The perfect time for office restructuring
Often, workspaces are modernised when one’s office is newly built, renovated or relocated. However, the redesign of office space can also occur as a consequence of a strategic culture change. Some companies also reconstruct their corporate DNA in office spaces after a rebranding in order to consciously strengthen their corporate philosophy, corporate purpose and image both internally and externally. Building changes are a great opportunity for many companies. They offer a strategic turning point for a possible transformation or strengthening of the corporate culture. After all, culture has an influence on corporate processes, and these in turn on the structure and furnishings of the workspaces.
The gentle compulsion of megatrends
In many cases, megatrends dictate the changes in office design. The “fight for talent” is forcing companies to create new strategies that attract talented employees and keep them in the company. Google, for example, is creating entire playgrounds out of their workspaces, opening recreation and fitness centres to offer their employees that “little bit more” at work. For employees, the feel-good factor at work is a decisive criterion for choosing an employer. Accordingly, the restructuring of office space is often at the top of the task list of corporate strategies. The rapidly advancing digitalisation is also presenting companies with new challenges. Home office and flex work have completely changed our understanding of “going to work”. The new employee culture requires mobile and transformable workplaces. Last but not least, every well-managed company needs a sustainability strategy that also includes office furniture and interior fittings, as well as the materials used for interior design.
Where does a workplace change management project start?
Most of the time, those in charge have a picture in their heads, but not yet any precise ideas of how their new office space should look and be structured. Also, the question of what requirements the new office must fulfil and how their corporate DNA can be reflected in a workspace is usually only incompletely answered by laypersons. A professional partner for workspace change management helps to think outside the box. He accompanies companies from the initial development to the implementation and sees himself as a neutral sparring partner who, as a coach, analyses and further develops individual components of the leadership and team culture as well as the process structure in order to implement them more efficiently and effectively in the new space design.
Christian Petrini, CEO of Vifian Möbelwerkstätte explains where the focus lies at the beginning of a workspace change management project: “A lot of attention is paid to user identification. We want to know