Journal of Facilities Management

Building a workplace of choice: Using the work environment to attract and retain top talent
Heather A. Earle

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To cite this document:
Heather A. Earle, (2003),"Building a workplace of choice: Using the work environment to attract and retain top
talent", Journal of Facilities Management, Vol. 2 Iss 3 pp. 244 - 257
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Building a workplace of choice:

Using the work environment to
attract and retain top talent
Received (in revised form): 2nd September, 2003

Heather A. Earle

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is part of the Real Property Policy team tasked with designing and developing the
workplace of the future for Public Works and Government Services Canada, and is
particularly interested in the impact the physical work environment has on the
professional performance and psychological well-being of employees. She writes and
speaks regularly on innovative officing strategies and the workplace of choice
concept and is always on the lookout for new and interesting ways of providing
supportive and productive work environments for employees, while at the same time
making the most efficient and effective use of available space. Heather has previously
contributed to papers for the Journal of Facilities Management, the International
Facilities Management Association (IFMA) and Canadian Facility Management & Design
Magazine. Heather Earle received a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree from Trent
University in 1995, where she was awarded The Barret Prize for Philosophy, and
graduated with a Master of Arts Degree from Carleton University in 2000.

Heather A. Earle
Senior Analyst, Real Property
Policy Sector,
Public Works and Government
Services Canada,
5B3 Phase III
Place du Portage, 11 Laurier Street
Gatineau, Quebec
Canada K1A 0S5
Tel: +1 819 956 5475
Fax: +1 819 956 5546
E-mail: Heather.Earle@pwgsc.gc.ca

244

Abstract
Today, organisations around the globe are operating in an
unprecedented, highly competitive sellers market. The global
workforce is now more mobile than ever before, meaning that
companies are no longer simply competing for talent nationally,
but rather on an international level. The Canadian Federal
Government, like most Government organisations, simply
cannot compete with private industry in the area of salaries,
stock options or perks. In addition, the impending wave of
retirements that threatens to devastate the Federal employment
ranks has caused us to look to the work environment as a
means of attracting and retaining the top talent we need. This
paper examines the characteristics of the different generations
that currently make up our workforce and discusses what they,
as well as new recruits, expect from their employers and from
their work environments. It also delves into the role the
workplace plays in recruitment and retention and the way in
which it can be used to improve an organisations corporate
identity. It then looks at what types of perks are actually valued
most by employees, and explores how the physical environment
can be aligned to help shape a companys organisational
culture and facilitate the communication, teamwork and
creativity that are necessary to sustain a culture of continual
innovation.
Keywords:
recruitment and retention, physical work environment, office design,
employee behaviour, organisational culture, the war for talent

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INTRODUCTION
At present, organisations around the globe are nding themselves in
a difcult predicament. The competition for talented employees has
never been ercer, nor has it been more critical to their success.
Although recruitment and retention are top priorities for most
companies, nding strategies that appeal to the three distinct
generations that currently make up the workforce presents its own
unique set of challenges. In addition, workers today are demanding
more from their employers than they ever have in the past, not just
in terms of salaries and perks, but also in terms of the work
experience itself and the cultural context in which it occurs. Many
companies are nding that providing a productive, exible and
dynamic work environment can be a critical asset in attracting and
retaining valuable employees. In fact, organisations that understand
how to use the physical work environment to achieve corporate
objectives as well as provide employees with what they are looking
for are actually thriving now more than ever before.

THE WAR FOR TALENT

The Information Age

What is talent?

With the dawning of the Information Age in the early 1980s, the
degree to which organisations rely on their talent has increased
dramatically and this trend is likely to continue. When the initial
shift to a knowledge-based economy began, the economic expansion
that resulted absorbed all the available talent. At this point,
companies experienced a new phenomenon; they were no longer
inundated with a slew of resumes. It was also at this time that
organisations began drawing the distinction between simply needing
more people, and needing more talented people.
According to the global management consulting rm McKinsey
& Company, a 33 per cent rise in the demand for talented
employees is expected over the next 15 years with a corresponding
15 per cent drop in supply.1 But what is this elusive creature called
talent? McKinsey & Company consultants Michaels, HandeldJones and Axelrod dene it as the sum of a persons abilities his
or her intrinsic gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, intelligence,
judgment, attitude, character and drive. It also includes his or her
ability to learn and grow.2 The nature of talent, then, is such that,
in order to realise its full potential, individuals must be continually
inspired to do their best and groups must be properly aligned and
motivated to deliver their top collective performance. Thus, it is an
organisations ability not only to recruit, but also to cultivate and
retain, talent that will ultimately determine its longevity.

THE GENERATION GAP

Recruitment,
development and
retention strategies

The interesting challenge that arises is how to create a recruitment,

development and retention strategy that will appeal to the three
different generations that predominantly comprise the current
workforce. It would be folly for an organisation to focus all of its
efforts on recruiting recent graduates, for most of its knowledge

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and corporate memory reside within the minds of those who have
been with the company for the longest period of time. Moreover, if
retention strategies are not rmly embedded in the organisations
business processes, recruitment techniques, no matter how
successful, will ultimately prove futile. In order to develop an
effective attraction and retention plan for todays employment
market, it is critical to understand the varying needs and
expectations of the three target generations: the Baby Boomers,
Generation X and Generation Y.

Baby Boomers

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The days of
corporate conformity

A little peace
and quiet

246

The Baby Boomer generation includes those who were born

between 1946 and 1965. In Canada, there are 9.8 million Baby
Boomers, who account for almost one-third of the total population
and make up the majority of the present workforce. For many
Baby Boomers, entering the workforce meant saying goodbye to life
as a rebellious student and saying hello to corporate conformity.
Fitting into the organisations mould of corporate identity was the
means of achieving their goals, and there existed a comforting
certainty that the harder they worked, the further ahead they got.
As a result, this group tends to have difculty with the kind of
attened hierarchies that are emerging, and prefer clearer lines of
accountability and authority. They have worked their way up
through the system, and it seems as though now that they are
nearing the top, the system is collapsing beneath them.
In terms of the physical environment, Baby Boomers generally
prefer stable, calm, quiet environments to the hectic, chaotic and
even anarchic places that the younger generations seem to crave.
Companies that are doing away with enclosed ofces to appeal to
the younger generations may be at risk of alienating their more
experienced employees. Not only have Baby Boomers worked hard
for their private ofces, but they also tend to need more quiet and
freedom from distraction in order to do heads-down concentration
work simply because they did not grow up amidst the kind of
unyielding sensory overload that is the norm for the younger
generations.
Baby Boomers are proud of their knowledge and expertise and
want status, recognition and respect. If a company is going to take
away their enclosed ofces, then it should provide them with other
forms of status symbols as well as quiet, private places to go when
needed. Another trade-off that organisations can use to appease
this often neglected group is providing them with opportunities to
improve their quality of life. Many Baby Boomers have reached
somewhat of a crisis with the realisation that, after working for
years to achieve a life of afuence, the good life they have worked
so hard for does not include the things they valued when they were
younger, such as family and leisure time. Consequently,
organisations will nd that Baby Boomers are much more willing to
work in a less traditional, more hectic environment if they are given

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greater exibility and autonomy to achieve balance in their

professional and personal lives.

Generation X

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Children of
the recession

Emphasis on
personal life

Generation X comprises those who were born between 1966 and

1977. There are approximately 5 million Generation Xers in
Canada, making this generation about half the size of the Baby
Boomer population. This group had a very different start in life
from their predecessors because their values grew out of a period of
recession in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Owing to economic
demands and an unstable job market, Generation X delayed getting
involved in long-term relationships and parenting in favour of
pursuing university degrees that had the same value as their
parents high school diplomas.
Their rst work experience generally involved taking whatever
jobs they could nd, regardless of whether or not the jobs were in
their eld, or whether they contained much promise for promotion.
Having been raised in a time of intense social, economic and
technological change, they are comfortable with technology and
adapt easily to change. They see their own worth measured in terms
of technological skills, exibility, capacity for creative thinking and,
unlike the previous generation, they feel comfortable in hectic, fastpaced, stimuli-rich environments. Having watched corporate
downsizing in the late 1980s, which abolished the tradition of
rewarding employee loyalty with job security, this group has little
faith in the value of company loyalty. They are distrustful of
hierarchy and are therefore attracted by attened organisational
structures and empowered teams.
After seeing the challenges that their parents and older siblings
faced in the workplace, Generation Xers are careful not to fall into
the same trap. They are not willing to sacrice their energy and
creativity to an unappreciative corporation. These people are
willing to work very hard, but only as long as they feel their work
is appreciated and valued. On the whole, this group is far more
concerned with how work affects their life outside work than with
the experience of being at work, itself. As a result, exibility is a
key motivating factor for them. Many Generation Xers are willing
to take a cut in pay in order to have the option of using exible
work arrangements.

Generation Y

Its not just a job

Generation Y refers to individuals who were born after 1977. There

are currently 6.9 million Generation Ys in Canada, which is
equivalent to 70 per cent of the Baby Boomer population.
Not surprisingly, it is Generation Y that demands the most from
their work environment and is also much more inclined to leave an
organisation if they are dissatised. This group does not see a job
as a means of simply earning a living, but rather as something that
is made intrinsically meaningful by such things as the content of

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Part of the family

their work, development prospects and career opportunities,

recognition for their contributions, and social contact. They want
to be part of innovative and energetic organisations that will value
their ideas and encourage their creativity.
Although the independence they have developed since childhood
has made these people averse to rules and hierarchy, they long for
mentoring, community, recognition and structure. They want to
work with other people, to be engaged and to be valued. They
demand that their managers lead, coach, develop, nurture and give
feedback. They also want to be treated like partners by their
organisation, which means attening the hierarchical structure that
forms the very foundation of most corporations.
In order to attract the new talent emerging with Generation Y, it
is imperative that companies adapt their physical environment to
foster a more exible and open culture. As Micheals, HandeldJones, and Axelrod assert, companies should realize that one of
their most valuable offerings is the pleasure of other great
colleagues and co-workers teaching and learning from them,
sharing with them, simply being with them.3 Since this generation
is characterised by their understanding of technology, their
acceptance of diversity and their tolerance for change, they are
looking for active, alive, open and informal workplaces that offer
the latest technology.

CAN THE PHYSICAL WORKPLACE REALLY AFFECT

RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION?

Job satisfaction

248

Nothing will improve an organisations ability to attract and retain

employees better than offering higher salaries and more benets
than its competitors. Studies show, however, that providing a better
work environment can also be an extremely effective tool for
attraction and retention. In an independent research study
commissioned by the American Society of Interior Designers
(ASID), 663 adults were given carte blanche to list the factors that
inuence their decisions to accept or leave jobs. While 62 per cent
of respondents cited Compensation as the number one factor,
Benets and the Physical Workplace essentially tied for second
place, being cited by 22 per cent and 21 per cent of respondents
respectively. The Physical Workplace also ranked in the top three
when examining what factors contribute to job satisfaction.
Employees who were pleased with their physical workplaces were
31 per cent more likely to be satised with their jobs than those
who were not. When asked specically whether the physical
workplace would affect their decision to accept a position, 41 per
cent of employees and job seekers said it would. In contrast, when
asked specically whether the physical workplace would affect their
decision to leave a position, 51 per cent of employees and job
seekers said it would.4
Jeffrey Taylor, Chief Executive Ofcer (CEO) of the Internetbased career centre Monster.com, is someone who recognises the

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Office design as
a perk

The importance of a
positive environment

The work
environment and
job performance

vital role the physical environment can play in meeting recruitment

and retention objectives. He states: our ofce design is a perk to
clearly differentiate us from other companies.5 After spearheading
a move from their traditional enclosed ofces to a colourful, exible
and unconventional new work environment, he surveyed his
employees. Ninety per cent said the new physical environment
improves the companys competitiveness as an employer in the
marketplace, and 68 per cent of employees who joined the
organisation after the move to the new ofce said the physical
environment was an important factor in their decision to accept the
position. Moreover, 55 per cent of employees who have received
outside job offers said the new physical environment was important
in their decision to stay at Monster.com. As an added bonus, 67
per cent said the new physical environment is a motivating factor
for their sales activities, and 62 per cent said the new physical
environment promotes creativity.
Interestingly, it may be the gures pertaining to retention, rather
than recruitment, that deserve closer scrutiny. As Dr Linda
Duxbury, professor of business at Canadas Carleton University,
notes, All the research shows the keys for people right now: life
work balance, learning and development. Its all work-environment
related. Dollars bring them in the door. Dollars dont keep them
with your company.6 Certainly, the work that people do and the
place where they go to do it play a signicant and often
understated role in their lives. For most people, the workplace is
where they spend the majority of their waking lives. It makes sense
that if an organisation can provide an environment in which people
enjoy being, that makes them feel energised and valued by their
employer, then they will want to stay there. Conversely, if
employees feel they are dragging themselves to an unpleasant
environment day after day, even if it is to do work that they nd
interesting, challenging and rewarding, it cannot help but reinforce
negative associations with the position and the employer.
Moreover, since, as the people at Monster.com can attest, the work
environment can improve things such as employee motivation and
creativity, investing in workplace improvements rather than higher
salaries and more benets is not only a more viable option for most
organisations, but also yields more far-reaching and pervasive
results.
Perhaps ironically, this means that the importance of the work
environment may actually increase when recruitment and retention
are not a top priority. That is, in the event of an economic
downturn, when companies are turning applicants away and trying
to reduce costs, the way in which they use their space becomes even
more important. According to research done by Carnegie Mellon
University, salaries and benets generally account for 78 per cent of
an organisations total costs, while its rent and operating and
maintenance costs only account for 8 per cent of that amount.7
Thus, leveraging the work environment to improve the efciency,

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Earle

motivation and productivity of employees, and thereby getting

more value out of that 78 per cent investment, is far more cost
effective than trying to trim the already low 8 per cent real estate
and facility costs.
It is also interesting to note that, within the context of a
depressed economy, members of the three generations will assess
risk differently and therefore reprioritise the importance of the
work environment in different ways. As always, when we talk about
the generations, we must be cognisant of the fact that there are
dual forces acting upon them. Each generation bears the stamp of
the events that helped to shape them, but they must be viewed
through different lenses as they pass through various stages of life.
The Baby Boomers, most of whom are nearing retirement, will be
willing to tolerate poorer work environments if they are provided
with good pension and health plans. Generation X will be more
concerned about the quality of the workplace, because they still
have many years left to spend there, but will be primarily interested
in job security if they have mortgages to pay and young families to
support. Generation Y, on the other hand, might place the highest
value on having the opportunity to try new things and tackle new
challenges. For this group, the work environment will still remain
an important factor in their decisions to accept or leave positions,
even in times when jobs are scarce. Additionally, if an organisation
is truly interested in attracting the best and brightest, it must
remember that these individuals will always be highly sought after,
even during extreme economic downturns, and can therefore afford
the luxury of ensuring that they have an excellent place to work.

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When times
get tough

THE POWER OF CORPORATE IDENTITY

Branding and
corporate image

When strangers meet in a social situation, the rst question that is

usually asked is where do you work? Employees across all
generations are concerned with the reputation of their organisation
because they feel it ultimately says something about themselves.
Corporate identity refers to the way in which an organisation is
perceived by its employees, clients and stakeholders. For the
majority of companies, particularly those that do not directly
market their products or services to the general public, their ofces
are the single most inuential factor in branding their corporate
identity. As Glen Pushelberg, Managing Director of the Toronto
design rm Yabu Pushelberg, states:
Its not about how much you spend. Its how you portray yourself.
Its how you teach others, including your own employees, about
what you stand for and who you are as a company. Thats the
most common mistake forgetting about the message the space
brings.8
Indeed, the space an organisation occupies is its physical
manifestation. A number of successful corporations are developing

250

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The workplace as a
promotional tool

How the workplace

influences perception

stimulating, creative and dynamic work environments to convey the

image that their company is an interesting, exciting and challenging
place to work, and that their products and services are fresh and
innovative. What a company provides for its employees also says a
lot about how it values its people and how concerned it is with
their well-being and quality of life at work. Similar parallels can be
drawn between the quality and character of an organisations ofce
space and such things as the companys concern for detail and
propensity to cut corners.
An example of a company that has successfully leveraged the
potential of its workspace is IDEO, a world-class industrial design
company located in Palo Alto, California. The organisation has
developed a work environment that is at once bohemian and fully
functional. In this way, the IDEO space works as a promotional tool
for the companys services when clients visit. CEO David Kelley
explains that potential new employees are always given a tour. Many
of them say, This seems like a place where Id enjoy working.
Which, of course, is the point. Everybody accepts our offers, and
nobody leaves.9 This strong claim is borne out by the fact that IDEO
boasts an extremely low churn rate of less than 4 per cent a year.
Perhaps the most telling commentary on the psychological effects
of the work environment can be derived from a study Dr Abraham
H. Maslow performed in 1955. To determine how people are
affected by their surroundings, he set up three different ofce
environments:
the beautiful oce: a comfortable study with warm colours, a
mahogany desk, soft seating, a wood bookshelf, Navajo rug,
paintings and sculptures
the average oce: a professors oce that was larger than the
beautiful one and had more windows, two mahogany desks, a
metal bookcase and ling cabinet, grey walls and no art
the ugly oce: a smaller room painted the same colour as the
average oce but lled with boxes, tools, and junk.
The participants were brought to one of the three ofces and asked to
study negative-print photographs of different people. Subjects in the
beautiful room consistently rated the people in the photographs as
being energetic and displaying personal well-being. Participants who
were looking at the same photos while seated in the ugly ofce judged
the people in them to be fatigued and sick. The average room elicited
responses that were more positive than those from the ugly room, but
not signicantly so.10 These ndings clearly demonstrate that the
quality of our work environment has a signicant effect on how we
perceive others and can therefore also inuence our own attitudes,
feelings and behaviours within that space.

THE VALUE OF PERKS

Perks in the business sense refers to any number of non-nancial

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Improving quality
of life

Supporting work-life
balance

252

benets that can be derived from working for an organisation.

Everyone has read papers about companies that lure employees
with shiny toys such as pool tables in big comfy lounges or state-ofthe-art games rooms with video games on large screens. Although
these places certainly sound nice, and it is clear that these
organisations are interested in pleasing their staff and creating a fun
atmosphere, they cannot help smacking of a avour of the week.
It becomes readily apparent from Fortune Magazines 100 Best
Companies to work for that the types of perks that really make an
organisation great are those that contribute to a better quality of
life for employees. Indeed, the North American companies that
place in the top ten are there because they offer their employees
amenities such as free yoga classes, chair massages, an on-site
health clinic, a state-of-the-art gym and on-site child care, all of
which enhance their employees personal well-being or simplify their
lives in some respect.
Fortunes list of the best companies to work for in Europe shows
a similar trend.
In Sweden, for example, H & M Retail clothing is considered to
be the best company to work for because it offers exible schedules
and does not have the usual trappings of corporate hierarchy
there are no lavish executive ofces, and everyone is on a rst-name
basis. Fortunes pick for the best company to work for in Denmark
is Grundros, a water pump company. The company mission is to
contribute to a better quality of life and a healthy environment,
and the on-site facilities it provides its employees include a tness
centre, an auto shop, a woodworking studio and a shooting
range.11
What this all seems to point to is that the companies with the
happiest employees are the ones that take an interest in not just the
professional lives, but also the personal lives, of their people. That
is, they commit to their employees as individuals, rather than
simply as units of work. In fact, for many employees, the
distinction between work and personal life is, itself, becoming less
pronounced. As two-earner families become more common, the
importance individuals place on having the exibility to achieve
worklife balance increases dramatically. Family friendly policies
such as parental leave, exible scheduling and child care are
frequently found to have positive effects on employee satisfaction,
absenteeism and turnover. These policies, however, do far more
than simply boost recruitment and retention. As Morley Gunderson
from Canadian Policy Research Networks asserts, the provision of
child care is generally found to yield benets in such areas as
recruiting, retention, absenteeism, tardiness, stress, moral,
scheduling, public image, productivity and earlier return to work
after maternity leave.12 Moreover, a study by organisational
psychologist John Izzo found that worklife balance programmes
not only reduce staff turnover by 50 per cent, but also increase
productivity by 20 per cent.13

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Alternative work
arrangements

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Telework

In order to achieve worklife balance, some employees place a

high value on being able to determine their own work schedule,
which includes the exibility to vary it throughout the week, month
or year, depending on what makes the most sense for them. Job
sharing, compressed workweeks and unpaid leave are becoming
increasingly more common. Some employees want to work at
satellite ofces so they can cut down on their travel time but still
have access to business tools and resources at a site outside the
home. Others prefer the option of working from home or any other
site, or combination of sites, that may be convenient for them.
According to a study performed by Ekos Research Associates, 55
per cent of Canadians want to telework, 33 per cent would choose
telework over a wage increase, and 43 per cent would switch
companies to telework.14 But enabling telework does not simply
mean sending employees off with laptops and cell phones. Most
teleworkers spend part of the workweek in the regular ofce to
improve communication, minimise isolation and use facilities that
are not available offsite. To make the most of this ofce time,
many companies provide social areas such as cybercafes, teaming
rooms or huddle spaces for informal meetings to encourage
employee interaction. The pay-off for supporting a mobile
workforce in this manner can be substantial. Statistics from
telecommunications company Nortel Networks indicate that
telework reduces staff turnover by 16 per cent.15 When one
considers that the cost of losing a trained employee is equivalent to
one and a half to three times that individuals annual salary,16 it
becomes obvious that the benets of enabling telework can be quite
signicant.

HOW THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT SHAPES

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

Corporate culture

On a broad level, organisational culture comprises such things as

accountability structures and reporting authorities, management
practices and emerging work styles, corporate values and the
overall culture of the group. On a more personal level, it includes
the norms and values shared by a group of people, which are
expressed in both written (explicit) and unwritten (implicit) rules
about how individuals should behave and interact with one
another. The relationship between the interiors, lay-out and
architecture of a building and the social structure and relationships
of its inhabitants is a complex one. Companies that understand this
relationship, and how to leverage it, very rarely have a problem
with recruitment and retention. In fact, when evaluating the best
companies to work for, the Great Place to Work Institute includes
a category on camaraderie, which they dene as the quality of
hospitality, intimacy and community within the workplace. It
denotes a socially friendly and welcoming atmosphere and sense of
family or team.17 Organisations that rate highly in this category
have found the key to creating not only a place where people want

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to be, but also an environment in which they are continually

inspired to do their best.
Yet understanding what employees want and providing it to
them remain two very distinct entities. As discussed above, new
recruits want a sense of community, to belong to a team, to be
valued and treated like partners at work. Yet it is not enough for
senior management to stand up and declare that they want to
atten the hierarchy and promote a culture of equal participation,
and then head back to their lavish ofces while the rest of the staff
huddle in their cubicles. Employees will immediately see through
these hollow words and feel betrayed and disrespected exactly
what will prompt them to start looking for other work. As
restaurateurs and retail store owners are well aware, people
subconsciously take many behavioural cues from our surroundings.
Indeed, people are biologically programmed continually to assess
and interpret their environment. For this reason, they readily
perceive the way in which an organisations space allocation and
conguration either afrms or undermines its professed ideology in
a very clear and concrete way.
Jim Mitchell, president of Steelcase Canada Ltd, understands the
importance of making a visible, unequivocal commitment to his
employees. His open workstation is no different from those of other
employees and he, the Chief Financial Ofcer and other divisional
vice-presidents sit in the centre of the oor in an open executive
hub. Mitchell states:

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The statement
space makes

I dont look at my desk and see an 8610 area . . . I come in here

and say, Ive got 70,000 square feet. I happen to share it with
hundreds of people. And I use the space that way. A CEO came
to me and said, I need to change the culture of my company.
Heres what I see happening today. Teams dont talk to each other,
departments are remote from each other. Its just taking too long
to get things done. 18

Reflecting culture in
the environment

254

Steelcase uses its open-plan headquarters as a demonstration tool

for clients and a model of how to reorganise an ofce.
This is not to say that it is necessary for all organisations to
move to open concept work environments with their top
management in the centre of the oor. If an organisation does want
to modify its culture, however, the workplace and how it operates
must also be rethought. A more horizontal organisation means the
people in the workplace become more engaged and participative.
This requires a more egalitarian distribution of space and resources.
When management is more about leading, empowering, inspiring
and sharing a vision, the workplace must bring the leaders face to
face with the team members. That means adjacent work areas and
more collaborative settings, which, in turn, requires more ways to
achieve isolation and concentration.
When teams are a dominant organisational component, group

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Supporting teamwork

spaces must be designed with the furniture and the tools to help
teams work effectively. This includes ample and mobile seating and
work surfaces, teaming areas, project rooms and other devices that
support group work. If organisations want to become less rigid and
formal to encourage creative thought and innovation, corporate
uniformity must make way for personalisation and individual
expression. Although these alterations generally result in sacricing
the appearance and identity of the traditional corporate ofce, it
may well be proportionate to the gain in employee satisfaction.
While people may argue that employee satisfaction has a direct
relationship to performance, productivity, creativity and
innovation, it is certain that it has a signicant effect on
recruitment and retention.

FOSTERING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION

What is innovation?

The importance of
knowledge sharing

If an organisation is serious about attracting and retaining the best

and brightest, then it must create an exciting and productive
environment in which employees are continually challenged and
motivated to do their best. This means developing a culture of
continuous innovation and creativity, which is also an obvious
business advantage in and of itself. Yet the question remains: What
is this nebulous creature called innovation and what are the means
by which it can be obtained? The majority of organisations are not
actually prepared to deal with innovation because it tends to be
revolutionary in nature, subverting tried and true processes and
solutions. An organisation must, therefore, be exible, adaptable
and willing to take risks in order to embrace innovative ideas and
really benet from them.
While many organisations are striving to become more innovative
by examining their processes, people and technology, most neglect
the single thing that can bring these three aspects together the
workplace. The physical space in which one works has a profound
effect on how one works. In order to be innovative, workers need
face to face interaction to share information, exchange new ideas
and learn from one another. The knowledge housed within an
organisation can be categorised into two types: explicit and tacit.
Explicit knowledge, which resides in policy handbooks and
procedural guidelines, is in many ways the antithesis of innovation.
The tacit knowledge that workers carry around in their heads and
never articulate, however, is what gives rise to innovative ideas. In
order for these ideas to ourish, it is necessary that the knowledge
be allowed to ow freely. The director of knowledge management
at IBM, Laurence Prusak, reports that knowledge tends to be
local, sticky and contextual. It stays where it is.19 The trick, then,
is to create an environment that will help to move it around. The
more people who have access to knowledge and information, the
more innovative ideas will arise.
Encouraging individuals to share what they know with one
another requires a mix of formal meeting spaces and informal

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places where people can get together to talk. If companies want to

support this type of collaboration, they also have to provide things
such as mobile tables and seating that will allow people to come
together when they need to and then to separate when they need to.
If companies want employees to talk to one another, they must put
them in close proximity to one another and minimise the obstacles
to communication. To stimulate creativity, vibrant, interactive and
dynamic spaces are needed which can be easily moulded and
reshaped according to the work that has to be done. Since the
physical work environment provides the context for people,
interaction and knowledge development and transfer, it is the tool
that can be most effectively leveraged to help people to work more
effectively and act as a driver of continuous innovation.

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Facilitating
communication

CONCLUSION
Creating a positive
environment

The work environment is not, nor will it ever be, the sole factor
upon which people base their employment decisions. Quality of life,
however, is something that factors into every major decision that is
made, and it is something that is profoundly affected by the
environment. As Terrence Dalton of Health Canadas workplace
Health Bureau notes:
We seem to still be struggling to get out of the old mold of
focusing on individual change and putting a greater emphasis on
the impact of the environments like workplaces and schools
where we live, learn, work and play. There are over 15 million
people in the Canadian workforce who spend two thirds of their
waking hours at the workplace and too often that work
environment has a negative effect on people as opposed to a
positive one.20

Areas for
further study

256

With the current job market the way it is, an organisation simply
cannot afford to lose talented employees because of an
unsatisfactory physical workplace. Yet, creating a positive
workplace involves so many variables that it can become a
daunting and frustrating task. For one thing, it is difcult to isolate
the impact of specic changes to the work environment because
change is such a constant part of how work gets done these days.
Moreover, what works for one company will often not work for
another, because the context in which the changes are made is so
important. The workplace and how it operates must t within the
organisations philosophy and must be accompanied by reinforcing
practices and supportive managers and supervisors.
Further research needs to be done to map out all the variables
included in the management of work and space so as to gain a
better understanding of the relationships that exist between such
things as quality of environment, job design, management styles,
human resource practices and technology. When it is understood
how these different elements interact and affect one another, one

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can move towards developing innovative and competitive

intervention strategies that will help not only to build sustainable
vitality in companies, but also to transform typical work
environments into great places to work.
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