The development of a well-crafted workplace strategy empowers leaders to make informed decisions regarding the workspace and ensures that choices align with a deep understanding of how the work environment can best support the organisation’s goals and employee well-being, all while maximising overall ROI.

What are the key questions any organisation must answer when carrying out a workplace strategy assessment?

• WHY: What is the purpose of the physical workplace for our company?
• WHO: Who are the stakeholders that will visit our workplace?
• WHAT: What do we want our stakeholders to experience when they visit our office? What story do we want to tell them?
• HOW: How will we share that story with each stakeholder through our workplace design?

Define what the purpose of having a physical office space means to your company. Every square meter of your space should serve this purpose.

Consider your company’s mission statement and how the space can assist in attaining it.

• Spaceful mission: To challenge today’s workplace methods to uncover how and where people perform best.

Consider your company values and how the space can empower employees to embody them.

• Spaceful values:
  • Create energy
  • Be respectful
  • Champion ingenuity
  • Make it happen
  • Be generous

For Spaceful, the purpose of a physical space is to enhance collaboration, specifically cross-team collaboration, improve employee productivity, boost company culture, and provide an experience that positively impacts employee wellbeing. This environment must ultimately inspire individuals within it to embody and fulfill the company’s mission and values.

To achieve this, a thorough understanding of daily activities and tasks carried out by each team and individuals within the company is a must. This is to understand how and where your people work best. A “day in the life of (DILO)” analysis of each team is extremely valuable.

• Company-wide examples for Spaceful include:
  • Designated areas for focused work are necessary for individuals to have private conversations or concentrate without distractions.
  • Wellness spaces are required for staff to take productive breaks throughout the day.
  • A method for gaining deeper insight into team rhythms is required to ensure the right spaces and equipment are available to support them.

• Some team-specific examples for Spaceful include:
  • Design team requires a creative studio that inspires innovation, allows them to better co-create with each other and with clients, as well as organise, and store various design samples.
  • A Client Relations must-have is more designated areas within the office to make phone calls, so as not to distract others from their work and to be immersed in the phone call itself without interruptions and/or background noise.

Determining which stakeholders will be present in your space plays a crucial role in crafting the ideal environment for each.

For Spaceful, some of these stakeholders include employees, clients, suppliers, partners, property managers, cleaning staff, tradesmen, etc. It’s important to think deeply about all people that may visit your workplace. For example, it is crucial that cleaners are not overlooked. By understanding their journey throughout the space and their objectives, we can ensure an optimised workplace for cleaning purposes, which in turn will ensure a clean space that positively impacts employee wellness.

What do we want each stakeholder to experience? Now that the stakeholders have been identified, it is time to determine what story to tell each stakeholder as they enter, move within, and experience the space. This will be unique for every company and goes beyond simply the physical experience. It also involves engaging all the human senses within a space.

We want to tell employees that the space will allow them to operate at peak productivity, collaborate with their team effectively, exercise wellness, and will inspire them to embody and fulfill the company’s mission and values. While the client experience of the space will be that Spaceful walks the walk when it comes to workplace strategy, property, design and delivery and that we are experts and innovators within the industry.

What can be implemented or included within the workplace to facilitate the story or experience for each stakeholder?

For example, Spaceful will tell employees their intended story by offering elements like work style flexibility (open spaces, collaboration spaces, quiet spaces, presentation areas, design studio), wellness spaces (rooftop, wellness room, social spaces in the office and building lobby), CBD location (close to clients/potential clients, public transport, restaurants, and other amenities), oozing brand identity via design the moment one steps inside the office, state of the art tech integration (desk booking systems, VC systems, etc.) and more.

“As you’re transforming your current workplace or perhaps moving into a new place, you have the unique opportunity to shape the identity of your workplace, and more importantly to shape how you as an organisation will be perceived by employees, clients, prospects, and any other visitors that you may welcome in your new space. It is about crafting environments that go beyond functionality and aesthetic appeal – creating spaces that resonate deeply with both the individual and the collective identity of the workforce and organisation, fostering a more meaningful and connected experience.

Making the workplace WHY tangible through visual/physical/spatial cues that spark storytelling and human connections and activity. Ultimately, it’s the stories and memories created in the human brain that add meaning to a place.”

– Tica Masuku, Workplace Strategy Director at Spaceful.

As a leading provider of workplace strategy, property, design and delivery, Spaceful is excited to exercise and demonstrate our own expertise as we make the move to Level 11 of York & Co.

Follow our journey as we transform this space into a hub of innovation and excellence tailored to meet the needs of our growing team. Next time, we’ll give an inside look at our Workplace Design.

Related Articles