How you can kick-start collaboration at work for better job satisfaction
'We know you can improve the way you experience work by improving your relationships'
As workers return to a workplace all or part of the time, some are wondering how to maximize the benefits of being in person. But researchers say some workplaces might be more welcoming to collaboration and creative thinking than others and much of that comes down to design.
Sally Augustin, an environmental psychologist and the principal at consulting firm Design With Science, says workplace design — whether it's an office, a restaurant or a shop floor — can be optimized for better collaboration, but designers should still think about what success is in a particular work context.
"You have to be positive that the space developed will allow people to not only perform to their full potential, but ensure that their organization is successful," Augustin told Spark host Nora Young.
Using insights from neuroscience, she consults with organizations on how to design spaces that support well-being, performance and creativity. In 2022, she co-authored a paper on real-world spaces for creative thinking.
Augustin says employers are increasingly thinking about physical workspaces beyond common considerations, like ergonomics, to maximize the value of people being physically together. "It's been brought top of mind by all these debates about whether people should actually be in this space, how they perform in this space versus how they perform at their homes."
Studies show that sensory experiences, like calming sounds, colours — particularly shades of green — curving lines, plants and even scents in the space can have a direct impact on workers' creativity.
"Some enterprising researchers a while ago learned that if we smell cinnamon [and] vanilla, which happens to be exactly the smell of those Cinnabons that are in airports everywhere — that smell has been linked to enhanced creative performance."
Movement, especially walking alone, can also enhance performance, she says. "So, if you're designing a workplace, you can create places where people can walk inside or outside."
While office chatter can sometimes get overwhelming and serve as a distraction, Augustin says there is a benefit to overhearing certain conversations in the workplace.
"It can help people keep track of what's going on around them … keeps them tuned in, they can perform to a higher level at their assigned tasks, activities, etc."
She says regardless of the industry, spending time observing others doing the same job can help workers get an idea of how different tools at their disposal can be used.
But when it comes to designing separate spaces for independent work and collaboration, Augustin notes that we have to be realistic about how noise carries.
"Every so often I find somebody who will build a space for collaboration and they'll put spaces for solo work right beside it. It's like no, no, no, people, do you not have ears? Have you ever been in a workplace? Distance is generally your friend here."
She recommends that spaces for group work have walls and doors. And if those aren't realistic, then hallways and circulation paths between the collaboration zones and the spaces where people are doing thoughtful work are another option.
And beyond creating distance, she says, orienting seats so that they don't face a bunch of activity can help minimize distractions.
"The most significant way a workplace can support both collaboration and individual work is by zoning these activities and also by giving people permission to move from one space to another as they need it."
The many months spent meeting over video conferencing during the pandemic deprived workers of key elements of in-person interactions, she says, like sustaining eye contact.
Augustin says everyone needs an eye contact break from time to time, but it can be awkward. Giving people something that they can gracefully divert their gaze to every so often, like a window or a fish tank, can help to diffuse the awkwardness of looking away.
A designer's mindset
While the physical layout of a workspace can be designed to maximize creative thinking and collaboration, the average worker doesn't have much — if any — control over whether that happens.
"We know you can improve the way you experience work by improving your relationships," Bill Burnett, adjunct professor in the School of Engineering and the executive director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University, told Young.
When it comes to collaborating in the workplace, we could learn a lot from how designers think, Burnett says. The key to their approach is empathy and what he calls "radical collaboration."
"If we collide people with lots of different backgrounds together on a design team, we're just going to have a much richer set of possible solutions."
Burnett says that was made apparent when he was working on the design of the first Apple laptop in the '90s.
"When you're making something that can't be specified, nobody knows what it is, [so] you need this collaboration with lots of people to understand what the needs are. And then you just make lots and lots of guesses — prototypes, we call them — until you sort of figure something out."
For years, Burnett worked as a designer in the tech and toy industries. He's also the co-author of Designing Your New Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness — and a New Freedom — at Work.
He says brainstorming is a skill that takes practice, much like learning to play jazz in a quintet. Part of that is working to understand colleagues and being open to their ideas in unstructured conversations.
"If you're simultaneously thinking of your answer while you're listening to the other person's point of view, you're not listening," said Burnett.
Both Augustin and Burnett say building community and trust are what make work more satisfying.
"It actually does all seem to come back to our early days as a species and what made us very comfortable then, what ensured our survival then," said Augustin.
"Because when we're very comfortable, when we feel secure [and] safe, we can free up parts of our mind to be engaged in creative thought."