When
it comes to the incorporation of branding and identity into a workplace, there
is a simple option, which is to produce a design that faithfully incorporates
the firm’s logos, colours and straplines in the interior. There’s nothing wrong
with this, except for the fact that it is literally superficial and so may miss
the opportunity to create an office design that scratches beneath the surface
to reveal what lies beneath. When you get past the layers of branding and
identity, you uncover something that we call culture. This can take things
to a whole new level because the challenge becomes how to create a workplace design that communicates and fosters both the
identity and the culture of the organisation. The benefits to the organisation
can be enormous, not least because this approach bridges a number of
disciplines such as human resources and office design and so drives a number of
strategic objectives.
One of the most obvious examples of this is with the issue of employer
branding, a subject that from a human resources perspective at least is
about both the recruitment and retention of staff as well as the creation of a
universally understood working culture, a subject that is of growing interest
to organisations as they adopt more agile working practices.
A multi-faceted challenge
Of
course, the issue of how to convey organisational culture and identity is complex,
multi-faceted, fast moving and demands a multi-disciplinary approach. It is
certainly likely to require input from HR and IT and will attract the interest
of managers across the organisation. It incorporates a wide range of factors
from working culture, working methods, interior design, technology and the
physical environment.
Addressing all of these cultural issues is all inherently good for the
business and there’s growing evidence to suggest that a clear focus on culture
is important to the outside world too, including investors.
Moving beyond branding
So whereas branding the workplace may once have focussed on
replicating a corporate identity, there is now a far greater focus on
reflecting culture and values to staff and clients. Where once you had logos in
the carpet, we now have visualisations of how the company addresses business
and environmental issues, the intelligent use of colours and materials to convey
ideas and emotions, cultural imagery and manifestations of the outside world. For
workplace designers, this all represents a twofold challenge. Firstly they must
understand the culture of the organisation and secondly they must find a way of
conveying it in the spaces they help to create.
A multi-faceted solution
Developing
an understanding of a business’s culture cannot happen unless there is a great
deal of trust between the designer and client combined with the capability of
the designer to ask the right questions, listen carefully, observe minutely and
gather information from a number of sources. This is not simply a matter of
taking a brief then responding to create the physical embodiment of an
organogram overlaid with manifestations of the firm’s mission statement and
values.
It is also about understanding how the firm is perceived and wants to be
perceived, how information and ideas flow and develop, how the workplace
fosters creativity, how individuals relate to work and how they find the
balance between work and their personal wellbeing. It is about understanding
how technology integrates with both the physical environment and the firm’s
processes and channels of communication. It is about understanding how
the firm wants its working environment to serve visitors as well as employees.
It is about all this and more.
How this is then translated into a workplace design that is unique to
the organisation is down to the ability, creativity and experience of the
designer. We are fortunate these days to be able to draw on a wide range of
working models, interior elements and technologies that free designers to
create genuinely tailored solutions. The days when the choices were generally
limited to either open plan or cellular office design are long behind us, and
we are now able to apply a variety of work settings and working methodologies
which, when combined with the right branding and identity, create a that
reflects and supports the firm’s culture.