By James Dellow, Aug 28, 2019 https://www.cmswire.com/digital-workplace/are-workplace-collaboration-and-productivity-at-odds/
One Person’s Workplace Distraction Is Another’s Collaboration Opportunity
- In our physical workspaces, many people complain about how open-plan office spaces, which were supposedly designed to encourage collaboration, result in too much ambient noise and unplanned interruptions.
- What is felt as distracting by some is seen as an opportunity for knowledge sharing and serendipity by others. Some people also consider the immediacy of real-time collaboration solutions a critical success factor for remote teams.
- We also know employee engagement is another important factor in productivity, and in turn, collaboration is a driver for enhancing engagement.
How to Meet Collaboration and Productivity Needs? Thoughtful Design
Insurance company Zurich North America is an excellent example of how to create an equally collaborative and productive workplace:
- The space offers a mix of spaces for open collaboration, private workstations, and social hubs.
- The company used feedback from employees and data to optimize the design.
- The company augmented the physical spaces with purpose-designed collaboration technology that made it easy to collaborate with remote coworkers.
It All Comes Down to Choice
- Sustaining collaboration and maintaining productivity has nothing to do with the individual tools or spaces we provide.
- It is entirely contingent on delivering a palette of locations and technology for people to choose from so they can maximize their personal and team productivity and value creation.
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This article is beneficial to my research because it provides information about workplace spacial design for collaboration which can be directly related to libraries. This article also raises the point of the negative impact open space spacial design for collaboration can have on the efficiency of workflow.
