Architecture and design "can support or even change company culture" says Haworth research

由专筑网Ann，刘庆新编译

Haworth调查报告：据Haworth调查显示，职场文化是进行办公空间设计时需要考虑的首要因素。

该报告是由美国办公家具公司巨头进行市场调研得出的结论，调查显示在进行办公空间设计时，企业文化因素比效率和性能更为重要。

“办公空间设计的关键是整合各种变量——有时是竞争——引导文化、价值观和员工行为从而达到公司目标。”报告指出。

“无论公司的发展战略多么完备，当企业文化与发展计划相悖时，企业文化总能够发挥重要的作用。”

报告中指出，工作场所设计通常被视作花费成本，而不是促进发展的驱动力，企业往往把重心放在扩大员工数量和增添同类工作岗位上。

然而管理者却忽略了一个事实，就是好的办公场所设计有助于建立企业文化。

Haworth white papers: workplace culture is the most important factor to take into account when designing office spaces, according to research by Haworth.
The research, contained in a white paper produced by the US office furniture giant, found that organisational culture is a more important consideration than efficiency and performance when it comes to office design.
"The critical achievement of workspace design is to integrate the various – and sometimes competing – cultures, values and behaviours of people to meet company goals," says the white paper.
"No matter how strong an organisation's planned procedures, culture trumps strategy when the two are not aligned."
The research points out that the workplace is usually viewed as a cost rather than a driver of performance, with emphasis often placed on factors such as increasing worker density and introducing homogenous workstations.
However employers may be missing a trick, the research suggests, since office design can help companies build their culture.”

如果企业希望鼓励员工之间积极合作，那么应该采用灵活的空间布局，创造便于沟通的交往空间。插图：Stephen Cheetham/Companies that want to encourage a "collaborate" culture should use a flexible design with lots of group spaces. Illustration by Stephen Cheetham

“据研究显示，建筑设计、室内设计与家具设计能够影响——甚至改变——企业文化。”
   
如何创造优秀的企业文化：真正的打造它——这是Haworth全球办公空间研究所通过调查得出的报告之一。

在资深市场分析策略师Dr Michael O'Neill的领导下，调查员在全世界范围内进行调研，考察如何设计办公空间能够有助于企业培养并留住员工。

O'Neill从事这一项目的调查研究超过25年，他指出，公司忽视企业文化是十分危险的，因为文化是唯一不能被竞争对手复制的东西。

O'Neill对Dezeen表示：“当公司依靠产品或服务创新占据一定的竞争优势时，这种优势只是暂时的，竞争对象也同样能够效仿这种模式从而打开市场。文化优势才是可持续的优势，因为它不能像产品和服务创新一样被人模仿。”

研究表明，工作场所能够影响并促进企业文化，对员工起到积极的引导作用。

“员工敬业度较低会导致工作营业额下降32%，影响员工积极性的核心因素是企业文化。出色的空间设计能够激发员工的积极性，使之保持高度的工作热情。”

    为了帮助企业打造高效的公共空间，Haworth共同开发了一项工具，分析各个企业的独特文化，并且分析内部潜在的次文化。

"Research suggests that architecture, interior design and furnishings provide a tangible way to support – or even change – the culture of an organisation," the white paper says.
The white paper, titled How to Create a Successful Organisational Culture: Build It – Literally, is one of a number of reports produced by Haworth's Global Workplace Research department.
Headed by senior research strategist Dr Michael O'Neill, the department employs researchers around the world to investigate how office design can help companies foster wellbeing and retain staff.
O'Neill, who has been researching the relationship between office design and worker behaviour for more than 25 years, said that companies ignore their culture at their peril since it is the only asset that rivals cannot copy.
"While a company can attain temporary competitive advantage through product or service innovation, the advantage is ultimately short lived," O'Neill told Dezeen. "Competitors can copy ideas and enter the marketplace. Culture is the only sustainable advantage because unlike a product or service innovation, it cannot be duplicated."
In addition to this, workplaces that reflect and encourage organisational culture lead to better-motivated employees, the research states.
"Companies with low employee engagement suffer from a 32 per cent decrease in operating income," the white paper says. "At the heart of employee motivation resides company culture. Workspace strategy and design is a tangible opportunity to convert the office into a space that sets high performance standards."
To help companies create motivational workplaces, Haworth has co-developed a tool to identify their unique organisational culture as well as the subcultures that exist within teams.

如果企业需要创造性的文化，那么就需要一些非正式的工作空间，一些亲近的、遮蔽型的空间。插图：Stephen Cheetham/An office for a "create" culture needs lots of informal working areas and few closed or sheltered spaces. Illustration by Stephen Cheetham

这一工具能够“帮助我们有效分析企业文化，提供设计指导，有助于委托人更好的推进企业文化建设。” O'Neill表示，并指出Haworth已经将这一套理论应用到100余家企业。

O'Neill表示：“我们发现，企业通常具有一个与品牌相关的总体文化，但也有一些非常突出的次要文化，与业务相关，如金融或市场，这并不奇怪，这是文化的多元性。”

“了解企业的文化背景有助于设计者进行准确的空间组织，把各部分结合起来，会议空间、社交空间、个人空间等，甚至烘托空间气氛，激发员工积极性。”

Haworth的工具基于上世纪80年代罗伯特•奎恩和Rohrbaugh提出的关于有效组织衡量指标的竞值架构理论，简单的说，这个理论将组织文化归纳为四类：协作、创造、控制和竞争——这四方面不分优劣同样有用，差异性只是取决于正在进行的工作类型。

例如，一个“控制”型的企业文化或许更注重信息的线性传递，要求“做正确的事情”；“竞争”型的企业文化或许是“快速的解决问题”，存在外部竞争，注重结果。

“协作”型文化通常“共同完成一项工作”，注重团队建设，关注个体；“创造”型的组织文化要求有“首创”的态度，讲求实验性与个性。

多数公司存在一项主导文化，大体是这四个类型之一，但是办公空间的设计还需要了解企业的次文化，才能够真正的有助于企业中的团队发展。

报告指出：“辨析不同的企业文化非常重要，因为企业不仅拥有着主导文化，还有各不相同的次要文化，理解和包容文化的多元性，企业才能获得多方面的成功。”

The tool "allows us to identify organisational culture and provide design guidance to help clients better align space to support their culture," O'Neill said, adding that Haworth has already used the methodology with over 100 organisations.
"We generally find that organisations have an over-arching culture that is often tied to their brand, but that there are also strong and varied sub-cultures that tend to run along business unit lines, such as finance and marketing, which, not surprisingly, may express very different cultures," O'Neill said.
"Understanding the cultural context of an organisation can help the designer offer the right mix of individual, meeting and social spaces and even the atmosphere of those spaces that encourage the desired behaviours," he added.
Haworth's tool is based on the Competing Values Framework, a seminal model of organisational culture developed by Robert E Quinn and John Rohrburgh in the 1980s. Put simply, this model categorises company culture into four types – collaborate, create, control and compete – all of which are considered equally useful depending on the type of work being carried out.
For example, a "control" culture might work for a company where linear communication and "doing things right" is essential, whereas a "compete" culture likes to "do things fast", thrives on external competition and focuses on results.
A "collaborate" culture is typically a "do things together" organisation that focuses on team building and concern for people, while a "create" culture has a "do things first" attitude and prizes experimentation and individuality.
Most companies will have a dominant culture that broadly falls into one of these categories. But workspace design also needs to recognise the distinct subcultures that can develop in team units within a company.
"It's important to recognise the difference between each culture profile because organisations always have a dominant culture and may also contain different subcultures," says the white paper. "By understanding and accepting various cultures, organisations can harness the differences for success."

一些公司需要更为正式的办公场所设计，使员工专注于技术上的问题——这种“控制”型的文化需要充足的个人空间。插图：tephen Cheetham/Some companies need a more formal office layout to help staff focus on technical problems – this kind of "control" culture needs plenty of individual workspaces. Illustration by Stephen Cheetham

Haworth的研究阐述了文化能够“创造秩序感、持续性和认同感，渗透到组织的各个部门，体现到员工与客户的互动与感知中。”

文化体现在员工的价值观、态度和公司制度上，起到了促进作用，同时也体现在一些具体的细节中，比如服饰规范、建筑和产品上。

有效的物质环境是加强这些方面的关键，办公空间设计专家Jeremy Myerson、伦敦皇家艺术学院主席Helen Hamlyn表示。

“文化的三个要素是人、场所和技术，但是我认为场所是占据主导作用的因素。” Myerson表示，Myerson团队曾与Haworth共同合作一个为期五年的项目，并在2014年出版了一本书《工作与生活》，探讨办公空间设计者能够从包括图书馆和电影院在内的日常生活空间中，了解并学习到了什么。”

Myerson表示：“你将会在一个规范了愿景和价值观的物质环境中工作，设计的作用是帮助企业促进好的文化，并改善不良文化。”

Fox Architects 负责人Steve Teubner表示，委托人终于意识到通过空间场所设计培养企业文化的重要意义。

Teubner表示：“我们已经关注到，企业越发关注组织构架中的人力资本因素。” Teubner,在设计办公空间时，应用了Haworth的研究理论。

“管理者已经注重优化技术，他们聘请顾问来优化产业结构和程序，并且企业最大的改进是关注办公环境。”

Haworth's research outlines how the idea of culture "creates a sense of order, continuity and commitment that permeates every aspect of an organisation, from how employees interact to customer perceptions".
This is manifested in the values, attitudes and systems a company employs and promotes, as well as in more tangible factors such as dress code, architecture and products.
Getting the physical environment right is key in reinforcing these ideas, according to workplace design expert Jeremy Myerson, Helen Hamlyn chair of design at London's Royal College of Art.
"The three big levers of culture are people, place and technology, but I think place is probably the strongest determinant of culture," said Myerson, whose team worked with Haworth on a five-year project that led to a 2014 book, Life of Work, looking at what office designers can learn from other everyday spaces including libraries and theatres.
"You're coming to work in a physical location that frames the vision and values of the company," Myerson said. "Design's role in this is to help companies either reinforce good cultures or change bad ones."
Steve Teubner, principal at Virigina practice Fox Architects, said that clients are finally starting to realise the importance of nurturing culture through the physical workplace.
"One of the things we've been seeing is organisations starting to focus more on the human capital aspect of organisational performance," said Teubner, who uses Haworth's methodology when designing workplaces.
"They've optimised the technology, they've had consultants in optimising their processes and the last bastion of organisational improvement is the environment."

开放式办公保证了员工的个人空间，同时又避免了交流障碍，能够很好的提供“竞争”型文化环境。插图：Stephen Cheetham/Open desks allow workers to have some personal space without creating communication barriers and work well for a "compete" office culture. Illustration by Stephen Cheetham

“这一问题已经被忽视已久，但它却关系到强化企业管理和程序的关键问题。我们的任务就是将加强组织信念和价值观的文化用空间设计的形式表达出来。”

Haworth研究项目经理Gabor Nagy表示：“但是，公司需要避免盲目追求时髦的办公空间设计，切勿单纯效仿其它企业的场所文化。”

“空间设计只是一种表达手法，并非从根本上改变企业文化。有些委托人对设计师表示，他们希望办公区能够时尚新潮，拥有趣味性的家具、乒乓球桌或者游戏室，‘像谷歌一样’，这实在是一种误解。” Nagy表示。

“问题是，如果企业文化与谷歌相差甚远，或许会适得其反：员工在工作时间呆在游戏室或者打乒乓球，这并不是有创造性，而是破坏了公司的日常工作，这些空间设计就变得毫无意义。”

Myerson 对此颇为赞同：“就像一个位于斯图加特的保险公司不必效仿Facebook一样。工作是一件严谨的事情，Haworth文化测试也是一次严肃认真的尝试，并不是所有的企业都需要创造性十足的办公环境。”

O'Neill表示：“如果公司希望提升员工的满意度，那么首先要认同企业文化。在此基础上，设计者会打造出符合公司特征且满足多种需求的办公场所。”

“了解企业的文化背景有助于设计者进行准确的空间组织，把各部分结合起来，会议空间、社交空间、个人空间等，甚至烘托空间气氛，激发员工积极性。”

这是Haworth研究所在办公场所设计调研报告的一系列文章中的首要问题——如何打造成功的企业文化：真正的建设它。

He added: "It's gone ignored for so long and it is a vital component of the tools at an organisation's disposal to reinforce and support processes. We see our role as creating that physical expression of the culture that reinforces those beliefs and values and processes."
However, companies need to be careful not to jump on trendy office-design bandwagons or try to ape the workplace culture of other organisations, said Gabor Nagy, research program manager at Haworth.
"Space design is just a tool, not a means for cultural change," Nagy said. "'We want to be like Google' is a common misconception that clients try to convey to designers, and by that they mean funky offices, playful furniture and ping pong tables or game rooms."
"Problem is, if the organisation's culture is not like Google's, chances are very high that such design conceptions will backfire: employees hanging out in the game room or playing ping-pong while working will not be seen as creative innovators, but more like folks who are sabotaging their daily work. Thus, these spaces will likely not be used at all."
"An insurance company in Stuttgart doesn't really need to look like Facebook," agreed Myerson. "Work is a serious thing and the Haworth cultures model is a serious attempt to say that not all companies need a creative playpen."
For any company looking to improve staff satisfaction, gaining a better understanding of its organisational culture is a good first step. From this foundation, designers can then build an environment suited to a firm's unique and varied needs, said O'Neill.
"Understanding the cultural context of an organisation can help designers offer the right mix of individual, meeting and social spaces and even create an atmosphere within those spaces that encourages the desired behaviours," he said.
This is the first in a series of articles produced in collaboration with Haworth exploring the brand's white paper reports into workplace design. Download the Create a Successful Organisational Culture: Build It – Literally white paper here.


Haworth四种企业文化类型解析：

Haworth's four types of office culture explained:

“协作”型文化注重灵活的空间和有机的布局，空间不会过于封闭和正式，个人空间相对于集体空间比重较少。

A "collaborate" culture is best nurtured by a flexible environment with an organic layout, medium levels of enclosure, informal spaces and a low ratio of individual to group spaces.

“创造”型文化在组织布局具有高度的灵活性，非正式群体空间和低比例的个人空间，开放性相对最强。

A "create" culture is also aided by a highly flexible environment with an organic layout, informal group spaces and a low ratio of individual to group spaces, but responds best to low levels of enclosure.

“控制”型文化个人空间相对较多，集体空间相对较少，空间设计偏好正式，较高的封闭性，有组织性，对称的结构布局，灵活性较差。

A "control" culture works best where there is a high ratio of individual to group space, more formal spaces with higher enclosure, structured, symmetrical layouts and a less-flexible environment.

“竞争”型文化个人空间和集体空间比例均衡，正式与非正式空间相互混合，封闭性不强，但更加有组织性，通常为对称布局。

A "compete" culture thrives with a medium ratio of individual to group spaces, a mixture of formal and informal spaces, low to medium enclosure and more structured, symmetrical layouts.


出处：本文译自www.dezeen.com/，转载请注明出处。