Social spaces in the office

70% of innovative ideas appear during collaboration with colleagues. We tell you why the office is being transformed into a social space, and what benefits the management brings from this.

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What are social spaces? This is more than an open space with comfortable chairs and ergonomic desks for work. Social spaces are aimed at giving people a sense of ease and encouraging their communication.

Previously, when designing offices, only 20% of the total area was allocated to meeting rooms. With the advent of the open spaces era, the ratio of shared and personal spaces was 30/70. At the same time, exactly half of the office is given over to social spaces, and sometimes all 70%! More and more office space design specialists are paying special attention to the development of unique products and solutions for social spaces.

Why is this becoming so important? Six years ago, a Gensler study noted that "the office workspace is evolving from a human-centered environment to an environment that emphasizes a collaborative, social context for work and offers choice and flexibility." Based on our experience, we explain the trend by several factors.

 

1. Change of generations and lifestyle

The new generation of employees does not establish a clear separation between work and personal life. They are ready to open a laptop at any time and in any place, they can and like to put together a useful and pleasant pastime. For example, many people like to work from a coffee shop.

We also meet with clients and colleagues at breakfast, lunch or after work. Thus, conversations take place that are different from the dialogue at the desk or at the negotiating table. And they give completely different results! We work always and everywhere, and this affects how space is used.

 

2. Employee engagement

Competition for the best personnel, retention of talents in the company - these tasks are still acute for employers. The traditional layout of offices limits the ability of employees to communicate with each other. This significantly reduces the sense of belonging to the company and the level of staff involvement in the work.

Social spaces are a departure from open-plan offices.The goal is to help people come together, interact and recover their strength. The establishment of strong social ties in the team has been proven to affect the level of staff involvement and commitment to the company.

 

3. Cooperation and innovation

A relaxed, comfortable environment is better conducive to cooperation and innovation than an organized meeting in a meeting room. What will be your first reaction when you are invited to a brainstorming session? Rejection, for sure. You understand in advance that the meeting will last a long time, and at the same time the probability of success is 50/50. The chance that the meeting will be tedious and will not bring the desired result is high.

It is more likely that a brilliant idea will come to your mind when you do something inspiring, for example, during lunch with colleagues. Of course, social spaces cannot completely replace organized meetings, but they prepare the ground well for natural brainstorming. By creating such spaces for employees, you ultimately get more benefits than from classic offices.

 

4. Technologies

The level of development of information technology allows you to quickly get involved in the workflow from a variety of places, which also contributes to the popularization of social spaces.

 

 

When people have a choice, they are drawn to where they feel better and more productive. What we knew as "the office" has turned into a place of social cooperation - much closer than ever. After all, communication with colleagues makes us happier, allows us to exchange experiences and promotes the birth of interesting ideas. And the ability to pause and switch attention is just as important for the creative process as highly concentrated work.