Ask someone why they go into the office, and you’ll likely hear the response, “To do my work.” But is this really the answer? This blog explores the wider influence of other factors on office experience and challenges the stereotypical responses with real data from recent seminar held by Woodhouse.
In today's world, it should be a housekeeping point to give employees a space where they can settle down and get their work done from in the way they need to.
In a live survey during our recent Woodhouse seminar, we asked participants: “What earns the commute for you personally?” The results were striking—59% cited stimulating interaction with colleagues as their top reason, far outweighing other categories.
This is backed up by a response to another question, where participants had to place the following aspects of office attendance in order of importance. As we can see, collaboration, learning and mentoring and social connection and belonging had afar higher response than the 'work-related' factors of 'productivity and creativity achieved in meetings'.
The high scoring is given to the relationship-based factors, showing how the most important role of the office experience now is relationship building and fostering human connection. This is the side that needs the most creative energy and focus during the development of new or updated workplace environments in today's work world.
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There’s no universal blueprint for designing human connection based workplaces. The right environment must reflect the unique culture and personality of each organisation. What works for a tech firm full of developers is unlikely to resonate with a team of creatives in the performing arts.
Successful cultivation of such an environment will depend on a combination of intentional regular activities and interactions that bring people together in a stimulating and liberating way, and the space and time for spontaneous interactions between people, one-to-one or in smaller numbers where deeper connections are forged.
Once there is clarity over how the relationship building will take place in everyday life, the physical workspace can be created to support it. At Woodhouse, our Workplace Dynamics phase focuses on identifying the key activities and interactions that foster connection. These insights form the foundation for designing spaces that don’t just accommodate work—but actively support community and culture.
This workshop forms conclusions about the organisation that highlight cultural insights and recommendations for future space considerations. These can be used as a foundation to the vision and plans for any physical workspace changes.
