Generation Y and the Workplace Annual Report 2010 - Haworth

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Focus
Workspace
What individual workspace would you prefer to have?
Would you like to personalise your desk?
What size of workspace would you feel comfortable with?
Overview
Within the working environment all employees would like to have their own desk. People feel that by
having a desk it provides them with a sense of status and a form of identity. The tendency in Europe
is to have one desk per person. In recent years, organisations have introduced clean desk policies and
are encouraging their employees to depersonalise their space. But our emotional engagement in the
workplace often means that this sense of belonging within the space is often link to our perception of
individual space. Emotional engagement is an outcome of the strength of feeling we have towards work,
our colleagues and our physical surroundings, all of which interact in complex ways. It is influenced
by having the opportunity, the desire and the right sort of environments, which allows us to connect
with work and each other. Understanding how people work and socialise in networks, and how their
workplace environments help or hinder them, is now fundamental. The role of the workplace is rarely
considered, but that is changing rapidly. The workplace is taking centre-stage as people come together
to socialise, collaborate and learn. Simultaneously, we also need space for isolation and contemplation.
Results:
Global WorkPlace Innovation
The environment should
be harmonious providing
opportunities to learn, to
collaborate and help the employee
to achieve maximum productivity
as well as providing a good
opportunity for his or her own
growth and their goals.
Nitin, 1988
The physical workplace is an asset with quantifiable business impact and top-performing companies
design their workplaces to support collaborating, learning, socialising and focusing This includes
primary workspaces, common areas, meeting areas and training areas . Although essential, this is
not enough. Job design, where joint responsibilities are allocated across cultural boundaries, is also
essential. A whole system approach ,
integrating strategic IT, HR and workplace
design, is essential to enable emotional
engagement in the workplace 51 .
Figure 38: Comfort with Space: all respondents – per country
The level of comfort with space varies widely depending on the country, the culture and age groups.
Overall, we can observe that the majority of people are comfortable in a measure of space of 10 to 16
square meters (107 to 170 square feet), which is a normal and fairly standard average. We could have
expected much higher figures and measures of scale, on the basis than the perception of more space is
always wanted.
Again, here amongst the generation Y, women feel more comfortable in a larger space than men.
Figure 39: Level of comfort with space, sqm per person, 18-25 years old
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Quality over Quantity
(of space, and amenities).
Efficient workspaces
promote efficiency.
Molly, 1982
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