Façons positives d'influencer les changements d'espace de travail

A decade ago, if someone had told you that you would be working primarily from home, chances are you would have laughed them out of your office and slammed the door in their face! Today, sitting in your home office, you would smile at that encounter. And, if someone had said that the day would soon come when you would no longer have an office… you would probably have called security to deal with them. Today, sitting across from a colleague who shares your cubicle, you wonder how that person saw the future!

Successfully changing your workspace

These paradigm shifts in the way we work have changed the way workplace designers and team leaders plan, organize, and allocate workspaces. However, workplace changes may not be effective when implemented unilaterally. Here are some positive ways to influence such change.

1) The preparation test:

Before you start knocking down walls and ripping off doors, pause and consider whether your organization (not just you!) is ready to change the status quo. Change is always difficult to embrace; but when it comes to a major workplace realignment, it becomes more challenging. This is because staff typically spend more than half their waking lives in the workplace. If they perceive the upcoming changes as unnecessarily disruptive to their lives, you will likely encounter significant resistance.

2) The consultation process:

To assess your organization’s readiness for workplace changes and to positively influence those changes, you must engage in thorough consultation with your staff. « Consultation » doesn’t mean presenting employees with a list of options to choose from. Instead, solicit feedback from all levels of staff and objectively consider each of these proposals in an open and transparent manner.

3) Use communication as an influencer:

Most employees are rational and reasonable individuals. If there are positive aspects to, say, reducing the number of desks and converting them to multi-user workstations, ask HR, personnel managers, and facility planners to clearly communicate these benefits to the masses. Holding regular town hall-style sessions and reaching out to rank-and-file employees through task forces could help.

4) Logistics:

Reorganizing existing workspace layouts and transforming them into a new concept won’t happen overnight. You need to plan for everything from architects and engineers to movers and handymen. You’ll need electricians and IT specialists, painters and carpet crews… and much more. The best workspace transformation experiences happen when you factor small things into your plan, like live plants and custom lighting.

Transitioning from an office layout to an open-concept workspace may require additional considerations, such as team proximity, meeting spaces, leadership and management seating, and brainstorming areas. The key to success, however, is extensive consultation and careful planning!

Life after transformation

Where possible, it can be helpful to leverage workspace scheduling and allocation technologies to make your post-transition work life less stressful. A great example of such technologies is personalized 3D floor plans.

When you’re transitioning from a closed office layout to an open-plan workspace, 3D maps help you visualize what your layout will look like, identifying each pod, desk, and shared workspace. Integrated with business communication tools, such as Microsoft Exchange/Outlook, these maps provide a dynamic and engaging way to visualize your workspaces. Planners can see which workstations, desks, or pods are vacant, who is occupying which space, and where there are opportunities to streamline space—e.g., co-locate teams or reduce wasted space.

While changing workspaces can be stressful, technologies like room scheduling and touchscreen workstations can also help alleviate some of that stress. And if the change is less stressful, employees will accept it more readily, resulting in greater productivity at work.