Most of our recent workplace designs have dramatically increased the amount of meeting space available to the client. This happens not only because our clients usually ask for such increases, but our utilization studies tend to substantiate the need for more meeting areas. In many ways, building a case for more meeting spaces in the modern (frequently more open) workplace is easy. Yet there is a larger underlying question that goes beyond simple space issues: what type of a collaborative culture is an organization trying to foster? More cool and tech enabled meeting rooms are usually a good thing, but more meetings are usually not. In the research we do—the surveys, focus groups, interviews and other studies—a typical refrain is that there are too many meetings and many meetings are “a waste of time.”

Read the article on gensleron.com >

At this time of the year, the media tends to constipate itself with retrospectives and forecasts. Most of them these days tend to be shaped into lists, because that’s how the Internet likes these things. That is all perfectly natural and we are free to make our own mind up which of these features are meaningful and which are the cookie cutter products of the permanently unimaginative. No footballpundit was ever fired for stringing together clichés rather than talking and no marketing person has ever lost theirjob for publishing a list of Ten Trends. One thing all of these lists seem to share is an assumption that many of the ideas they reflect are new. That’s understandable. Nobody wants to think that what they consider to be on trend has all been seen before. The young people currently roaming around with wedge haircuts and ripped jeans won’t thank you for telling them they are 80s throwbacks.

Read the article on workplaceinsight.net >

The office won’t ever replace the home, but new designs in commercial furniture are making the workplace less confining, even enjoyable. The exploding variety of options range from living room-like settings—sofas, lounge chairs and coffee tables—to diner banquettes that offer solitude and privacy.

Read the article on wsj.com > [paywall]

Startups have open offices – mostly. Everyone from the twenty year old founder to the twenty one year old employees are all sitting around in open cubicles. It is a visible symbol of a non-hierarchical work culture. In a country where hierarchy is everywhere, this comes across like a breath of fresh air and becomes a great draw while hiring.

Read the article on blogs.timesofindia.com >

What is the state of today’s workplace, how has it evolved over the past five years and what are the trends for the future? A new research report explores these topics and reveals how organizations are using new workplace strategies to improve the productivity and success of employees.

The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) has released Distributed Work Revisited: Research Report #37, which is a follow-up to its 2009 Distributed Work report. HOK helped IFMA develop and analyze the survey, collect the case studies and write the report.

Find out more on hok.com >

RIGHT NOW, THANKS TO SOCIAL MEDIA, we have a connection with customers that we’ve never had before—instant feedback on how a company is doing. As a result, you’re going to see a tighter connection between what people do and who they serve. We’re not going to have silo departments within a company that operate on their own and never see the outside world. And we need to educate our employees accordingly by teaching them how the entire business works and how they fit into the machine. I’d rather have employees spend one hour learning how a company makes its money than sit through a yearlong course on conflict management. Knowing how a business works will help employees understand why decisions are made, and that goes a long way toward improving performance. Corporate jargon does nothing but slow us down, and it’s the exact opposite of the transparency and openness we’re going to see more of in the future.

Read the article on wsj.com > [paywall]

The most dynamic organizations are embracing new transformations that are changing the face of the traditional workspace.

Thanks to advances in technology, new workspace designs, and employee “change engagement” strategies, distributed workforce models are dramatically on the rise, and are here for the long-term.

As a result, unassigned workspaces are becoming the new norm. At the same time, many organizations are decreasing the amount of space required to support staff liberated and productive from multiple locations.

These were the key findings of International Facility Management Association’s (IFMA) annual “Distributed Work Revisited” study, which also highlighted how facility management professionals play a vital role in developing workspace strategies of the future

WorkSpace Today recently had the unique opportunity of speaking with Jed Link, Manager of Communications at IFMA and Gordon Wright, Senior Vice President and Director of Consulting at HOK, about these dramatic shifts.

Hear the podcast on theworkspacetoday.com >