When your team culture is healthy, your organisation is in alignment, and everything works better. How can your buildings improve organisational culture?

1. Have your space tell the story of your core values.

Every business has a character, a way of doing things and an attitude. Whether it’s quirky, luxury, everyday or something else, if that language is strong through what you do and how you do it, you will attract both customers and staff that understand and value your brand. Aligning spaces with core values means adapting right from the entrance, front of house, back of house, right down to your bathrooms to create:

• Entrances with character – the first place staff are reminded of culture is when they walk in the door. Could your staff entrance better tell the story of your values?
• Work space with atmosphere – back of house is often starkly contrasting and cold in comparison to your front of house spaces. Bring your staff spaces up to lift the whole team attitude.
• Allow space for informal group space – As your team grows, create back of house group spaces for informal meetings, social gathering spots and team building activities.
• Front of house – As tourism businesses, front of house is critical to communicating an authentic brand to your customers, but also supporting your staff to tell your stories, and that means a strongly branded and characteristic environment.

2. Provide healthy spaces.

• Support stress reduction – Use environmentally responsible materials and furnishings to keep the environment non-toxic. Provide plants, views to nature or images of nature scenes in the spaces intended for stress reduction and relaxation.
• Cleanliness – Maintaining cleanliness in the workplace not only creates a healthier environment for employees but also tends to help companies become more efficient and productive. Reduce clutter by providing adequate storage and waste disposal. Provide plenty of nautral light and easy access to hand washing facilities.

3. Bring people together that need to work together, but support concentration too.

• Strategise for team work – Whether your team is working from home or in the office, if your team needs to collaborate, support their efforts with rooms designed for group work.
• Concentration spaces – If open work areas are a big part of your office space, you might need to provide attractive acoustically conditioned rooms for individual concentration, or zone spaces for a range of quiet and interactive needs.