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December 10, 2013November 12, 2013 sundancecompany commercial real estate, Commercial real estate news, The Sundance Company, Uncategorized

The New Science of Who Sits Where at Work

An informative article from the Wall Street Journal about companies trying to boost productivity by micromanaging seating arrangements. By shifting employees from desk to desk every few months, scattering those who do the same types of jobs and rethinking which departments to place side by side, companies say they can increase productivity and collaboration.

Proponents say such experiments not only come with a low price tag, but they can help a company’s bottom line, even if they leave a few disgruntled workers in their wake.

In recent years, many companies have moved toward open floor plans and unassigned seating, ushering managers out of their offices and clustering workers at communal tables. But some companies—especially small startups and technology businesses—are taking the trend a step further, micromanaging who sits next to whom in an attempt to get more from their employees.

“If I change the [organizational] chart and you stay in the same seat, it doesn’t have very much of an effect,” says Ben Waber, chief executive of Sociometric Solutions, a Boston company that uses sensors to analyze communication patterns in the workplace. “If I keep the org chart the same but change where you sit, it is going to massively change everything.”

Mr. Waber says a worker’s immediate neighbors account for 40% to 60% of every interaction that worker has during the workday, from face-to-face chats to email messages. There is only a 5% to 10% chance employees are interacting with someone two rows away, according to his data, which is culled from companies in the retail, pharmaceutical and finance industries, among others.

Want to befriend someone on another floor? Forget it. “You basically only talk to [those] people if you have meetings,” Mr. Waber says.

Companies should think carefully about who they put where, according to experts who study office design and workplace psychology. Grouping workers by department can foster focus and efficiency, says Christian Catalini, an assistant professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, but mixing them up can lead to innovation

In his dissertation, Mr. Catalini examined the impact of proximity at an academic campus in Paris. When scientists were shuffled around to different buildings because of an asbestos problem, the result was more experimentation, he says. The shake-up produced some bad ideas—but also more breakthroughs.

MODCo Media, a New York advertising agency, has tested three different seating arrangements over the past few years. For about six months, the company intermingled its accountants and media buyers, hoping they would begin to absorb each others’ skills through “osmosis” and “overhearing phone calls.”

The experiment ended up saving MODCo “a couple hundred thousand dollars a year,” says CEO Erik Dochtermann, but it turned out badly for the accountants. The media buyers began to understand the financial side of the business so well that MODCo no longer needed a full accounting department. Now, the media buyers “do the accountancy on the fly” and the company’s chief financial officer checks their work, says Mr. Dochtermann.

Other seating configurations have helped inspire new products and expedited the training of new employees, he says.

At travel website Kayak.com, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Paul English has joked with his colleagues about developing an algorithm to capture all that goes into devising his seating plan for the engineering team.

He uses new hires as an excuse to alter the existing layout and thinks carefully about each worker’s immediate neighbors. He takes into account everything from his employees’ personalities to their political views to their propensity for arriving at work early—or, more important, their propensity for judging colleagues who arrive late.

“If I put someone next to you that’s annoying or there’s a total style clash, I’m going to make your job depressing,” he says.

Young Chun, a product designer at Kayak, is one of Mr. English’s ambassadors in his pursuit of an office with “a balance of energy.” A self-professed member of the “loud” contingent of Kayak employees, she was recently dispatched to the mobile group, where she estimated 90% of the workers were quiet, to get them to be more vocal.

“The first week that I was down there I was like, ‘Oh my god, I could hear a pin drop here,’ ” she says.

It took a few weeks, but Ms. Chun says she was able to get the group to open up and start chatting. Her seating mission accomplished, she was soon switched to another section of the office.

Aspects of a worker’s disposition can, in fact, be contagious, according to Sigal Barsade, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “People literally catch emotions from one another like a virus,” she says. Her research has found that the least-contagious emotional state is one marked by low-energy and sluggishness. The most contagious is a calm, relaxed state—which she nicknamed “the California condition.”

People with similar emotional temperaments work best together, Ms. Barsade says. But if a manager is trying to get a stressed-out worker to brighten up, the best strategy is to surround her with lots of cheerful, energetic people.

Constantly shuffling people around has its consequences, however. Ms. Barsade says that moving from desk to desk can make workers feel like they have little control over their environment. And some seating experiments can cause a backlash.

For about four years, employees at HubSpot Inc., a marketing-software company based in Cambridge, Mass., switched seats randomly every three months. The seating strategy was meant to reflect the lack of hierarchy at the company, which HubSpot says was especially helpful in recruiting Millennials. Eventually, the company added some structure to the arrangement, splitting workers into loud and quiet groups.

But when HubSpot decided to group its executives in one part of the office, the employee feedback was negative. The executives felt more efficient and liked being able to chat without having to arrange formal meetings, but the employees felt the higher-ups were too far removed. The setup was reversed after six months.

Employees now have the moving process “down to a science,” says HubSpot Chief Technology Officer and co-founder Dharmesh Shah, unplugging their phones and rolling file cabinets to their new spots swiftly.

But having grown to more than 600 workers, the company is facing a new problem: no one can remember who sits where.

About The Sundance Company
Established in 1976, The Sundance Company has the experience to help you with your commercial real estate needs throughout the Boise Valley. If your requirements include property management, leasing, real estate development, project planning, construction or space planning then look to us. The Sundance Company has more than 1.5 million square feet of office and industrial space available in prime locations in the Boise metropolitan area. More information is available at www.sundanceco.com or 208.322.7300.

December 3, 2013October 17, 2013 sundancecompany commercial real estate, Commercial real estate news, The Sundance Company, Uncategorized

Business Lessons From The Best Global Brands

Fox Business recently discussed four small-business lessons from 2013’s top brands.

Apple just took a bite out of Coca-Cola’s 13-year standing as the most valuable brand in the world, according to Interbrand’s 2013 Best Global Brands list. In fact, technology dominated the top five this year, with Apple at the No. 1 spot and Google coming in at second, and IBM and Microsoft landing at fourth and fifth, respectively. Coca-Cola, meanwhile, fell two spots to take third place.

“We talk a lot about how the speed of business has changed,” says Interbrand Global Chief Executive Jez Frampton, commenting on the shake-up at the top of the list. Frampton says building a brand that resonates with consumers still takes time, but tech companies like Facebook have learned to do so more quickly in today’s day and age.

To help small-business owners make a big impact when it comes to branding, Frampton shares four lessons from Interbrand’s 2013 report:

No. 1: Be consistent. “When you look at great brands, one of the things that sits right at the heart of them is consistency,” says Frampton. “They have a clear understanding of what they mean to the world, and they’re consistent year after year and time after time.”

Google, in his opinion, has also succeeded in this regard, thanks to its “Do no evil” ethos. “It’s a relatively recent company, but the essence of ‘Do no evil’ has set a very clear pathway to what kind of company they are, the kind of culture they want to create and the brand they want to be in the world,” says Frampton.

No. 2: Be nimble. Frampton says startups must be nimble enough to take advantage of gaps in the market.

“Having worked with startups over the years, the business you end up doing is not the one you start out doing. You have to adapt to the market,” says Frampton. That said, being nimble doesn’t have to mean being inconsistent.

“At your heart, you still need to have something that unites your people, and creates a bond between the company, suppliers, buyers … and ultimately with customers and shareholders,” he says.

Frampton adds that businesses that are not nimble enough run the risk of becoming unseated by quicker-moving competitors. “Underneath, you need the speed and agility of newer, younger businesses. Companies like Apple, Google and Coca-Cola have learned to do that. IBM has learned they can completely change direction, and Microsoft is going through that right now, you can argue,” says Frampton.

No. 3: Concentrate on service. “Brands are built through every single experience you have,” says Frampton, discussing Apple’s success when it comes to providing top-notch customer service.

He says customer loyalty is one of the most integral factors when it comes to brand strength, and service innovations like the Genius Bar have given the company a real edge.

“Apple’s genius ‘Genius Bar’ not only creates great levels of loyalty among customers, it creates, in the words of [Harvard professor] Michael Porter, a barrier to entry,” says Frampton. “The ability to hire that number of people, and have them in the position to serve your products is not something you can do overnight … It makes it very, very difficult for anyone to compete.”

No. 4: Use digital to your advantage. Frampton says digital innovation has been key to the success of many of the companies on Interbrand’s list, especially in the case of older, more traditional brands.

“Companies like Burberry have reinvented the way people think about luxury by using digital so well,” says Frampton. He says the company realized it didn’t have the cash to compete with rivals like Prada, so instead decided to dominate when it came to e-retail.

“When you talk to them about their flagship store, they’re actually [talking] about their website and mobile capability. They haven’t just benefited from hundreds of years of industry experience; they’ve carefully thought about the market … and how to maintain an incredibly powerful luxury image through digital,” says Frampton. The takeaway, in this case, is figuring out how to grow your brand through digital – not just maintain it.

November 19, 2013October 17, 2013 sundancecompany commercial real estate, Commercial real estate news, The Sundance Company, Uncategorized

Creating The Right Office Environment to Attact and Retain Workers

A recent article by Fox Business said that by 2020 it’s estimated that 46% of U.S. workers will be made up of millennials and that is projected to grow to 75% by 2025, which means companies of all sizes will be vying for this group of professionals.

If small businesses want to have an edge over their larger counterparts when it comes to recruitment and retention, then they better create an office environment that meets this generation’s needs.

“Millennials have a very different mentality,” says Wendy McCubbin, senior manager of global worksite wellness at Ergotron, the maker of ergonomically correct office equipment. “The older generations have grown up with office environments. They, on the other hand, have grown up with technology.” Because the millennials are so adept at using technology to communicate, socialize and work whenever and wherever, they want an office environment that caters to that.

Unlike the older generations before them, the millennial workers are used to collaborating and easily communicating with their team members. For small businesses, that means creating a workspace that fosters that by getting rid of high-walled cubicles and offices for executives and creating an open environment where people sit beside each other instead of being blocked offed. “They don’t want to be stuck in a cubicle,” says McCubbin. “They want a collaborative open work environment.”

But it’s not only their workspace that will have to change if small businesses want to attract and retain this very important group of workers. According to experts, this generation wants to work hard but they also want to balance that with their personal lives. They aren’t afraid to work all hours of the night if the company is willing to be flexible and let them take care of personal things during office hours. According to McCubbin, the quickest way to turn off a millennial is to require them to punch a time clock or be in the office from 9:00 to 5:00. Companies should embrace flexible hours and allow their workers to go to doctor visits, pay bills online, or exercise during office hours. McCubbin says a way to attract this generation is to create a cool, relaxing and social environment, which could mean a lounge area, a fully stocked kitchen or treadmills near their work stations.

Millennials have grown up with technology and expect that to be major part of their work environment as well. Because of that, experts say companies have to embrace BYOD policies as well as make it easy for them to use all of their different mobile devices.

“They are very tech savvy and super connected and are multi taskers,” says Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Nuance, the software company that makes voice activated software. “It’s very important to make sure they have constant access to information.”

According to Mahoney, Nuance focuses a lot of its attention on their millennial workers and will create office environments that will appeal to them both from a physical and technological standpoint. For instance Mahoney says since the company knows some of its staff, particularly the milennials, want to work in or near cites it just opened an office in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “We know there’s a certain segment of our workers that are much more interested in working in different kind of environments you might see outside the suburbs,” he says.

In addition to picking locations that appeal to millennials, Nuance also knows this group of workers value their mobile devices and see it as an extension of themselves, so they make using them easy to do. He says companies are missing an opportunity if they don’t create polices that let them use their devices or accept the fact that they will get their work done, but it may not be in the confines of the office.

“It’s really important to millennials and as a result it’s important for companies to adopt these polices that help people use the technology they want to,” he says. For example, Nuance has found that among their millennial workers e-mail has become passé. Since this group is more interested in collaborative communications and feel using social networks is not only part of their business but also their professional lives, Nuance has created an internal social network to encourage collaboration and socializing among workers.

“A lot of people are catering to them, but they are not focused on the way they work,” says Mahoney.

November 12, 2013September 25, 2013 sundancecompany business information, office productivity, The Sundance Company

The Best Productivity Advice You’ll Ever Get

Inc. offers up some tips on how you can be more effective.

Our culture is obsessed with personal productivity and self-improvement–how to be better, more efficient, more effective. Our quest for continuous self-improvement knows no bounds.

Well, I’ve got the easiest way for you to be more effective, hands down. Quit being neurotic about personal productivity and self-improvement. It’s all just a giant waste of time, which is more than a little ironic.

I’ll let you in on a secret. In the corporate world, we carve out specific time for strategy and process improvement. Why? Because if we didn’t, it would be way too disruptive. Everyone would be distracted and nobody would get any work done.

It’s the same with you, your business, even your personal life. There’s a time and a place for everything, and being constantly on the lookout for ways to be more productive and effective will only ensure that you’re neither. Here are five reasons why.

They’re not very smart goals. Productivity and self-improvement are simply too amorphous and subjective to be goals. How do you know you’ve achieved either one? That’s right, you don’t. And considering the shear amount of useless content that’s generated, posted, and retweeted every day on the subject, it’s guaranteed to be a huge time sink as well as an endless pursuit.

Continuous improvement is disruptive. Granted, there is a Japanese concept called Kaizen that essentially means continuous improvement. But in that context, “continuous” doesn’t mean “all the time.” Continuous change is inefficient. It’s distracting. It’s disruptive. Continuous anything is disruptive, even if it is for the better.

Prioritize. Too much to do and not enough time to do it all? Stressed out over it? Join the club. The best and maybe the only way to deal with that has always been to prioritize. I guarantee that whatever’s at the bottom of the priority list and doesn’t get done didn’t need to get done. The Earth will still turn and the sun will still rise in the morning. Besides, there is virtue to doing less. In many cases, less is more.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That phrase has stood the test of time for one very good reason. It’s almost always true. If you’ve got real issues or problems, by all means, figure them out, deal with them, fix them. If not, then get back to work, finding work, enjoying life, or whatever it is you should be doing. Stay focused.

Forget “everything in moderation.” Yes, that’s an old phrase too, but it doesn’t apply here. I know it’s tempting to think that somewhere between “continuous change” and “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is a sweet spot. Well, it doesn’t work that way. Once you have a strategy and a plan, you need to focus and execute. If it’s not working, then figure out why and do something different.

Don’t get me wrong. There is such a thing as being too rigid and inflexible, especially in this fast-paced world. You should always be on the lookout for competitive threats and open to new ideas and opportunities. I just don’t happen to think that personal productivity or self-improvement qualifies as such.

Perhaps the most important takeaway is this. Just because you’re hopelessly disorganized, not a morning person, have an office that looks like it was hit by a tornado, and haven’t cleaned up your inbox in years, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be broke and miserable.

It just means you’re like a lot of successful and innovative people. It also means you’re human.

November 5, 2013September 12, 2013 sundancecompany Commercial real estate news, Economy news, office productivity, office space tips, The Sundance Company

10 Ways to Motivate Anyone

Geil Browning, founder of Emergenetics International, an organizational development firm in the U.S., Singapore, and the Netherlands, discusses how to understand the unique brain and personality types of your employees so you can keep them invested in work and get amazing results.

I am often asked about how I keep employees inspired and productive. It’s an essential question since companies today must accomplish more, with fewer people. The most successful start-ups must be lean, nimble, and fierce.

In a nutshell, you should hire bright, energetic, innovative employees. Then offer them the right incentives–the ones that will impact their personal brain and personality types–to keep them mentally and emotionally invested in doing their best.

It’s impossible to talk about motivation without mentioning Drive, a book by best-selling author Daniel Pink. (His TED lecture was turned into a fabulous video.) Pink notes that people perform best when they are given autonomy, opportunity for mastery, and the belief that their task is meaningful. He says money is not the best motivator, and that employees want to be “players, not pawns.”

Pink believes Google’s “20% time,” in which employees may spend one day a week on whatever they want is a shining example of how allowing intrinsically-based motivations (a sense of accomplishment or purpose) can flourish. Personal endeavors from “20% time” resulted in Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense. Long before Google–back in 1948–3M instituted the “15% solution” or “dream time,” which yielded both Scotch Tape and Post-It Notes.

There’s no question that intrinsic motivation is essential. However, I do not agree with Pink that all extrinsic motivation (raises, bonuses, commissions, awards, titles, flex time, and other perks) is harmful. A skillful entrepreneur keeps employees motivated with a combination of both.

That said, there is no cookie-cutter approach to motivating your people. What inspires one person may leave the next cold. When you understand an employee’s thinking and behavioral preferences, you’ll be able to maximize his or her enthusiasm. This will help you get your workforce aligned and moving in the same direction, and you’ll see incredible returns.

1. Analytical types want to know that a project is valuable, and that their work makes a difference to its success. They need a leader who excels in a particular area, and whose expertise they believe benefits the group. They prefer compensation that is commensurate with their contribution. If they have done a tremendous amount of work on their own, don’t expect them to be happy if you reward the whole team.

2. People who are “structural” by nature want to know their work aids the company’s progress. They prefer a leader who is organized, competent, and good with details. They like to be rewarded in writing, in a timely manner, in a way specific to the task. An encouraging email is appropriate to communicate with them.

3. Social people want to feel personally valued, and that what they are doing has an impact on a project. They go the extra mile for a leader who expresses faith in their abilities. They prefer to be rewarded in person with a gesture that is from the heart. If your own preference is for written communication, send a handwritten note to a particularly social employee.

4. Innovative employees must buy into a cause. To them, the big picture matters more than the individual who is leading the charge. They prefer to be rewarded with something unconventional and imaginative, and would find a whimsical token of your esteem very meaningful.

5. Quiet staffers don’t need a lot of fanfare, but they appreciate private, one-on-one encouragement.

6. Expressive people feel more motivated when assignments are openly discussed and an open door is available. They like public recognition, with pomp, and ceremony.

7. Peacekeepers hope everyone will move in the same direction. They’ll never demand a reward or recognition, so it’s up to you to offer it.

8. Hard-drivers are independent thinkers. If they agree with you, they’ll be highly motivated. They will let you know what they’d like as an extrinsic reward, and they tend to want whatever it is right away.

9. Those who are focused team members must have confidence in the leader and in the project, or their motivation may falter. They want know up front what kind of reward they can expect. Make sure you follow through on whatever is promised.

10. Flexible people go along with the team, as long as a project does not contradict their morals or beliefs. They’re also happy with any kind of recognition.

Watch for the weakest link among your employees. If you have a slacker who consistently does less than everyone else but seems to get away with it, this can dampen the motivation of everyone else.

October 31, 2013October 31, 2013 sundancecompany The Sundance Company

Happy Halloween

October 22, 2013September 11, 2013 sundancecompany The Sundance Company

A Day In The Life Of The Internet

October 15, 2013August 30, 2013 sundancecompany Boise Commercial Real Estate, The Sundance Company, Uncategorized

Seven Great Business Reason to Say NO!

An article from Inc.com discusses how everyone wants to hear ‘Yes!’ but sometimes ‘No!’ is the answer that’s best. Business is filled with opportunities, and it’s nice when you can say yes to customers, employees and vendors. But there are absolutely times when saying yes will lead to difficulty or even disaster. Here are seven scenarios where no is the only way to go. Some may seem obvious, but I have often witnessed smart people get themselves in trouble by thinking they will somehow work everything out. Don’t put yourself in a bad position unnecessarily. Recognize these 7 scenarios and just say No!

1. Say NO! When No One Is Ready

Many people say yes to a boss or customer request when the pieces of the puzzle aren’t in place. Great work requires preparation. Great teams require alignment. If your team isn’t prepared or aligned, agreeing to take on difficult initiatives is a disaster waiting to happen. Young companies often try to speed forward before their organizational structure or business model is ready. They instead end up burning investor money while killing dreams and reputations. Say No! so you can get everything and everyone on board and ready. Then you can say yes with confidence.

2. Say NO! When It’s Not a Fit

Salespeople and entrepreneurs alike tend to see the potential in everything and everybody. But a ton of time is wasted on prospects who are never going to be customers, never going to invest, or never going to be amazing employees. Instead of looking for all the reasons why things will work out, save time by focusing on the reasons they won’t. Even if you say No!, you can always revisit the opportunity if compatibility improves.

3. Say NO! When You’re Overloaded

Some people are afraid to say No! even when they have too much on their plates. They think it’s necessary to respond positively all the time to avoid disappointing others. Then they let things fall through the cracks, get sick or have a breakdown. In this case, an impossible yes causes far more frustration then just saying No! in the first place. Have a realistic sense of your capacity and don’t go past your limit.

4. Say NO! When It’s Unrealistic

You can’t assume that every request has been thought through in detail. Often people ask for what they want with little or no consideration of what’s involved for delivery. I never subscribe to the “customer is always right” theory. As a consultant, I wonder, if they are always right, why would they want to pay me? Be the expert when someone asks for something. If you don’t know how it works, do your homework and say yes only when you know it can really happen. Otherwise, keep that “maybe” handy.

5. Say NO! When You Have to Go Backwards

It’s hard enough to move steadily toward your goals without having to regain lost ground. When approached with an opportunity that doesn’t obviously propel you forward, ask yourself: “Why am I even interested in this?” You may be surprised to find there is simply no justification for saying yes. When that happens, loudly declare No! and move on to opportunities that better align with your goals.

6. Say NO! When It’s Unprofitable

You are in business for many reasons, but nearly everyone–founders and employees alike–is in it to profit. Not all profit is related to money, although young entrepreneurs should take note that consistent monetary profit does help your sustainability and your valuation. Sometimes a transaction can pay off in connections, exposure, learning, satisfaction or, yes, money. But when a transaction does nothing to better the people involved, then the word No! should be used. The key is to make sure everyone in the company can understand, recognize and justify a profitable deal. That requires openness and education, so get to work.

7. Say NO! When You Can’t Meet Expectations

People are often optimistic about how quickly and how well they can get things done. Combine that hopefulness with the desire to please a customer, and you are left over-promising and under-delivering. Save yourself the mea culpa and say No! to what you know you can not do. Be accountable and manage expectations. Whatever you do, don’t say yes to get the deal signed if you’re assuming that, once the prospects are in the door, they’ll have to adapt to your change in quality, timing or price. After they realize what’s happened, few will come back to say yes and do business with liars.

October 8, 2013August 30, 2013 sundancecompany Boise Commercial Real Estate, The Sundance Company, Uncategorized

The Perfect Workspace According to Science

An interesting article from 99u discussing how to organize and optimize your workspace in the most beneficial ways possible. When it comes to building your workspace you can aim for the trendy look and flick through some interior design mags, or you can let science guide the way. Based on recent psychology and neuroscience findings, here are some simple and effective steps you can take once to improve your productivity for years:

Take ownership of your workspace

The simple act of making your own decisions about how to organize your workspace has an empowering effect and has been linked with improved productivity.

Craig Knight, Director of the Identity Realization workplace consultancy, showed this in a 2010 study with Alex Haslam involving 47 office workers in London. Those workers given the opportunity to arrange a small office with as many or few plants and pictures as they wanted were up to 32 percent more productive than others not given this control. They also identified more with their employer, a sign of increased commitment to the team effort and increased efficiency.

If you are an office manager this suggests you should give your staff as much input into the design of their office and immediate workspace as possible. Many companies even give their employees a small amount of money to furnish their space. Alternatively, if you’re a creative in an open-plan office, try to find ways to make your mark on your immediate environment. Even the simple use of a pin-board to post your own pictures and messages could help you feel that the space is yours with consequent benefits for your work.

Choose rounded furniture and arrange it wisely

If you have the luxury of designing your own workspace, consider choosing a layout and furniture that is curved and rounded rather than sharp and straight-edged. Creating this environment has been linked with positive emotions, which is known to be beneficial for creativity and productivity (added bonus: there’s also less chance of knocking an elbow or knee on a sharp corner).

In a 2011 study, hundreds of undergrads looked at computer-generated pictures of room interiors and rated those filled with curvilinear (rounded), as opposed to rectilinear, furniture as more pleasing and inviting. Another study out this year found that people rated curvy, rounded environments as more beautiful than straight-edged rectilinear environments and that the rounded spaces triggered more activity in brain regions associated with reward and aesthetic appreciation.

This contrast between straight edges and curves also extends to the way we arrange our furniture. Apparently, King Arthur was on to something: sitting in circles provokes a collective mindset, whereas sitting in straight lines triggers feelings of individuality – something worth thinking about at your next meeting if you want to encourage team cohesion.

Take advantage of color, light and space

Choosing the right color and lighting scheme for your office is one of the simplest ways your environment can enhance your performance. Different colors and light levels have different psychological effects, so the ideal situation is to install a lighting system that allows you to alter the hue and brightness of your room to suit the kind of work that you’re engaged in.

For instance, exposure to both blue and green has been shown to enhance performance on tasks that require generating new ideas. However, the color red has been linked with superior performance on tasks involving attention to detail. Another study out this year showed that a dimmer environment fostered superior creativity in terms of idea generation, probably because it encourages a feeling of freedom. On the other hand, brighter light levels were more conducive to analytical and evaluative thinking.

Not as easy to modify, but ceiling height has also been shown to have psychological effects. A 2007 study found that a higher ceiling was associated with feelings of freedom, together with a more abstract and relational thinking style that helped participants see the commonalities between objects and concepts.

Make use of plants and windows

If you only do one thing to optimize your workspace, invest in a green plant or two. Research has repeatedly shown that the presence of office plants has a range of benefits including helping workers recover from demanding activities and lowering stress levels. As a bonus, there’s also evidence that plants can reduce office pollution levels.

Another feature of an optimized office is a window with a view, preferably of a natural landscape. This is because a glance at the hills or a lake recharges your mind. Obviously a view of nature isn’t possible for many people who work in cities, but even in an urban situation, a view of trees or intricate architecture have both been linked with restorative benefits. If you can’t negotiate a desk with a view, another plan is to choose an office in your building that’s the shortest stroll from an urban park. A visit here will revitalize your mind and compensate for your lack of a view.

The benefits of a messy desk

There’s a lot of pressure these days to be organized. How are you supposed to get your work done if you can’t even find a clear space on your desk to roll a mouse or place a plant? But new research suggests Einstein may have been onto something when he opined: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”

Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota found that participants tested in a messy room at a desk covered with paper came up with more imaginative uses for a ping pong ball than participants tested in a tidy room. This matches the views of consultant Craig Knight who has argued against the modern trend for “lean” workspaces. “We don’t understand psychologically why putting someone in an impoverished space should work, when it doesn’t work for any other animal on the planet,” he said recently.

It also fits with the advice from Eric Abrahamson – co-author of A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder – who says people with highly ordered desks often struggle to find things because their filing systems are so complicated. He also points out a key advantage to a mess – you can find things in it that you didn’t expect. Discovering that ground-breaking idea you scribbled on a piece of paper two years ago could be just the spark to get your next project off the ground.

It’s easy to neglect the importance of your workspace, especially if you’re under pressure of deadlines and not so into interior design. But hopefully this review has convinced you that the spaces we occupy really can affect us psychologically. It’s vital that you choose an office space that you feel happy and comfortable in. If your freedom is restricted, shape the space as much as you can to make it your own. Get your surroundings in order and the rest is sure to follow.

October 1, 2013August 8, 2013 sundancecompany business information, commercial real estate, Commercial real estate news, Economy news, The Sundance Company

Do You BYOD To The Office?

A recent article from Steelcase discusses the pros and cons of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to work. The workplace is changing; employees are no longer tied to their desks or offices. As the trend of remote and mobile working continues to grow, it’s important for organizations to allow their employees to make personalized choices about the technology they use in remote and mobile settings. That’s why BYOD has become an essential element in how we work.

On the positive side, BYOD can encourage teamwork and collaboration activities, which are often spontaneous in current work settings. Having personal devices handy makes it easier for employees to share information, call up documents on demand, and make changes to documents on the fly. It is also important for employees to be comfortable with the technology they are using in order to reach their full potential as a worker.

This growing trend doesn’t come without its challenges. For example, there’s a greater range of devices with a greater range of applications and content sharing approaches. This has led to more security and compatibility issues and overall governance for the IT support professionals. From the employees’ perspective, there is also a perception that if they have 24/7 connection to work through these devices, they must answer when a call or email comes through. This has even sparked lawsuits over the value of employees’ time.

Despite these potential pitfalls, BYOD is a great tool for companies who want to motivate their employee base, promote collaboration among teams, and offer flexible work strategies, especially for top performers. Additionally, companies can put in place smart and strategic guidelines to help mitigate these risks.

At Steelcase, we’ve seen great success with our BYOD program. We’ve approached our BYOD program as voluntary, meaning employees can choose to use the BYOD program and receive a stipend but buy their own handset hardware, or they can choose to have a standardized hardware device that’s company issued. In our Americas region, almost half of the mobile phone users have chosen the BYOD program. They’re enthusiastic about choosing their own technology for mobile phones.

Additionally, almost all of the people choosing the BYOD program select SmartPhones as their technology of choice. Frequent travelers consistently comment how much productive they can be with a SmartPhone as they travel.

In an ideal setting, people in the workplace have choice and control when it comes to the technology that they use and therefore want to purchase their own technology, perhaps partly from a personal technology budget provided by their employer and partly from their own pocket. It’s important that organizations adapt to these trends and insure that personal technology seamlessly integrates with corporate business systems and networks. This will be a substantial challenge for global IT organizations to face.