In the workplace design biz, we’re exposed to the latest and greatest office design trends.  The height-adjustable workstation has been coming on strong over the last few years, and we’re seeing more and more companies making them.  
Steelcase has researched the topic extensively and gives us 9 reasons why height-adjustability is good.  On the health side they note that “Since static posture can result in strain/discomfort, possible injury, and increased workers’ comp claims, ergonomists now recommend movement throughout the day (…) standards include a recommendation to regularly change posture from a seated to a standing position.”  
Despite the health and other benefits of adjustable height desks though, some clients seem to be hesitant to make the switch—possibly because of the higher upfront costs, or the aesthetics of having surfaces at different heights.  
On the flip-side, some companies have embraced the trend, and employees are standing up all over the place!  I came across a post by a friend who works at Google’s HQ in Mountain View—she linked to a Fast Company article and was excited because her team’s cube was featured in the photo.  I was equally excited to see this because: a) waitta go Brie! and b) they use standing-height workstations!  (Wondering if she likes her desk?  She reports: “I love love love my standing desk!”)  
In a recent article about Facebook’s new HQ in Menlo Park, CA, employees also have the choice of sitting or standing—and many are choosing to take a stand.  
It seems this trend is taking off—but is it mainly in the [...]

I came across this article from the Harvard Business Review blog, in which blogger (and CEO of The Energy Project) Tony Schwartz describes a list of 12 items that his “dream employer” would provide. 
His list includes some seemingly obvious (though often-overlooked) items such as paying employees living wage, offering two-way performance reviews, fair and respectful treatment of employees by upper management, among others.  Hopefully all of your employees do at least these! 
Item #3 on his list is where we here at HOK come into the picture: “Design working environments that are safe, comfortable, and appealing to work in. In offices, include a range of physical spaces that allow for privacy, collaboration, and simply hanging out.”  We’ve been seeing this trend of mixing space types with many of our clients, including Deltek who just moved into their new office space, complete with a game room, community whiteboards, and more. 
 One of my two favorites is #12—“stand for something beyond simply increasing profits.”  This enables employees to gain a sense of real meaning from (and feel good about showing up for) work every day. 
As for my other favorite—that would be #5: “create places for employees to rest and renew during the course of the working day and encourage them to take intermittent breaks.  Ideally, leaders would permit afternoon naps, which fuel higher productivity in the several hours that follow.”  With all of the studies showing that naps increase productivity—you’d think every one of our clients would insist we design napping rooms into their [...]

Are you curious about what other offices throughout the world look like?  Do you sometimes wish you could sneak into another company’s workplace and see how they operate on a daily basis?   If so, I’ve got good news for you: Enter wovox, a new website devoted to just that…discovering workplaces!

I stumbled upon wovox recently, and have really enjoyed snooping around.  Anyone can post photos to the site—companies and individuals alike—which gives it a neat range of workplaces from all over the world, from tiny home offices to huge global corporations, and hundreds in between!  To give you an idea of the breadth of spaces, there are posts from McDonald’s Australian headquarters, the Smithsonian in DC, Cubion (a Danish consulting firm), Adobe’s office in San Francisco, Groupon’s Amsterdam office, and even one from the Quayside Fish Market in Doha, Qatar.
Here in the design industry, we get a fair amount of exposure to the latest design and workplace trends, but there are still infinite spaces that we’d never have been able to see before wovox came onto the scene.

So if you are looking for some fresh design inspiration (or want see if the carpet really is greener on the other side of the world), then check it out.  Happy workplace snooping!

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It is a nearly-indisputable fact that technology is one of the most prevalent and important trends in the workplace these days, and we have it to thank for so many incredible advances in our lives.  But some people may describe this trend as more of a rampant one, that is spiraling out of control and virtually taking over peoples’ lives, both at work and at home…which begs the question, is there such thing as “too much technology”?  And are we over-extending ourselves by indulging in all of the latest tech trends?
This article ran in the NY Times a few months ago as part of a series called “Your Brain on Computers.” It was sent to me by my mother—by way of her siblings—who mused that they don’t believe themselves to be victims of this technological stronghold, but that they believe their children surely are.  The article is rather long (I skimmed it while at lunch outside, on my blackberry—go figure), but is full of juicy technology tidbits and some surprising facts that shocked even me, a solid “Gen Y-er.”  Some fun facts:

“In 2008, people consumed three times as much information each day as they did in 1960”
“Computer users at work change windows or check e-mail or other programs nearly 37 times an hour”
“At home, people consume 12 hours of media a day on average, when an hour spent with, say, the Internet and TV simultaneously counts as two hours. That compares with 5 hours in 1960.”

None of these struck me [...]