I remember back in time which we were kids, dad would go to work in a very monotonous way. He would go out of field tours, on days visit office for different kinds of paper work and then come home. Looked very tedious to me. About an year ago, I had joined an architecture firm for a brief internship. The first day I was called to the office, I have quite an expectation that being an architecture firm the office should look great. But as I entered, I found a book shelf with all kinds of architecture related topics, a large conference table surrounded by chairs, another table for the company head to sit and huge see through window through which I could see it was raining. It was a boring workspace, indeed. And the irony is that it is an architecture firm.
So how should these work spaces really look like, especially the ones where there are only creatives and no sales or admin people? There is something amazing about these technology giants like Google, Apple and Microsoft, who have created workspaces like play areas. There are cafeterias, recreational facilities, sleeping sub-substations, in-house medical facilities and what not, just name it! But what about workspaces in India? Has there been a revolution yet? Of course the Google head quarters here are well equipped and have created a people-friendly environment. But what about the others? We spend a long chunk of our lives working in offices, it’s like our second home and home should be comfortable, isn’t it?
So what does my workspace need to let me have an effective day?
Well, I would possibly have a couple notebooks, one for recording important information and the other for doodling most likely. A laptop with great WiFi connectivity in the area, plug points, stationary, for it fascinates me so much to work with pens and pencils, coffee vending machine which is a must and real good music, most likely The Beatles. A big desk so I can sometimes get messy and of course people, a workplace without people is morbid to work in. These are pretty much things I’d like, and you might have additions as per the work you do, some of you might want noise-cancelling headphones, especially designers, or an iPad mini instead of notebooks for note-taking purposes. But there are companies which are not business oriented as much as they are relationship oriented. Companies have wanted to keep a low on their attrition levels by giving alternate Saturdays off, once a month a company gathering, family trips, sports, et cetera. It does not only make your employees happy but makes them productive at the same time.
After all, it is the people who grow the business.