While there is more than just office space design and layout considerations to maximizing employee engagement, poorly designed office space can be a very negative factor that will directly affect the bottom line. The coworking workplace concept may be a forerunner of the future work-styles, but it is today’s integration of three C’s in office space design that is helping to redefine office space design of the workplace. These are the 3 C’s; Concentration, Collaboration, and Community. The relationships between and among these three C’s are critical in creating an office with high-performance workspace that enhances employee engagement and satisfaction. The three C’s must work together to support multiple ways of working and to provide the ability for businesses to react quickly to the fast changing business environment.
Concentration – First and foremost the office space design needs to take into account the need for space within the office that its conducive to tasks that require quiet concentration. Concentration space will typically take up around 50% of the space including private offices, focus rooms and open area workstations.
Collaboration – Most companies are focused on developing means for better Collaboration and cooperation in sharing of ideas. While this is an important concept, it must be evaluated in relation to the other two C’s to avoid unnecessarily taking on too much office space.
Community – Companies are also recognizing the importance of creating a sense of Community among employees by having areas that are designed to enable and enhance it are important in today’s workplace. It is team building; the development of trust and core values among employees.
With 50% of the space allocated to Concentration space, the other 50 percent will be divided between Collaboration and Community spaces.
We are all used to evaluating office space needs on a square foot per person basis, but with the new works styles a new set of metrics must expand beyond square feet per person to include:
- Square Feet per Seat
- Persons-to-Seats Sharing Ratio
- Number of “I” Seats to Number of “We” Seats Ratio
via A New Set of Metrics for High-Performance Workspaces.
Last Sunday I was out for walk in the Fremont district of Seattle after the Seahawks game. I came upon a new coworking space that I was unfamiliar with. So naturally, I went inside to look. What I found surprised me. Makerhaus is a multipurpose coworking space of the type I have never seen or hard of before. They do offer the normal coworking options, work desks and benches, conference room and the like, but they also offer classes and have workspaces for fabricating products including wood working, metal working, laser cutting, 3D printing and more.