In recent years, we’ve seen how brands have perfected the art of the customer journey, creating legions of loyal fans in the process. Engaging with the people who vote with their money and broadcast their experiences is vital for commercial success – and, unsurprisingly, businesses invest heavily in customer touchpoints like stores, websites and social media channels.
While customer experience is at the heart of every strong brand, we also need to consider the people behind these experiences. After all, they are the ones who give it the authenticity and transparency it needs to be loved and admired.
Dedicated teams pour every ounce of energy into their work, revelling in the sense of ownership and achievement it brings. They are powerful brand ambassadors, so let’s treat them with the same respect we have finally granted customers.
Just as brands have embraced the customer-centric approach, I believe it’s time to think about employee journeys. Drawing inspiration from retail and leisure, companies of all sizes and from all sectors are seeing the benefits of creating engaging experiences in workplaces too, as we found when we undertook a major project for a global pharmaceutical company last year.
The brief was to design an environment that encouraged chance encounters between co-workers and nurtured creativity and collaboration in a diverse community of very smart – and rational – scientists.
Lessons from retail
When talking about workplace trends, the word that comes up time and again is ‘agile’. As leases get shorter, technology gets more portable and hours become more flexible, employers are increasingly turning traditional office formats on their head.
Just as retailers ask us to design fixtures and layouts that can be adapted, whether for daytime shopping, events or future vision, this brief asked us to consider multi-purpose spaces that can comfortably and cleverly accommodate a variety of work tasks.
To achieve this, we balanced enclosed zones for quiet concentration and private calls with open social spaces and areas for collaborative teamwork and meetings. The result was a vibrant and efficient eco-system that supports everyday activities, while also being future-proof and able to accommodate growth.
Within the office, we introduced ‘working neighbourhoods’ to ensure the resources a team needs are always close to hand. Planning the adjacencies and sight-lines of these neighbourhoods was a similar process to zoning in large retail outlets – the idea was to develop distinct, yet connected areas for people to work and interact.
We also looked at how we could make best use of natural light and acoustics, as well as the way people move around the office, to create destination spaces with the right atmosphere for the type of work being undertaken.
Lessons from leisure
The most accomplished business leaders know that keeping their team motivated is crucial for success, so providing an environment where people feel engaged and connected to their role is less about rational management and more about emotional storytelling.
We know from our work with sports clubs and their fanatical followers that helping people feel like they belong through design is the best way to drive and reward loyalty.
Inspiring the workforce could simply come down to writing the brand vision on the wall, though in most cases it requires a little more imagination. Key to nurturing a sense of pride and belonging is finding a way to express and live the company brand values and personality throughout the space.
Encouraging teams to embrace and explore the brand for every working day of the year requires a subtle but no less rigorous approach to storytelling – however, this does not need to be lofty or even brand-led.
In fact, it can be as simple as sharing current work and progress with each other, and for the pharmaceutical team meant celebrating their inventions. As such, we designed a much-loved kinetic installation, which looks a little like the old-fashioned penny spinners, to give people a space and a ceremony to gather round and acknowledge team contributions when a project reached a given milestone.
People-led
As we approach a leisure or hospitality design project, the first thing we do is talk to the people who actually use the space. As we observe the flows, and listen to customers and colleagues about their hopes and frustrations, we are challenged to come up with more creative solutions.
It was these thought processes that guided the workspace project too. During a workshop with the pharma business, we asked the scientists and professionals to walk in the shoes of others who would use their building. By imagining themselves as colleagues, visitors, cleaners, clients or students, our scientists were able to express new needs for their space, enriching the design brief for each touchpoint with a new layer of depth and clarity.
Not only do the neighbourhoods we designed take everyday activities into account, they also respond to different personalities in the office. Open-plan spaces are not popular with everyone, even if they are open to collaboration and chance encounters.
After interviewing the chemists, for instance, we discovered that they find great inspiration in nature, so we made sure to incorporate as many natural materials and green features as possible. The process of involving the whole team in our design process means that, in the future, the working protocols of the space will continue to evolve naturally.
Overall, this is a space that feels intuitive and familiar in a way that means managers do not need to articulate explicit rules, for example, we installed perch seating in the phone booths so people naturally do not linger there for long.
Final thoughts
Providing a place for scientific collaboration was the focus of this project, and having a positive commercial impact on the business was paramount.
Developing a positive office culture means more than offering a pool table, a bowl of complimentary bananas or a gym membership. Having a motivated workforce that feels connected to the brand is about supporting loyal teams who want to deliver great work, both on their own and on the brand’s behalf.
As with retail and hospitality, workplace demands are incredibly complex and they need to engage, inspire, inform, enable, support and enrich at every touchpoint. By developing a responsive space, sharing stories and removing barriers between colleagues, the scientists we worked alongside now feel more connected to each other, their work, the company and their space every day of the week.
The team, i.e. the most loyal advocates from within, reported that their space had become instrumental to building trust with new clients and winning new business.