The offices that motivate and care for their employees
In the last few years the whole design of offices has changed, from the disappearance of physical barriers in favour of greater collaboration and transparency to the incorporation of leisure areas and relax elements such as sofas or puffs. They are valuable spaces which are no longer conceived only for relax because nowadays any place is a potential work space. Thanks to mobile technologies, every employee can work from anywhere in the office including the kitchen, terraces or patios for example.
The revolution in the design of offices came hand in hand with companies such as Google, with its famous slides or Apple. But there is no need to travel to Silicon Valley to find cutting-edge offices.
In Spain there are also many reference companies and architecture firms that opt for showcasing offices and seek new designs that care and inspire people, ease their employment methodologies and favour new cultures of organizations and the transmission of corporate values.
Offices that motivate and care for people
Whether big or small, any company may contribute to make its human capital happier and the work space is a good ally. And this is because the real protagonists of new work spaces are people. The design of the ten offices we remember today is focused on people, seeking their wellbeing and therefore their motivation.
Motivating employees through the design of their offices is possible and can be approached from different sides. The first one, to provide them with the best possible ergonomic conditions and this has to do both with the design and the quality of office furniture and with e acoustic, thermic and visual comfort.
We value comfort over other design issues
For example according to a very interesting report by CBRE what employees value the most of their workplace and has greatest impact on their commitment are the views. Employees value comfort over other design issues.
Grey places, long corridors, receptions and relax areas far from operative areas are left behind. Today we are in favour of warm and comfortable places to work and offers are opened to the outside, incorporating spaces such as terraces and patios for employees and collaborators to enjoy fresh air and natural light.
This is the case of one of the companies furnished by Ofita a few months ago, Servier offices in Madrid, a new work space that revolves around the main spatial protagonists: the patios.
The companies that have opted for making work spaces more human seek comfort and ergonomic also through furniture, choosing exclusively those items that have been designed to care for their users.
Office furniture designed with people at the heart
Adjustable height tables are a great ally for the wellbeing, health and comfort of users such as the Freshfields offices in Madrid. The mechanical operation of work stations is with a hidden internal engine with different heights and that can easily connect with each user’s mobile phone by Bluetooth easing its remote control.
multilevel
In double stations, glass panels separating them allow thanks to their special dimensions, the levelling at the same time of both tables and that several people can hold a meeting standing without visual barriers creating through this two ways, healthy and comfortable work stations.
The wellbeing of people is also a cornerstone of the design and equipment of the offices of EPS Ensemble Protection Sociale in Paris, and the incorporation of natural elements as well as furniture and office chairs has a crucial role in health.
Ofita’s tables and chairs chosen for this project outstand for their ergonomic attributes that care for employees while they work.
EPS Ensemble Protection Sociale
Providing every employee with the greatest instruments to develop their activity is another way to attain the goal of humanization of work spaces. The key for this is the creation in offices of different typologies of spaces with enough flexibility for employees to choose one or another depending on the activity they are going to develop including the most informal ones.
EDP Oviedo
For example, in EDP, the open space coexists with closed meeting spaces of different sizes and levels of privacy, informal areas, areas for more casual and relaxed collaboration….
We find this range of spaces in many offices that Ofita has furnished in the last few years. This is the case for example of Savills Aguirre Newman in Madrid, a clear reference of work space focused on the wellbeing of people.
People are the starting point of the design of this headquarters and this is observed in every detail from the choice of materials to the design of furniture, planning of spaces and the colour palette chosen.
Savills Aguirre Newman – Madrid
Precisely colour is another of the greatest allies in the design of offices that motivate and care for employees. In Lyntia we collaborate to create a warm work space, with neutral colours.
Biophilia, i.e. the incorporation of elements to connect with nature is another value added of many actual offices. This is the case of Schneider, placing natural plants at work stations incorporated to the furniture or of our client T Systems at its offices in Mexico or Banijay in París opting from Versa Natura tables with wood supports.
T Systems Mexico
Schneider Francia
Banijay
IESE Library
And, what about the noise in an ever more social and collaborative office? Achieving greater acoustic and visual comfort in new spaces is another of the biggest concerns for architects and interior designers and also for office furniture companies that incorporate ever more innovative solutions for the design of private areas in ever more open environments. This is the case for example of the Meet up! Collection, an option chosen for example for the library of the IESE.
Ultimately, the search of the wellbeing at the office is a constant in new work places; at least in those where Ofita collaborates. The concept of grey offices with a vertical structure and individual offices are long gone, companies now opt for emotional, social and collaborative spaces.
