5 Key Principles to Strengthen Collaboration

Spurred by the success of silicon valley tech companies, the global market is realizing the power of innovation. The best way to embrace innovation is to encourage collaboration, especially across disciplines. In an attempt to encourage collaboration, there has been a shift towards open-plan offices. However, this has mostly back-fired as people feel…

Today more than 70% of employees work in an open office environment, and the size of their individual workspaces is shrinking.

Our research now suggests that once again, people feel a pressing need for more privacy, not only to do heads-down work but to cope with the intensity of how work happens today.

‍

So to effectively increase collaboration, here are 5 key areas to get right…

1. CENTRALIZED AMENITIES

Steve Jobs famously insisted on having the pantry located at the center of the office. By forcing every employee from every department to go to the same place, we maximize chance encounters - casually bumping into other employees encourages a conversation and sharing of ideas.

2. INSIGHT SHARING SPACES

Meeting rooms, brainstorm rooms, townhall areas, and information wall, are some key features that allow the ease of sharing of ideas.

74% of the people we surveyed said they’re more concerned about their privacy now than they were 10 years ago.

3. HUDDLE SPACES

Providing group work areas in a convenient way allows workers to get together efficiently for discussions. Few considerations for huddle spaces:

Privacy vs Convenience

‍Will the discussion involve private matters? If so, a sound-proof room is best to deter eavesdropping. If not, a casual discussion nook with some degrees of privacy will do

‍Duration

How long is this group going to be working together? For more project based work that last longer than a few days, it is best to have the group work closely together in a private room.

There’s a natural rhythm to collaboration. People need to focus alone or in pairs to generate ideas or process information; then they come together as a group to build on those ideas or develop a shared point of view, and then they break apart again to take the next steps. The more demanding the collaboration task is, the more individuals need punctuating moments of private time to think or recharge.

4. AN ECOSYSTEM OF SPACES

The modern day executive has to deal with unprecedented complexity at work, resulting in a variety of tasks. In traditional office designs with fixed seating, executives have the difficulty of focusing their minds when switching to a new task. Whereas in modern office designs, we are able to provide a variety of work stations, allowing executives to move to different workstations that best suit the task at hand. This is also known as Activity Based Workstations (ABW).

5. BALANCE OF PRIVATE (“ME”) VS PUBLIC (“WE”)

In the modern era of complex work, collaboration requires us to go away and think about issues individually. Once we have formulated our thoughts and ideas, we are ready to meet up with our team to collaborate again. Therefore a balance of private and public spaces are best to optimize collaboration.