| Research Summaries |
Imagine That! How Visioning Spurs Performance
Most of us know individuals who find it helpful to envision themselves winning a tennis match or delivering an important speech. Less understood is the way organizations and teams can use the same principle to project a future collective self that's successful. Visioning can sustain an organization through difficult times, help employees find meaning in their work, bring various parts of the organization into alignment, and, according to research, boost the bottom line. This research summary answers the questions: What is visioning? How does it relate to mission statements and business objectives? How does the visioning process work? And, more importantly, why do it at all?
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21st-Century Work Habits
Technology gives people mobility so they can work anywhere. Collaboration and the innovation it can spur call for places where people can come together. Attracting skilled, talented people is critically important, but so is creating spaces that keep them engaged. Multiple generations--each with its own ideas about how to work--share the same workplace. As these and other realities shape 21st-century work habitats, the industry that designs them faces new challenges. For some perspective on how these challenges are being met, Herman Miller spoke with four Chicago-based designers from the architecture and design firm Gensler. In this wide-ranging discussion, they speak about what they're experiencing and what they foresee.
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Hang On Loosely: The Common Sense of Retention
While the Human Resources Department has a role in retention--setting context for it through people policies and practices--retention is also the responsibility of individual managers. In a diverse work force, the factors that motivate employees vary widely, but determining what they are is critical to retention because motivation leads to engagement, and an employee immersed in satisfying work is not going to feel the need to look elsewhere. The best way to find out what keeps an employee engaged and motivated is to ask him or her, and ask on a regular basis since not only do different people want different things, but also what each wants may change over time. Whatever approach an organization uses it must meet two sets of needs--the company's needs for a certain type of individual and set of skills and the individual's needs to contribute in a meaningful way and feel connected to something bigger than himself as he earns a paycheck.
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Its a Matter of Balance: Acoustics in the Open Plan
Acoustically comfortable spaces must account for human reactions to sound as well as the physics of acoustics. That's because a person's perception and interpretation of sound in the work environment, not its decibel level, determines its distracting and annoying effects. One way to help people focus on doing their jobs is to control the spreading sound waves generated by other people doing their jobs. This requires controlling sounds at their place of origin, as they travel, or when they arrive at a listener's workstation. Three specific techniques can be applied during facility planning and in application to deal with sound waves as they travel between sources and receivers--sound absorption, sound blocking, and sound masking. Selecting appropriate components, ceiling and carpeting treatments, and sound-masking systems supplemented with voice-privacy components can achieve a favorable balance for the office soundscape.
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Home Sweet Office: Comfort in the Workplace
Comfort is a tough concept to define, and it's even harder to tease out the way it is woven within issues involving the workplace. Viewed from a holistic standpoint, comfort addresses a very broad swath of workplace issues. It deals with the basic physical quality of the work environment, with the functional ability of the environment to support work, and with the psychological element of controlling one's work and accessing nature and beauty. From this holistic perspective, creating a comfortable work environment can significantly and directly affect operational effectiveness--and an organization's bottom line.
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Primed for Injusry: What Happens When the Digital Generation Becomes the Next Generation of Office Workers
Today's youth are the digital generation. Teens and young adults now in high school and college have never known a time without computers or video games. Chances are that college-aged people leave for class in the morning with a laptop, cell phone, and handheld electronic organizer in tow. The U.S. Department of Education required public school classrooms to have Internet-accessible computers by 2000. Computers in the home are ubiquitous. Adults and children alike surf the Net. Instant messaging is the norm for communication among teens. What will be the effects of increased use of computer, game, and other information communications technology equipment? Information sharing and a greater wealth of resources at our fingertips is certainly one result. But also possibly increased harm to the body, particularly in the form of repetitive stress injuries and musculoskeletal disorders.
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When Work and Life Balance Everyone Wins
Companies in some developed countries are facing a labor shortage. One way they can attract and retain workers is by helping them achieve a better work-life balance, an issue that cuts across social and geographical borders. Some companies have responded by offering flextime, telecommuting, and a compressed workweek, for example. In one study of 29 American firms, offering flexibility to workers had a positive impact on the companies' bottom lines in a variety of ways. However, formal work-life balance programs and even legislation aren't likely to be effective unless the corporate culture is conducive to work-life balance. So far, smaller companies have been more adept at work-life balance initiatives than larger ones, perhaps because it's easier for managers at small companies to see how flexibility works for both the company and the worker.
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Set Them Free: How Alternative Work Styles Can Be a Good Fit
Increasingly, people are working everywhere--in group spaces near cubicles, while waiting in airports, at "campsite" workstations, from the comfort of home. There are plenty of reasons why, from the need to keep good people--in large part by helping them balance work and life--to the requirement that real estate be put to better use. The question becomes, When and how to incorporate alternative work styles in an organization? Among other things, the answer must determine whether these work styles align with the organization's goals. This is the first reality check. The next, and perhaps more important one, involves culture. Even cultures that are friendly to alternative work styles must build support for them. What matters most is that people have options to work in the way--and the place--that works best for them.
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Innovation & Creativity: Something New or Just a Rearrangement
Most of us know individuals who find it helpful to envision themselves winning a tennis match or delivering an important speech. Less understood is the way organizations and teams can use the same principle to project a future collective self that's successful. Visioning can sustain an organization through difficult times, help employees find meaning in their work, bring various parts of the organization into alignment, and, according to research, boost the bottom line. This research summary answers the questions: What is visioning? How does it relate to mission statements and business objectives? How does the visioning process work? And, more importantly, why do it at all?
Read more… |
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