Inflexible Workspace Slows Down Creativity – ORH

Creativity is one of the most valuable resources by companies, and is currently required by the daily life of many employees, according to 74% of workers worldwide. Skill, in addition, will determine the future employment of most companies and their employees, according to 87% of Spaniards and 85% of workers worldwide, as evidenced by the study ‘Creativity at work’ by Steelcase.

Within the framework of the International Day of Creativity and Innovation, Steelcase discusses the relationship between creating a workspace and promoting business creativity, Through various studies conducted around the world.

Can space encourage innovation and creativity? The first tangible barrier to fostering commercial innovation is the uninspired workspaceAs indicated by 20% of the global population surveyed. Only surpassed by organizational processes (37%) and overloaded workload (36%), it’s an immediate response that appears before old technology (also 20%), and it’s the point at which all of the above variables are directed at workers, according to research carried out in Spain and France. Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan.

It is noteworthy that the definition of creativity applied to work according to countries fluctuates depending on the countries analyzed, as 52% of workers in the United Kingdom and 47% of workers in Germany define their concept of creativity in spaces closer to artistic expression. In the same way that tariffs fluctuate between countries, the importance of this capacity in day-to-day work is affected as well. The country that uses creativity the most is Germany, where 83% of workers say they must be creative in their work, either daily or once a week, followed by the USA, where the figure is 82%.

On the flip side, there are Japanese workers, with only 54% saying they should be creative at least once a week, and nearly a quarter, 22%, saying creativity is not necessary in their work. As for Spain, it is not one of the countries that defines itself as being creative in its daily life, however, being able to change this will for 62% of Spanish workers surveyed.

What to do to enhance creativity at work

at the moment, 90% of people believe that collaboration is necessary to create new and better ideasAccording to the company’s research. Therefore, it is essential to take into account the current, new work context, as it is less likely to occur if you work at home or if workers spend most of their time in the office in the bench row.

The office has undergone major changes before and after the current pandemic, with Steelcase experts already framing the first three factors that people want their office to provide to them now, according to a global study on telework released by the company in 2021:

• Collaborate with others effectively.
• Easier access to tools and resources.
• Allowing the possibility of social communication, with adequate distance and safety measures.

In this sense, lean offices appear as a technical solution that allows for a combination of cooperation and security. Taking into account the expected prolongation of COVID-19 in the coming months, offices that have this perspective in their design will allow spaces to be used according to projects, without barriers and adapted to the needs of workers.

This way, the The agile methodology applied to office design offers the main advantages of agility, flexibility and adaptability in spacesWhich coincides with the different stages of this working methodology. An approach that many multinationals have already been incorporating into the current pandemic. However, most spaces are not designed to favor seamless collaboration, but have been adapted to accommodate the total number of employees in the office, which is at odds with workers’ expectations, particularly in countries like Spain. They care about developing their creativity and disrupting them.

Space is the brake or the main driver of creativity, and the pandemic has caused change that was already necessary in many organizations. Working in flexible spaces, in a hybrid model that allows for secure cooperation is, at this time, the main formula for continuing to generate added value in service delivery, with attention to employee commitment. People don’t want to go back to what they were before. They need to get back to something better. Theo Manzano, Director of Innovation at Steelcase Iberia