Office Experiences: Team Collaboration
There is plenty of debate regarding whether the office remains relevant. Regardless of where you set up work, the one thing offices cannot go without is collaboration.
Despite think pieces examining if the office is even relevant anymore, there is one thing everyone can agree is best suited in an office: collaboration.
Research from Herman Miller shows that there are three core experiences best supported by the office. It is not surprising that team collaboration is one of them.
Technologies such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams have made it possible to work with anyone anywhere in the world, but no one can deny there is an electricity of meeting up with coworkers in person, generating ideas or solving problems.
In the prevailing model of workplace design, individual workstations are “owned” or assigned, and group spaces are shared. But if your organization is looking to seed spontaneous socialization and concerted collaboration, you need to rethink this. In a “neighborhood” workplace model, team space is owned and individual spaces within that are shared.
Benefits of a Neighborhood Model
When workplaces practice neighborhooding in this way, there are several benefits. These types of settings can better accommodate longer-term collaboration for projects that extend over several months. Moments that cannot be scheduled via videoconference are also more likely to happen, like those spur-of-the-moment chats that foster creativity and breakthrough.
