Yes the new collaborative and innovation spaces As more and more companies expand, it’s no longer just because of a lack of space in their offices. In “flex offices,” the physical barriers of the office are fading away and the spaces are redesigned to accommodate the needs of the employees. foster collaboration, innovation and the well-being of employees.
The flex office: a pragmatic response to new work styles
The move then appears as an opportunity to rethink work methods, as he points out. Vincent Rostaing, our expert consultant in agility : “The company must see the move as an opportunity, or even an alibi for asking itself about the new work methods it wants to build with its employees in their new places of work.”
But because it heralds a change in the lives of employees, the move to a flex office where offices are no longer defined or individualized can arouse concerns and reluctance within the company, especially among managers.
“Managers are undergoing a change in attitude that can be destabilizing. They are asked to move from an organization in which they are legitimate by statute who gave them, with all the signs that this implies – and in particular the individualized office – an organization where their legitimacy is expressed through the leadership they manage to obtain from their teams. While status is determined, leadership is not imposed, and can even vary depending on the teams.” supports Vincent Rostaing.
These new spaces are therefore a pragmatic response to the establishment of new networked organizations within companies, within which The manager tends to become an agile leader. To remove the barriers to change and help employees adapt to these new tools, upstream, during and after moving into the new premises, support is essential.
Encourage your employees to envision the new spaces
According to Vincent Rostaing, before the move, “Sensitization must enable employees to envision the future. In a very simple and playful way, you can use the plans of the future premises to understand how we will occupy the spaces, by asking them to draw what they see.”
Collaborators imagine their future uses with Lego”
The projection will allow employees to imagine new working methods and, in particular, to rethink collective time through agile techniques.
“Awareness of agile processes upstream enables, for example, thinking of meetings as moments of productivity and decision-making, rather than information, as is still the case in 80% of companies.” Vincent Rostaing assures.
To take the projection further upstream, you can also involve your employees in the design of the workspaces, so that they correspond to their expectations and needs. The visit of companies that have already adopted the “flex office” can thus reassure them.
Let your employees test the spaces
The support provided to the teams on site must focus on the adaptation to the new spaces. This is a crucial step to ensure the success of the relocation project and to establish the new working methods.
To do this, we advise you to give your teams time to test the new spaces. For Vincent Rostaing, “The theory is good, but we need to be able to embed it in practice. To take ownership of a space, teams need to test the locations and be convinced of the uses. A meeting room like this might be more suited to participatory work because there are fewer tables and more space on the walls for expressing creativity, whereas we would prefer another room to isolate ourselves…”
So don’t try to impose the conventions on your teams based on the spaces, but let them take them on board so that they can endure.
Changing your work patterns in your current offices is possible!
Don’t plan to move immediately? Don’t wait to change your practices! Your current premises can very well accommodate new collaborative work modes. As Vincent Rostaing explains, “Being flexible doesn’t just mean having the right equipment and open spaces: you must also have the courage to transform your premises and adapt them to new working methods. It’s pointless to invest in premises where the spaces are so specialized that teams no longer allow themselves to create outside of them.”
The new workspaces They therefore accompany the new agile and collaborative working methods. They should be the support for these methods, not the pretext.
