Looks like Microsoft is finally realising that custom workspaces is one of the keys to increasing employee productivity. Rather than assuming that individual offices is the only – and best – way to work they are now moving to a building design that can evolve with the needs of the...
Scott describes his home office in great detail in this post. I’m a little jealous because he has his own space (I have to share mine with my Wife and she’s not very tidy!) but we have a similar setup, although Scott has even more monitors than I do!. If...
I couldn’t resist entering this contest on Lifehacker! Snap a few pics of your favorite workspace – home office, desk, studio – and send ‘em in to us. Over the next week or so we’ll feature our favorites. Readers will vote on the ultimate coolest workspace – and the winner gets...
Summary Status Description Efficacy Working from home Approved and implemented Allows me to work when I would otherwise be too ill to travel. Allows me to spread the workload throughout the day reducing intensity. Reduces exposure to infectious agents. Allows more frequent and effective breaks. Reduces stress Allows distraction and...
Back in 2001, I was given the opportunity to create my own team. It was a great opportunity and I pulled a team of about 30 people together to work on Architecture and Systems Integration projects in the Infrastructure arena. We hit upon a slight problem though we could not find any space within the existing company buildings in the area. This presented us with another great opportunity, work from home, or find and design our own office. This is the story of how we designed our Office and what we learned.
One of my favourite topics just started to get an airing on the web, Work Space design. It’s been an interest of mine ever since I can remember, it’s the frustrated Architect in me, (I was never good enough at art to take it at University). Anyway what really bugs me about the topic is my belief that it has a huge impact on individual and team effectiveness, but receives very little focus and even less investment by many companies. Even companies that reap huge profits from their consultants tend not to invest in their productivity. I talked about this in a previous post, but mainly from an IT SW perspective.
Since I have been working from home I have invested quite heavily in my own work environment and I certainly notice a huge improvement in my productivity. The biggest improvement comes from two large monitors driven from the same desktop PC, supplemented by a management console that I use to monitor my lab and anything else that I need to check frequently. I also have a dedicated portable that I can just pick up and carry away whenever I need to move around the house, I use a …
This year has seen interest in workplace design gradually building; a few consultancies have been established; blogs and podcasts have created; a couple of books have been written; and of course the start-ups have been investing their VC’s millions in fancy offices that get plenty of publicity. It’s nice to...
This post was first published on my business blog, which I’m closing down now that I’ve retired, so I’m archiving some of the better posts to this blog. All too often offices are designed based on an efficiency metric that works for the facilities management organisation, cost/person, needs to be...
This post is part of a series reflecting on the end of my traditional working life as I prepare for retirement this week. This is a difficult post to write, I’ve been in paid work in some form or another for over 40 years, 30 years in traditional employment and...
I’ve been passionate about workplace design for over 20 years, in fact I think my interest started way back when I redesigned my bedroom in preparation for my GCSEs. My Dad had bought me a large office desk that was surplus to requirements and it transformed my home working environment. ...