People in the United States have now passed through the odd period of the year that includes the Thanksgiving holiday. Around Turkey Day, one syrupy, over-emotional “news” story after another, chronicles what some group of people – who by any objective standard have had a truly terrible year – have to be thankful for.
This year let’s do something a little different and try to objectively review what those of us who are somehow connected to workplace design and facility management have to be thankful for in 2022.
In March of 2020 when people abruptly stopped working in workplaces it forced a serious look at how an organization could function when nearly all employees worked remotely. As the pandemic receded discussions of the role workplaces should play in workers’ lives became intense – and in many cases these workplace-related discussions were the first time many management teams had rigorously thought about workplace design.
For workplace design and management professionals, the increased attention was a plus overall, even if some of the people who somehow managed to get the most attention actually knew the least about how excellent workplace design can elevate an organization’s performance.
By this point in 2022 it seems that these discussions are moving away from unrealistic, nirvana type solutions and settling into a more rational and actionable realm. Particularly as rigorously derived information about performance in offices and in homes is compiled.
Conversations about workplace roles regularly led organizations to think about what their employees were up to, not just on a micro-scale of this team or that but at a more macro-level. As a result, workplace design as a marketing tool has been openly discussed, which is another thing to be thankful for, because workplace design has always had a marketing aspect but few business leaders previously focused on it.
Workplace design “sells” an organization, its apparent values, desired relationship with both current employees and potential future ones , as well as to customers and the community at large. Now, workplace design teams are not only working more intensely with their clients’ marketing people but also the human resources departments – as they always should have been and that is another thing to be thankful for.
All of this attention is generating additional respect for workplace designers and managers and the implications of their work; which is definitely something to be thankful for if workplace design is your world.
Ultimately, the increased attention to workplace design is likely to lead to a situation in which organizations know themselves better (what their people actually do, the contributions that can be made to the overall success of the organization by their various employees, etc.) and more rigorously consider how workplace design can elevate organizational performance—all of which is always something to be thankful for if you are workplace designer or manager.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.