Create An Office Space That Reflects Your Company Culture

Interior living and working spaces mirror the values, culture and personality of those who own and use them. In corporate terms, it’s possible to create an office design statement that offers an insight into your company culture, business values, character and vision. Organisations, like people, have personalities, values, and behaviours that are reflected in the social and psychological working environment. This can be termed “culture” and it determines the flow of interaction, conflict management, rewards and accountability, hierarchical structures, management style, charting for professional growth, collective beliefs, and knowledge systems, sharing of expertise, achievement of goals, planning and strategy within the organisation.

An Office Space That Resonates Your Company Culture

Forget about boring, cookie-cutter work spaces decorated with off-the-shelf accessories and furniture. Design is no longer just window-dressing or a cosmetic dabbed on for effect. Your office design should reflect your brand and culture. Millennials focus on experience, and above all on personalisation and uniqueness.

• Space: is length, height, width, area with a balance of emptiness, furniture, plants, and separators. You may already have a legacy space and want to give it a makeover or you’re working with an empty space. Either way, space is a design element that reflects company culture. Large, open floor-plan, central spaces with workstations, demarcated areas for private interaction and washrooms, kitchen, refreshment, conference areas, plenty of natural light, good acoustics, tech-intensive are typical of a young, vibrant, modern, creative organisation. Traditional offices with cabins, cubicles and a clear hierarchical structure of allotment reflect businesses like law, finance, or government.
• Light: Natural or artificial lighting can be used for mood and ambiance, with clever placement of doors, windows and open spaces. Companies with a more open, modern, highly interactive culture may use glass, or sliding partitions to reflect it, while those that have a traditional or manufacturing base may use more light control.
• Colour, Texture and Materials: These determine the relationship between different objects and features in the space. Use of neutral, less dramatic tones, convey traditional values, with the use of luxury materials in certain areas to reflect hierarchies. Bright, dramatic hues reflect power, creativity, excitement, and passion.
• Accessories and Furniture: Texture and materials used in furniture and accessories communicates emphasis on quality, comfort, style, value for money, and long-term thinking. Culture is closely linked with the type of work/industry. A high level of tech-devices and communication-systems is required in workspaces designed for such businesses.

Sync Culture with Design

• Hierarchical cultures need fixed design environments. There may not be much general interaction between employees and this usually takes place only in common areas like leisure rooms, general meeting halls or cafeterias. Furniture and partitions are used to mark off different areas.
• Ad Hoc cultures need flexible, playful and stimulating design elements. They may also need the incorporation of non-work related spaces for brainstorming, fun and breakout times.
• Clan cultures need structure that supports teamwork, promotes interaction and reduces the impact of individual over group.

There are a number of ways to design your office based on your company culture. Much of this does depend on your workforce and which direction you want the company to go. Creating an office space that reflects your company culture is not about having your office walls adourned with the company logo, or painting everthing in your company’s brand colours. The office space that you create should be a unique yet unified environment that reflects your company and its team. An office space that reflects your company culture is a place where people feel supported and inspired; a place where your employees, clients and visitors will feel welcomed and engaged.

Whatever the culture, crafting the workspace that speaks to it is the route to satisfaction andsuccess. For more about our exciting office furniture range, speak to All Office today.