What makes a high-performance workplace?

What makes a high-performance workplace?

It's all about employee experience!

Research Study 02
By_ Cube 8 Studio
June 2019

It’s all about employee experience..

All successful high-performance workplaces have certain ingredients in common which when combined together contribute greatly to having fantastic employee experiences. Their spaces promote the right sort of activities, stimulate the right sort of communication and emotionalise the right sort of feelings. These companies certainly reap the rewards for their efforts and thrive in the process.

The people that work for high-performance organisation feel like they are part of something special because they are aligned with and committed to a common purpose. Together they feel they can make the world a better place. They feel valued and know why they go to work, there is a sense of belonging and community spirit towards one another. People within these types of business have better life experiences inside and outside of work, they are more productive, focused and have better creative and breakthrough ideas to solve problems a lot quicker. They generally have higher spirits and more loyal, dependable and have a positive mental attitude towards life. Their health and wellbeing are higher, and there is a genuine caring nature for one another.

“Let’s look at the 8 key ingredients that contribute to creating high-performing organisations”..

01: REASON FOR BEING

Organisations that deliver amazing employee experiences go beyond the limits of just having a mission statement they connect their ‘WHY’ the organisations reason for being to what it does to the people who are affected by it. They answer the questions of, what impact does what we do have on the world at large? how does what we do bring value to people’s lives?
They have there WHY embodied into the organisation and walls, employees know why they do what they do and believe that they can really make a difference. There ‘why’ is instilled into the workplace by the clever use of imagery, branding, and finishes this attracting the right top performing talent, retaining talent and generating new opportunities with kindred spirits.

02: IDENTITY

The top organisations have a unique brand and identity and a powerful vision statement for the business. They have a set of values that have real meaning and a personality and culture that is embedded through their environment and ethos. Their environment sends out inspiring messages about the business and the good they do for the humankind. Their environment encapsulates the essence of their brand and identity by clever use of unique features, colours, imagery, finishes, furniture, and graphics. Their environment embraces the natural environment wherever possible and lives and breathes their values.

Their staff feel motivated, inspired by their cool environment and everyone is in harmony with each other this creates a sense of belonging, purpose, energy of excitement and community spirit. Customers are enchanted and staff build greater engagement and loyalty into the workplace.

03: SMART

Their workspaces are designed and based on their employees needs and unique ways of working verse business requirements. Consumer grade technology is used for specific users and can also be seen cleverly built into spaces to aid better collaboration, optimise communication and make it easier for people to work away from the desk. Furniture and tools are specific to their tasks and are flexible, rooms and spaces can be changed easily to suit the user’s needs. Delivery of work becomes effortless and fast and productivity and profit are increased from their results.

04: CARING

A high-performing workplace has great cultures because they care for the needs, health, and wellbeing of their employee’s and in return the employee’s care for the needs of the business success. Their environment is planned to aid serendipitous personal encounters which are the key driver of creativity, cohesion, and community. They build safety, share vulnerability and establish a purpose and vision for their employees.

By caring for the employees, you get a workplace that is more loyal, healthy, happier, positive, fulfilled, sociable, creative, full of energy and evokes a sense of belonging.

05: PRODUCTIVE

A productive organisation is one where the employees have the tools they need and the work settings to do their tasks in the most efficient way. Their spaces are designed to aid collaboration, minimise distractions and help focused working, embrace team work, and help the body relax, refresh and rechange. A productive workplace equals a more profitable business and a happier workforce.

06: ADAPTIVE AND HYBRID

They thrive on change and flexibility which is embedded in their business strategies and environment, they can quickly adapt to new ways of working to get the job done. The workplace environment is never complete but ever-changing to their needs, new opportunities, and challenges that come their way. Cellular spaces and furniture settings are flexible and have many uses, partitions are movable, and technology is available.

Adapting workplace environments enable employees to create their own workspace and therefore giving them freedom, responsibility, and importance. This creates a more productive, loyal, and happier workforce which helps them to solve problems a lot quicker.

Also giving your employees autonomy to work where they feel best, like incorporating home and remote working by adopting a hybrid workplace model will most definitely increase your employee’s productivity.

07: COOL ENVIRONMENT

The top-performing business understands that the working environment plays a major part in building meaning into their employee’s lives and visual quality is rated highly with them and people in general.
Their environments are uniquely designed to reflect their organisations personality, values, and culture while embracing the natural environment. This helps them attract and retain the right type of talent, contribute to their employee’s general health & wellbeing, emotions, feelings, the physical comfort of being, sense of belonging and overall life experience.

Savvy business owners realise that it’s the people that build the business and so by investing in their physical environment they not only create massive results for the business but amazing experiences for the people.

08: HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN

Before starting any refurbishment, high performing organisations put their ‘WHY’ (the reason for being), culture and employees needs at the heart of their objectives and therefore spend more time at the briefing stage. They will have typically gone through a human-centered design or workplace strategy process with a professional design practice or consultancy. This process starts with the employees they are designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor-made to suit their needs and well-being and usually consists of interviews, observations, findings, workshops, development, recommendations, and validation. Their environments are uniquely planned from the data captured and therefore create superior environments that take into consideration all the different tasks each staff member does.

Typically a human-centered approach gives employees the tools they need, a culture to celebrate and a cool environment to work in. High performing business knows that to truly improve peoples lives the primary focus of workplace design is about people, there needs and their well-being.