by Brianna Crandall — January 30, 2015—Business owners, executives and facilities management professionals facing tough decisions about which workplace designs will best meet their needs can now harness the power of science to inform specific workplace strategies, says IFMA.
Workplace Evolutionaries (WE), a community of practice within the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), has teamed up with the IFMA Foundation to produce a comprehensive research-based document to demystify modern workplace strategies with scientific data, analysis and research.
Applying What Scientists Know About WHERE and HOW People Work Best, by Dr. Sally Augustin, PhD, outlines hundreds of scientific workplace strategy guidelines, each supported with complete citations.
“The workplace is a powerful tool that can improve health and quality of life, boost productivity and protect the environment,” said Dr. Andrew Laing, PhD., global practice leader, Strategy+ at AECOM and WE research advisor. “To achieve these benefits and many more, facility management professionals have access to a tremendous amount of useful scientific research to take the guesswork out of key strategic decisions. This paper is a gateway to unlocking the potential of any workplace.”
Applying What Scientists Know About WHERE and HOW People Work Best was informed by Workplace Strategy Summits, industry polls and surveys, and a significant amount of expertise derived from first-hand experience. This piece not only informs contemporary debates about workplace strategy, it sets the stage for the workplace of the future, claims Workplace Evolutionaries.
The breadth of the report is suggested by the publication’s table of contents:
- General Studies
- Implications of Sensory Experiences
- Worker Experience and Basic Architectural Forms
- Psychological Factors Affecting Worker Performance
- Workplace Design and Worker Behavior (General)
- Particular Workplace Configurations and Their Repercussions
- National Culture and Workplace Design
The full Applying What Scientists Know About WHERE and HOW People Work Best report is available for download in the IFMA bookstore. The report was published with support from the WE Research Team and the IFMA Foundation, and financial support from the IFMA Corporate Facilities Council and Kimball Office.
Workplace Evolutionaries (WE) is a vibrant global workplace community of practice within IFMA focused on increasing workplace strategy, innovation and consciousness. It is a result of the high levels of interest generated in the IFMA Foundation’s 2011 award-winning Work on the Move book, which led to the first IFMA Foundation Workplace Strategy Research Summit held at Cornell University in 2012, and later to the new community.
