“Corporate culture and the way in which many offices are designed is largely to blame for the rise of extroversion as the dominant and most desired character trait in current society” – that is the opinion expressed by Susan Cain in her international bestselling book; ‘Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking,’ which has recently been published in the UK.
Her research finds that today’s open-plan, shared workspaces with no privacy or silence render deep thinking and solo work almost impossible. In doing so they do not cater to a large and valuable part of the workforce who are introverts (estimated to be at around one third). In a time where employers are looking to attract and keep the very best people large corporations are sitting up and listening to these findings and adjusting their thinking accordingly, in fact Steelcase’s designers have adjusted their plans for office space after reading ‘Quiet’ and Herman Miller has commissioned office furniture to favour privacy and comfort rather than teamwork and sharing – these designs were recently unveiled in New York’s Contemporary Furniture Fair.
At Metric we feel that we are ahead of the game and we have have long recognised these findings in our space planning and office design.
For us an overall view of worker wellbeing has become a recognised strategy to boost an organisation’s ability to innovate. Wellbeing in the workplace needs to consider the whole person by providing a variety of spaces, tools and postures. Rents are going up and so workplaces must work harder and smarter but that is not simply a case of fitting as many people into a space as possible. To be fully optimised, the workspace must provide a range of spaces that serve multiple functions to provide everyone in the organization with the type of space they need whether they work in big groups, small groups or individually – incorporating spaces for quiet and solo working where introverts can work in peace which better suits their nature.
Office performance shouldn’t be affected simply because of how an office’s furniture is organised or how their teams are structured. For advise on space planning, office design and furniture to optimise the wellbeing of your workforce call us on 017840456850. We would be happy to help.
