Don’t ape Google-type ‘fads’, summit is told
10 June 2014
Too many companies base their workplace strategies on ‘fads’ that are popular with other businesses rather than properly testing what their needs may be, delegates at a conference heard yesterday [10 June].
Tue, 10 Jun 2014
Too many companies base their workplace strategies on ‘fads’ that are popular with other businesses rather than properly testing what their needs may be, delegates at a conference heard yesterday [10 June].
This is especially pertinent in areas of management succession and employee strategy, which vary enormously in different organisations.
According to an article in FM World, the magazine of the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), professor Franklin Becker of Cornell University told the Workplace Strategy Summit in Reading that many companies had to carry out a more rigorous mixture of academic and practical research within their organisations on how workplaces should be designed, rather than adopting ideas popularised by companies like Google without proper thought.
The American academic told attendees that design should be based on a system of various interrelated factors unique to each company such as technology and employee needs.
Becker said: "The fundamental premise of evidence-based design is straightforward. Better designed solutions, ones that are more likely to support valued outcomes, will result from using the evidence generated by high-quality, formalised and rigorous research processes.”
Christina Danielsson from Stockholm University, speaking on the Workplace Trends panel, added that companies should also tap into the lessons of failure, and not fire employees who failed at certain tasks.
“We are not open about failure, but it is a basis for a lot of knowledge and can help a company devise a workplace strategy,” she said.
The Workplace Strategy Summit, supported by the BIFM, continues today in Reading, Berkshire.
Too many companies base their workplace strategies on ‘fads’ that are popular with other businesses rather than properly testing what their needs may be, delegates at a conference heard yesterday [10 June].
This is especially pertinent in areas of management succession and employee strategy, which vary enormously in different organisations.
According to an article in FM World, the magazine of the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), professor Franklin Becker of Cornell University told the Workplace Strategy Summit in Reading that many companies had to carry out a more rigorous mixture of academic and practical research within their organisations on how workplaces should be designed, rather than adopting ideas popularised by companies like Google without proper thought.
The American academic told attendees that design should be based on a system of various interrelated factors unique to each company such as technology and employee needs.
Becker said: "The fundamental premise of evidence-based design is straightforward. Better designed solutions, ones that are more likely to support valued outcomes, will result from using the evidence generated by high-quality, formalised and rigorous research processes.”
Christina Danielsson from Stockholm University, speaking on the Workplace Trends panel, added that companies should also tap into the lessons of failure, and not fire employees who failed at certain tasks.
“We are not open about failure, but it is a basis for a lot of knowledge and can help a company devise a workplace strategy,” she said.
The Workplace Strategy Summit, supported by the BIFM, continues today in Reading, Berkshire.
