Offices that Foster Creativity, Efficiency and Collaboration

39% of employees surveyed in a recent study felt that people within their organizations did not collaborate enough, while 86% of executives and employees “cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures.”

While these statistics shed light on a need for more collaborative and creative offices, they have also led to one side learning from the other.

Large corporations like Google, Facebook and Virgin America have embraced this need and their office space reflects their ethos.

An office space, being much more than a center for physical and logistical needs of a company, has now evolved into something much more, laying special emphasis on the need to foster creativity and collaboration in a company’s employees. 

Take Google, for example. With the aim to create the happiest, most productive workplace in the world, Google has been at the forefront of workspace innovation. The company’s office is known for being wacky, open, and filled with everything an employee could possibly need (yes, even on-premise haircuts).

At Pixar, Steve Jobs brought all the teams—computer scientists, animators, executives, and editors—together in one building with a central atrium. The atrium enabled employees from different disciplines to cross-pollinate and have conversations that may not otherwise have happened.

A look at what some more innovative companies are doing to inspire collaborative and creative environments:

• Microsoft provides a comfortable seating area and huge touchscreen tablet for discussion, collaboration, and exploration.
• Epic has a hallway in their office that is designed to look like a subway.
• Infosys installed a bowling alley in one of their offices to allow employees to take a break and have some fun.
• Box installed swings in one area of their office so employees can swing while they chat and collaborate.

Coworking spaces are another classic example of workspaces that foster creativity, efficiency and collaboration. With no hassle of maintaining one’s own office, coworking spaces make sure that the community is constantly engaged and their members can leave all worries regarding physical and logistical requirements behind, and just concentrate on one thing – doing what they love.

Working from a coworking space has it’s own perks. Coworking spaces widen the scope of physical collaboration – from within one’es company to even outside it, enabling it’s members to discover new ideas and solutions.

The trend has changed from coworking spaces housing freelancers and startups to large corporations taking up spaces in coworking spaces. For example, HSBC took up 300 seats in WeWork, Hong Kong, http://www.mingtiandi.com/real-estate/design-and-construction/hsbc-rents-300-hot-desks-at-wework-hk-but-dont-call-them-cheap/ in September 2016. Yahoo and Amazon have also been known to often take up space at InstaOffice for their office needs.

From huddle areas to conference rooms and meeting rooms – coworking spaces have the perfect setup to make their members more creative and productive.

Be it setting up their own office or moving into shared offices, organizations are reaping the benefits and becoming leaders in their respective industries by reviewing the corporate culture and the office environment to place more emphasis on creativity.