Research on the Future workplace culture & design - Project 4

FUTURE WORKPLACE CULTURE & DESIGN MUHAMMAD HAIRIL B ZAINI | 1505881A

FUTURE WORKPLACE CULTURE & DESIGN USEFUL FINDINGS FROM GROUP RESEARCH: DBS considers their employees to be their most valuable asset.

DBS trusts their senior leaders to be committed to building a strong leadership culture by possessing an active role in the community to nurture talent and develop future leaders.

Internal mobility is the encouragement they give to their employees which is to leverage opportunities provided by DBS to work across their departments

Observations and questions that I had

Many employees prefer working at their favourite spot and are unlikely to change their seats. With open plan type of office, there tend to be hotspots within the office that are more sought after.

This would discourage exposure to new colleagues if employees were to sit around the same people everyday.

It is understood that there is an effort to increase work collaboration within the office through the implementation of an unconventional office, however from the observation, the atmosphere is still tense and there is little engagement with one another. Everyone seem very individualistic and focus on what they are doing alone.

This makes me wonder if having a bonded community in the offic would actually create a more collaborative environment that is less tense.

I would like to find out what kind of environment would encourage a sense of community.

My question statement...

What kind of environment creates a sense of community in a workplace?

SURVEY 1 Purpose of survey: To learn if office employees values having a strong

community in a workplace and finding out factors that they believe forges a strong sense of community in a working environment.

QN.1 Do you think having a strong

community within a workplace is important?

Total respondents :

45

Location of survey conducted:

MARINA BAY FINANCIAL CENTRE

100% agreeable

Demographic of respondents:

OFFICE WORKERS

Medium used to record survey results:

TYPEFORM.COM

Respondents answers located in the evidence folder

From the research, it is found that people with shared interests and a desire to work together towards common goals creates a sense of pride as well as determination to achieve their targets. This increases creativity, productivity and collective ideation to solve an issue or achieve a desired outcome.

Reference: http://switchandshift.com/5-ways-to-move-a-culture-to-a-community

Increases Creativity

Productivity

Collective Ideation

QN.2 What are the factors that you think best describe what creates a sense of community?

Collaboration Interaction Common interest and goals Sense of belonging towards the community Shared beliefs, experiences and traditions Influence over the community and vice versa Respondents answers located in the evidence folder

SURVEY 2 Purpose of survey: In order to understand why a highly collaborative

environment is not present in current workplace culture, there is a need to find out how collaborative work are done and occuring in the workplace.

QN.1 Where do you usually do collaborative work in your workplace?

Total respondents :

64

Location of survey conducted:

MARINA BAY FINANCIAL CENTRE / DBS ASIA HUB Demographic of respondents:

DBS EMPLOYEES

Medium used to record survey results:

TYPEFORM.COM / VOICE RECORDINGS

Meeting rooms Small enclosed rooms

Respondents answers located in the evidence folder

“In the bosses room or meeting room because it is bigger, and conduct internal discussions”

Voice recording #1

Near workspaces

“Meeting rooms and pantries”

Voice recording #2 & #3

Through the survey, I was able to understand that some discussions and collaboration requires more privacy due to confidentialitiy and nature of work that the employee is doing, therefore there is a need to consider private spaces even when in a collaborative environment.

QN.2 From 1 – 10, rate the frequency of

variety of co-workers that you collaborate with

Average total from 64 participants: 4.203165 With a lack of diversity of collaboration between one another in a working environment, it would instead create segregated communities rather than a strong general community. This would create difficulty for spontaneous collaboration to occur as employees would be more reserved towards other employees that they are not familiar with.

Respondents answers located in the evidence folder

QN.3 What are your thoughts on collaboration in your workspace?

“It helps us understand each other better and creates a much better environment to work in when we know one another better”

“Creates common understanding with one another and gives opportunity for communication”

“I am more comfortable working with people that I know than with strangers so often I would not collaborate with colleagues that I haven’t chatted with before”

Respondent #25 Respondent #26

Respondent #35

Screenshot of respondents anwsers on Typeform.com

“Necessary part of my job/no spontaneous collaboration as collaborative discussion is held in the meeting room”

Respondent #6 & #38 Respondents answers located in the evidence folder

My thought bubble...

From the survey findings I was able to learn that a highly collaborative environment can play an important role in creating a strong sense of community. I was able to get an insight of how collaboration work happens in an office environment and gain valuable feedback on collaboration from the employees.

CASE STUDIES Purpose of case study: To find relevant examples of past and current offices that was able to create a highly collaborative workspaces and understand why they were able to do so and to draw conclusions to the case study.

1

BUILDING

20

What impact does it have?

A temporary wooden structure hastily erected during World War II on the central campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It houses some of the most creative inventions and highly regarded for its collaborative environment

It created a highly creative, unforced collaborative environment that actually forges a community in the workplace by allowing flexibility of modification in their workspace area. Employees were allowed to break apart walls in the building to create a bigger space for them or join spaces with their colleagues. The culture within the building was the freedom to work in their own way and an unforced collaboration that highlights informality.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_20 http://www.archdaily.com/353496/ can-architecture-make-us-morecreative

AOL’s Palo Alto Headquarters

What impact does it have?

One of the key concept of the workspace is the use of one-way circulation. This circulation increases frequency of employees passing by one another. This actually increase day-today presence among workers.

Furthermore, discussion areas /rooms are located in an area that has a 360° FOV. This increases workspace transparency and creates oppurtunities for visual connection. Employees that are not in a discussion would still feel apart of the community as they would still have visual awareness with their surroundings.

2

PIXAR Headquarters

3

What impact does it have?

The key concept of the Pixar headquarters is to strategically locate key spaces and facilities in areas that would encourage their employees to pass by one another. The use of large open atriums is to allow their employees to have ample spaces for large gatherings and to encourage their employees to talk to one another to create a spontaneous collaboration. Furthermore, their employees are encourage to collaborate with a variety of people rather across different sectors which creates sort of a “cross pollination” in the workspace.

KEY POINTS EXTRACTED FROM CASE STUDIES 1

2

-Flexibility in workspace -Freedom to work and learn -Unforced collaboration

3

-One-way circulation -Day-to-day presence -Discussion areas with 360 ° field of view -Visual connection

-Strategic location for key spaces and facilities -Large open atriums -Spontaneous collaboration

My thought bubble...

From these case studies, I was able to pinpoint key points or concepts that past and existing workplaces used to create a highly collaborative work environment. Through this I would be able to incorporate some of this points into my social experiment and also apply it into my concept ideation and translation.

SOCIAL EXPERIMENT Purpose of social experiment: To learn how strangers would react in an enclosed environment and observe if they would collaborate with the help of “prompters” around the space

HOW IT WAS CARRIED OUT?

ILLUSTRATION OF THE SPACE CREATED FOR THE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

Prompters

Conditions

-All subjects should be strangers to one another

-Subjects should not be aware of what is inside the space

-Subjects should not be told what to do in the space

-Provide prompters in the form of questions in the space 1) Guide all four subjects into the enclosed space through two separate entrance - two subjects per entrance 2) Observe the subjects reactions, interactions and behavious in the space *FULL FOOTAGE OF VIDEO CAN BE FOUND INSIDE THE EVIDENCE FOLDER LABBLED - SOCIAL EXPERIMENT*

Subject A

Subject B

Subject C

Entrance

Entrance

Subject D SUMMARY OF EVENTS THAT OCCURED DURING THE EXPERIMENT 1) All subjects were confused at first 2) Subject D saw the questions on the board and decides to take lead and proceeds to facilitate in answering the question on the board 3) Each subjects took turns in writing down their answers on the board while other subjects observe 4) Small conversations occur among Subject B and C

My reflection and interpretation I was able to observe that a more controlled environment encourages interaction. However, there needs to be an activity or “prompters” that would help spur conversations among strangers. Furthermore, I also realized that an enclosed environment like in the experiment can be quite uncomfortable for introverted individuals (Subject A). From my observations I can see that Subject A body language is very reserved and he seems very uncomfortable in this kind of environment.

IDEATION Purpose of ideation: From the survey findings and case studies, various

ideas are thought of that helps to solve issues that surfaced during the survey process or are inspired from the case studies.

CIRCULATION Manipulating and strategically designing a circulation

influence and encourage employees to walk through and by each spaces Create more exposure among employees Creates day-to-day presense and

awareness to one another.

MODULARITY Implementing modualar fixtures in the workspace environment. This provide a sense of flexibility and may also can also adhere to various individual needs in terms of kind of way they want to work.

1

Furthermore, employees can also collaborate with one another to create a configuration that is suitable to their needs if there is more than one user at a time. This creates oppurtunities for collaboration to occur through configuration and negotiation.

PODS

2

Making use of “pods� for workspaces areas. Working in a large group or open area can be overwelming especially for introverted individuals hence smaller groups of five people is much more effective as it would be much more comfortable for spontaneous collaboration to occur in a more controlled group.

The use of transparent materials is also effective for people in the pods to maintain visual connection to their surroundings.

3

IDEATION CONCEPT MODEL Influencing factors for this concept model: -One way circulation -Centralized meeting space -Pods -Zones for a modular environment -Transparency -Narrow pathways into inner spaces

ONE WAY CIRCULATION Creating a one way circulation in the workspace would diminish corner space, which are usually meeting spaces and tucked at corner spaces.

COLLABORATIVE SPACE

The idea was to locate the meeting space in a centralized area so that it maintains visual transparency to the pods in the vicinity.

IDEA TRANSLATION 1

2 3

4

5

MOCK UP FLOORPLAN

ORGANIZATION OF SPACES Collaborative spaces are located in the center of surrounding workspaces

Key spaces are located along the main axis that cuts across the entrance of the office

Narrower pathways for cutting across the one way circulation pathway

CIRCULATION

Spaces are arranged and angled in a way that at every turn within the pathway employees would be facing a collaborative space or would see someone within the space. This increases transparency and day-to-day presence Pathways

Large collaborative spaces

Interior spaces

Key spaces Modular spaces

IDEA TRANSLATION MODEL AND PERSPECTIVES 1

TRANSPARENCY

Pods in the office space needs to have transparency elements that allows the occupants of the pods to be able to see what is around them

ONE WAY CIRCULATION

The common pathways would have writable walls to assist spontaneous collaboration among co-workers

STRATEGIC LOCATIONS FOR MEETING SPACES

2

Meeting spaces should be spread through the office space strategically such that it act as an anchor of every workspaces.

BREAK-OUT SPACE

Break-out space should be located at highly visible locations as those spaces tend to have interaction among employees

1

2

3

4

5

3

USE OF FLOOR HEIGHT

Through the play of heights, it can create a much more transparent work environment. Having one end of the office with a high floor level while the other end with the lowest floor level, it would be easier for one end to see through the other end. Use of floor height would also create hierachy to easily distinguish spaces in the workspace

4

DISCUSSION SPACES

Discussion spaces should be design such that it is very open so that it encourages spontaneous collaboration from other employees. It has to be visible from all angles in the office too.

There should be surrounding fixtures that allows other employees (mainly the introverted individuals) to sit in at a more comfortable distance if they wish to listen but not provide feedback

MODULAR FIXTURES

Modular fixtures should be easy to manipulate. Modular spaces would be placed along the main axis of the office pathway where it is near key spaces and discussion areas. This would encourage collaborative work to be done with the use of this modular fixtures.

5

DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS