonging.

Promotes New Ideas and Fresh Approaches to Problem-Solving

In collaborative office spaces, team members are more likely to share ideas with unconventional approaches to problem-solving that help your organization meet its goals. These open environments inspire the free exchange of ideas that could help your team unlock vital customer or operating solutions that have never emerged before. 

Being surrounded by enthusiastic professionals helps to hone personal productivity. This opens the possibility for new conversations. Moreover, inspiration from coworkers helps to move them out of their comfort zones. Therefore, collaborative spaces promote holistic development. 

Supports the Sharing of Skills, Knowledge and Experience

Increased interaction among coworkers in an open and collaborative office environment will naturally increase the sharing of skills, knowledge, and experience among those coworkers with diverse backgrounds and strengths. Whether on the same team or across departments, sharing through collaboration helps coworkers grow and learn from each other while boosting quality of work.

Consider Collaboration Itself 

Collaboration is the king of today’s workspace environment. But, it’s not a trend just for trend’s sake. At the very least, consider the fact that some of the most innovative organizations in the world — Google, Pixar, Facebook, Boeing, Cisco, just to name a few — fully commit to a collaborative office space design.

The praises of the collaborative office space are many: it improves workflow, helps to cultivate innovation and creativity, encourages communication and productivity, and has a measurable positive effect on employee wellbeing by increasing energy levels, reducing stress, and improving relationships with coworkers.