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2008 Issue 4
Good Workplace Design
Improves Productivity
What Employees Want
Does Social Networking Pose A
Threat To Your Business
Dealing With Disaster
 
Good Workplace Design Improves Productivity
Looked around your office lately? Familiarity
can blind us to the obvious so you probably
didn’t notice anything in particular. Try
looking at it from an employee’s point of view.
How do you think it makes them feel? It’s no
surprise that surveys report a direct link
between the quality of the working environment
and the effectiveness of the people who work in
it. So is yours the sort of environment that
would likely motivate and inspire your employees
to work productively?
Take a walk around keeping these three
fundamental principles of productive workplace
design in mind and check how your premises rate.
Principle 1: the workspace should promote health and well-being
Daylight is invariably cited by employees as a
crucial factor for a good working environment.
It is widely accepted that one way of improving
the health and morale of workers is by providing
good internal lighting and access to natural
daylight. Good lighting has even been linked to
reductions in absenteeism. Don’t block off
windows with equipment or make them inaccessible
by building office spaces around them all. Use
ceiling mounted lights with a luminosity level
that achieves adequate illumination without
glare or reflection to reduce eyestrain. Accent
lights can be used to help create moods and
highlight and define different areas of the
office. Cleverly combining natural light and
illumination can recreate that ‘feel good’
factor of a sunny day and spur employee
productivity.
There’s nothing like physical pain to distract
people from their work. Poor ergonomics is the
root cause of most back pain, migraines, sore
fingers, wrists and stiff necks. Ergonomic
seating and adjustable work surfaces mean
workers are more comfortable for longer periods
and require fewer breaks. Properly set up
computer workstations minimize discomfort and
the likelihood of developing repetitive stress
injuries.
Principle 2: the workplace should be a pleasant place to work in
Office decoration provides the backdrop to work
activity. It can inspire or depress us. Drab
colors are dispiriting. Office walls can be
painted in schemes that make the environment
cheerful and fresh. You can develop a color
scheme that reflects your brand and does a
little promoting or you might select a scheme
that reflects the spirit of your business. If
you work in a traditionally conservative
industry such as financial or legal services,
you're better off choosing a neutral color. If
your business employs more creative types such
as designers or artists, then prefer more
energizing colors. Color also has the ability to
make a space appear larger or smaller and the
occupant feel more or less claustrophobic.
Bare walls and an unrelieved vista of office
equipment can make a workplace feel sterile and
unlived-in. Photos, prints, or paintings on the
walls and a few plants warm up your workspace
and make it feel more comfortable and human.
Maintain the same style of furniture throughout
the office. Mismatched tables and chairs give
the impression of having been thrown together
and look rather cheap.
Physically, temperature can make or break our
ability to concentrate and get on with a task.
Decent temperature control and ventilation
systems that keep employees comfortable also
keep them productive.
Principle 3: workplace layout should support work activity
Office design can be used to enhance moods,
speed up task completion and encourage
interaction between employees. Employees become
frustrated and annoyed when their office isn’t
designed to support them in carrying out their
job efficiently.
Efficient layout of workspaces allows for better
and more efficient workflow. If someone has to
get up from their seat to reach for a file or
access information, more time and effort are
expended. Multiply these tasks dozens if not
hundreds of times a day and the time wasted not
only distresses the employee, it really cuts
into productive work time.
Tools and equipment should be close by to those
who use them and employee’s workplaces located
close to others in the same work group. To
arrive at the most suitable arrangement you need
to have analyzed just how groups relate to and
interact with one another and how work flows
from one group to another.
While the Cube has become the symbol of modern
office layout it has drawbacks for certain kinds
of work where the task demands visual privacy
and freedom from the distractions of nearby
noise and conversation. If the office is open,
there should be places for sensitive
conversations. Match workspace arrangement to
the needs of the person using it. For example,
an architect may require a private office for
client meetings, software engineers work best in
an open group environment where they can share
ideas and issues whereas salespeople might be
happy with just a hot-desk on those occasions
when they come into the office.
An employee's workplace is responsible for 24
per cent of their job satisfaction level. Poor
workplace design is directly linked to increases
in stress level and lower performance among
employees. Creating a professional, functional
and comfortable space will keep your people
happy and productive.
To Top 
What Employees Want
The difference between working with engaged
people and a group of alienated, uninterested
ones isn’t just the difference in productivity
you can expect from each – it gets right down to
making the difference between feeling you want
to go in to work or stay away to avoid becoming
depressed by the unenthusiastic atmosphere.
Managers can’t force employees to be motivated
but they can contribute to creating an
environment that encourages and promotes them to
feel self-motivated. Motivation is getting
people to do what you want them to do because
THEY WANT to do it. The right sort of
environment can be summed up in 4 words:
security, involvement, responsibility and
appreciation.
Making employees feel secure
If you think you can motivate people by
instilling fear in them then think again. Over
the short term, fear can keep people at a task,
if not exactly ‘motivate’ them to do it. But all
the while they are being fearful they are
plotting how to get back at you. And that
doesn’t make for a productive workplace.
The boss who openly threatens to fire employees
when they make a mistake or blames individuals
when things go wrong is creating a fear
culture. On a less obvious level, tolerating
things like sexist behavior or racist slurs in
the workplace equally creates a sense of fear.
The workplace should be a level playing field
where every team member is treated fairly and
respectfully so as to build a constructive
atmosphere free of fear. You can go a long way
towards creating that sort of environment by
clarifying your expectations about how people
are to behave (including yourself) in a written
company code of conduct or through clearly
defined policies about ‘how we do things around
here’. Clearly defined expectations also form
the basis for consistent decision making in
other areas of importance to your employees such
as fair performance appraisal for deciding
promotions.
Getting them involved
People are more motivated when they feel “in the
loop” of what is going on. The key here is good
communication. Employees can’t work to achieve
the business’ goals if they don’t know what
those goals are. You need to communicate your
vision and goals for the business to them so
they don’t feel like they are working in a
vacuum. Better still, provide opportunities for
them to actively contribute to the business
through regular team meetings and promote the
contribution of suggestions that could help
improve the business. Suggestion schemes
encourage engagement and can result in valuable
ideas for everything from improving operations
and developing new products to providing better
customer service.
Empowering your people
If you find yourself micromanaging your
employees by constantly telling them what to do
you can be certain that you are having a
detrimental effect on their motivation. Being
given responsibility for something is an
important motivator for humans. Your intentions
may be good but your ‘help’ is likely to be
perceived as lack of trust.
Managers interested in keeping their employees
motivated should set the ground rules and
expectations and then allow them to get on with
their job. Shift your focus from making sure
that specific tasks are completed correctly to
establishing standards and expectations. Where
the standards aren’t being met, the way to fix
the situation isn’t to constantly look over
their shoulder and direct them, it’s to help
them improve their performance through a
coaching or training program. Most employees
actually want to learn new skills, gain new
experience, build their personal attributes and
take on new challenges, all of which improve
motivation.
Showing appreciation for effort
Public and private praise can work wonders in
keeping people motivated. Achievement in any
area considered important by the company, such
as an outstanding sales record, contributing a
valuable suggestion or providing great customer
service, should earn some form of appreciation.
And don’t overlook opportunities to build morale
by celebrating the business’ wins, like getting
that new contract. These only happen because of
the combined effort of your many individual
employees.
While some employees will be innately more
passionate about their jobs and careers than
others, organizational structures and management
styles that deliberately foster engagement with
their work play a key role in raising the
motivational barometer.
To Top
Does Social Networking Pose A Threat To Your
Business?
Currently there’s a lot of buzz in business
circles about the value of using social
networking services (SNS) as a channel to drive
sales, promote brand and network for business
opportunities. Much of it comes from marketers
who are excited about the target marketing
possibilities of these sites — they gather so
much data about individuals that marketers are
able to profile very specific demographics. At
the same time, IT security companies post
regular warnings about the potential for damage
that social networking can pose to business
computer systems.
The huge uptake of SNS membership and the
increasing spend by some major consumer product
companies on these sites provides a sense of
‘normalcy’ about them that could prove dangerous
to the unwary user. Mainstream acceptance hasn’t
been matched by efforts to improve security.
It’s not unknown for fraudsters to gather,
piecemeal from a number of company employee
profiles, sufficient information to access
company intranets or launch malware attacks
against company computers.
Increasingly the question is being posed —
should employees be allowed to access SNS over
their organization’s computers? Many major
corporations who need to maintain absolute
security over client data, their records and
their reputation, such as financial
institutions, have answered with a firm ‘No’ and
simply locked them out of company computers.
But with social networking being viewed by many
employees as just another form of communication
essentially no different from email or instant
messaging, employers may be put under pressure
to provide access or face an employee backlash.
If you intend to allow employees to use social
networking from work computers you would be well
advised to proceed with caution. Here’s how to
minimize the risks.
Develop an acceptable use policy:
According to experts, the first step is to
develop policies and train employees. If you
don't have policies in place for SNS use (along
with blogs, wikis, and their like), then you're
leaving yourself at risk.
Define the times when social networking is
acceptable:
Social networking is addictive and unrestricted
access inevitably results in employees spending
more and more time online checking out what
their friends are up to. Assign only out-of-work
periods (lunch break, before or after their work
hours) as times in which employees can social
network.
Mandate the use of privacy settings:
SNS sites are notoriously short on privacy. In
their profiles users can enter a host of
information including their name, address, phone
number, email and their workplace. A privacy
level can be assigned to each field of
information restricting who can access it,
though few users appear aware of this. Mandate
that any business related information is
assigned the highest privacy setting the site
provides.
Set guidelines for chatting about work related matters:
It's very natural for people to talk about work,
and that talk often gets into messages posted to
social networking sites. The business’
reputation could be put at risk by inappropriate
comments by employees. Criticism by disgruntled
employees or jokes that could be misunderstood
by people outside the organization can do
irreparable damage. Spell out the principles for
business related chat such as the need to
maintain client confidentiality, the contexts in
which your organization’s name can be used and
the inappropriateness of making disparaging
remarks about fellow workers.
Point out the IT threats:
Malicious code is being embedded in Web 2.0
links. Employees casually clicking on links
could lead them to malware that will infect work
computers. Train employees in the company’s IT
security policies to make them aware of what's
allowed and what they're prohibited from doing.
Make improper use a disciplinary matter:
Make it clear there will be consequences for
posting unacceptable comments or business
information on social networking sites and
detail the disciplinary action that will be
imposed.
To Top
Dealing With Disaster
For those who haven’t experienced a disaster
first hand it’s difficult to imagine, even from
the graphic images fed to us by the media, the
realities of the situation. What pictures cannot
convey is the frustration of an owner watching
their business suffer through the several days
or weeks during which power is unavailable,
transport facilities are out of operation,
communications are down and access to the
premises is prohibited. It’s exactly those
restrictions that can spell the death of a
business caught up in a disaster and unprepared
to deal with the consequences.
Are you prepared? Ask yourself these questions,
they cover some of the most critical aspects of
keeping the business afloat after a disaster.
- Have you audited your premises to assess how well they would stand up to the type(s) of
disaster most likely to occur in your region?
- Do your premises have emergency backup power and lighting sources?
- Could you quickly obtain temporary equipment and replacement stock to keep your business going?
- Do you have access to a secondary site from which to operate your business if your primary location was damaged?
- Do you have an alternative source of supply if it is your supplier who suffers a disaster?
- Are your vital records (accounts, customer data, inventory records etc) backed up with a current version stored in a safe place?
- Do you have current and multiple contact information (e.g., home and cell phone numbers, personal email addresses) to communicate with
your employees if a disaster prevented them from coming in to work?
- Have you consulted with an insurance professional to determine if your insurance coverage is adequate to help you get back in
business following a disaster?
With disasters, both natural and man made, now very much in the spotlight, numerous government
agencies and business organizations have developed information brochures and programs
advising SMEs on how to mitigate the effects of a disaster and speed recovery.
In developing a disaster plan and dealing with the aftermath your accountant should be one of
your most valued partners. The weeks and months following a disaster can be confusing and
difficult with numerous financial issues and personal concerns to address. People who have
been through a traumatic experience often have difficulty making sound decisions. Your
accountant can help you develop a financial recovery plan for regaining your financial
footing following a disaster by reconstructing lost records, documenting income lost as a
result of the disaster, preparing and defending insurance claims, acting fast to apply for loans
and grants and applying for tax relief concessions.
Many businesses that are forced to close after a disaster never reopen at all. SME owners who
educate themselves in disaster management and have a planned process for returning to normal
operation maximize their chances for recovery. To Top
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