BOSS DESIGN + WORKPLACE INSIGHT

WORKCAFE: ALWAYS THE

#WHITEPAPER WORKCAFE: ALWAYS THE COFFEE BOSS DESIGN + WORKPLACE INSIGHT

services and strictly utilitarian In fact, the more general research interiors. The environment was into such issues backs up the one of the characters, a trick idea that what most people want Ridley Scott later repeated in from their working environment is Bladerunner. pretty straightforward. They want daylight, fresh air, rest, hygiene, Alien, it is often said, is a Freudian flexibility, control, comfort, heat, film about sex and reproduction socialisation and coffee. These and the fears that come with might be basic needs, mostly them. But it’s also about the free at the point of delivery, but camaraderie and irritation it often takes a sophisticated that come with being stuck approach to the culture, design in a confined space with your and management of a workplace fellow staff members. It’s about to offer them to people. the pecking order, the salary disputes, the grumblings about This paper will look at the issues canteen food, the remarks about surrounding the creation of a new who is sitting in whose favourite café culture in the workplace, its chair. benefits and they way it might be delivered. In particular, it will consider how, just as work has And it’s about the coffee – colonised coffee shops and other always the coffee. public spaces, so too has the coffee shop influenced the form and function of the workplace. It’s an interesting observation because it illustrates how important such issues are for Mark Barrell the way people perceive their Design Director working lives and the cultures of Boss Design the places in which they work.

Ask office workers what they look for in an ideal working environment and three items that will be close to the top of the list will be comfort, good coffee and reliable WiFi. What the best working environments offer to deliver this trinity is a combination of work, interaction and relaxation that makes the The BBC recently published a piece on its website to One of the interesting points space both more attractive and raised in the piece was how productive. It’s a conduit for many commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Ridley Scott’s the depiction of the workplace of the most desirable objectives conditions on board the for the organisations, including movie Alien and what it could tell us about office life. spaceship Nostromo did away personal wellbeing, recruitment with the gloss and swish of and retention, serendipity, the previous visions of the future, development of relationships and replaced by grime, exposed the exchange of information. WORKCAFE: ALWAYS THE COFFEE

What people want from an office.

When you ask people what they really want from an office space, most surveys come back with tellingly similar answers. The one that perhaps best sums them all up is from Leesman, which collects more data on the workplace than any other firm in the world so provides the gold standard in this regard. It recently reported on the physical aspects of the office that people find most attractive.

1. Functional desk

2. Comfortable chair

3. Tea, coffee, and other refreshment facilities*

4. General cleanliness The flat white economy. 5. Temperature control According to a 2019 study from had increased its contribution of the aesthetic and functional 6. Small meeting spaces the Centre for Economics and GVA from 8.7 percent in 2013 to characteristics of the café, 7. Restroom privacy Business Research (CEBR) think 13.3 per cent in 2016. especially the way such spaces tank, the so-called ‘flat white can bring together people 8. Functional equipment sector’ is now the most important The use of this name to describe from disparate disciplines and 9. Natural light driver of the UK economy, in the UK’s small and startup professions to talk, share ideas terms of the value it adds. The creative and digital businesses is and come up with new ones, a 10. Nearby restaurant or cafés flat white economy, largely made telling. It more than hints at the process that has been ongoing up of smaller businesses in the idea that such businesses need for over three hundred years. What each of these factors share offices that improve their day to amenities are more important digital and creative sectors, to cluster in specific places to in common is that they represent day experiences and offer a more than fixed space-based contributed 14.4 percent of gross share ideas and gain access to Having grown their businesses a very basic human need. They service focussed approach to the amenities. value added (GVA) to the UK in the networks of power formed in such surroundings, it’s no also fit more or less neatly into design of the workplace. 2018, making it more important by giant firms but cannot surprise that they expect to take two categories; comfort and than traditional sectors such afford the excessive rents that the features of the spaces and a place to interact with other According to the CBRE 2018 as manufacturing, mining and often go hand in hand with this cultures that have nurtured people, especially over a cup of Occupier Survey, more than utilities on that measure. hothousing. them so well into the places tea or coffee. 80 percent of tenants perceive they call home as their business workplace amenities as essential The CEBR says that it has been Instead they revert to coffee grow larger. This is marked by growing to the employee experience and tracking the growth of the sector shops and ultimately coworking *Eighty-five percent of employees demand from occupiers for 65 percent think service-oriented surveyed want this according to Leesman. for a number of years and that it spaces that ape many of WORKCAFE: ALWAYS THE COFFEE

A brief history on stocks and shares were traded in the same time that cafes and the Work Café a , Britain’s coworking spaces are invading insurance industry was formed retail and hospitality spaces. in Lloyds coffee house, Isaac According to a 2018 report from There is nothing new in any of Newton and his contemporaries Horwath HTL, the number of this. The first London coffee frequented the coffee houses hotels offering coworking space house was opened in 1652 by a near the Royal Society and in is growing rapidly in response to Greek merchant called Pasqua 1754, the RSA was established in demands from guests and other Roseé who had grown fond of a coffee house called Rawthmells, digital nomads. the drink while trading in Turkey, a tradition the RSA continues to although a previous coffee house this day with the naming of the Santander has opened its had opened in Oxford. café at its offices just off first Work Café in the UK. The the Strand. concept was initially developed Fifty years later, Britain’s nascent by Santander in Chile in 2016 and was in full swing, What drove the rapid growth its success has seen 50 branches although King Charles II had of such places were exactly opened in Spain, Portugal, Brazil attempted to crush them in the same forces we see in the and Argentina. The bank claims 1675, concerned about the free creation of cafés, agile office the reopened branch in Leeds exchange of political thought designs and coworking spaces will work as a ‘community hub’ best office designs is the way apparent in a growing number they fostered. today. It is the creation of a offering banking facilities, free Creating they create a sense of community of workplaces and not just cafés community of people who can coworking spaces and freshly- Communities and the sort of experience that and coworking space. According Writers, journalists, artists and come together in a shared . The branch was It is essential that modern office people now demand from their to a report in the Harvard anybody who wanted to share in experience. previously closed at the end of designs create a great experience workplaces, including shared Business Review, people who their thoughts would gather in June 2018. for employees and visitors and spaces and a place to share work in coworking spaces report places like Buttons coffee house Having good coffee doesn’t hurt also offer people a sense of both ideas and information with levels of thriving of around 6 on near Covent Garden. Buttons that experience. The Leeds space will welcome community. This is not just good colleagues over a drink or some a 7-point scale, which is slightly featured a white marble lion’s Santander and non-Santander for the employee but also the food. In addition, there is also a over a point higher than the head into which people would One of the most obvious customers. Alongside the business, as it is essential that social aspect to work that must average for employees who do deposit their stories, thoughts outcomes of the convergence coworking spaces and bookable people work in proximity to each be reflected in the design of their jobs in traditional offices. and poems which were published of our working and non-working meeting rooms the new hub will other at times so they can share spaces. It’s no wonder that organisations in a weekly newspaper digest. lives is the way that work has host talks and events. information, create ideas and feel want to replicate this kind of taken over coffee shops at part of a shared goal. The best office designs allow environment in their own offices. By the beginning of the 18th people to network, collaborate Century, there were hundreds So, one of the most important and engineer serendipitous This demand is already having of similar cafés all over questions the 21st Century encounters with each other. an effect on the place we used to London. They all shared certain organisation must ask itself Because they are based on refer to as the office and which characteristics, including is; when people can work from an agile working model which now often resembles a home, ready access to information, anywhere, how do we make the encourages people to find the hotel, café or airport lounge. This newspapers, ideas and the office the best possible choice? most appropriate space for the is manifesting itself not just in thoughts of a wide range of And the answer is to create a task at hand and to meet their changing office design idioms people who would declaim on a working environment that meets individual needs, they encourage but also the products on the variety of subjects. Many of these their needs better than anywhere movement and improve general market. Many of the displays at features were described in the else. wellbeing. office furniture shows are now diaries of Samuel Pepys. indistinguishable from those in Consequently, one of the most So, it’s no coincidence to find that the domestic and hospitality The coffee houses became important characteristics of the many of these characteristics are sectors. hotbeds of innovation. The first The growth of What became apparent to Whyte The language he used has now was that human interactions been appropriated by office third space and take place in ritualised and designers to describe the sorts of the urbanisation predictable forms and that cafés and breakout spaces now of the office the best spaces foster those used commonly in progressive interactions. Whyte writes about workplaces. our tendency to engage with to be much more prevalent In 1970, an anthropologist and chance meetings in particular It’s common to hear people say than planned contact. Only 34 researcher called William H Whyte ways, to say goodbye as part of that the boundaries between percent of all interaction took decided to carry out a project a ritual and our propensity to the traditional workplace and place in a planned way, while the looking at how people used mirror the gestures of the people the outside world have become vast majority occurred ad-hoc spaces in cities. His innovation with whom we come into contact. blurred but it might be closer to and spontaneously (most often was to carry out the study as if the truth to say that in a growing around someone’s desk). observing tribes of people from He also identifies the number of cases they have been Sorting things out as and other cultures. The focus of the characteristics of the best social eradicated and that the evolution when they arise can improve study was how people interacted spaces including the proportion of cities and offices is informed by productivity – the quantification with social space. of sitting space to circulation a two way exchange of DNA. of this effect was recently labelled space and the way we like ‘collisionable hours’, i.e. the Their findings were ultimately different levels of light in a space. One of the interesting aspects of number of probable interactions reported in a short book called Crucially he also reports that the work of both Oldenburg and per hour, per area. The Social Life of Small Urban if you want a space to be used, White is how they anticipate our Spaces and a film, fragments it should be stimulating and current interest in engineering This has important implications realms, including parks, cafés and the trends the author identifies of which are available online enticing. serendipity in office design. A 2014 for workplace design, not least benches. are already evident in the many including one looking at the piece in the Harvard Business that there should be a greater types of workplaces we see. The pleasures of being able to change Similar issues are addressed in Review called Workspaces That focus on offering spaces that This process is already well under book shows how the office of seating arrangements. Facilities the work of the sociologist Ray Move People found that in four allow people to interact in way in many organisations. A new today can vary from a sweeping managers will recognise the Oldenburg, who popularised the different companies, across spontaneous and unplanned book from RIBA Publishing written open expanse of ergonomic behaviour from their own meeting idea of the Third Space as a way various industries (media, ways. One way of achieving this by Nicola Gillen, may be called workstations, to something that and social spaces. of describing how we interact advertising, public sector, legal), is by aping the characteristics of Future Office: Next-Generation looks very much like a local, well- with people in shared places. unplanned contact was found ad-hoc meeting spaces in other Workplace Design, but many of designed coffee shop. WORKCAFE: ALWAYS THE COFFEE BOSS DESIGN + WORKPLACE INSIGHT

About Boss Design.

Founded in 1983, Boss Design is one of the UK’s Now employing more than 300 people across the market leading manufacturers of high quality office globe, Boss Design has a wealth of experience Conclusion. seating, upholstery and tables, and enjoys global in helping to enhance customers’ corporate success within this design-led sector. environments, offering choice, reliability and Work has been subject to a work and the rest of our lives are relax or share time with other exceptional service. perfect storm of technological, eroded by new technology and people, a range of products exist The company leads by example and continues to cultural, economic and new ways of working, we are able that create the same dynamic in improve on the delivery of an intelligent & evolving demographic change in recent to apply the forms and functions the workplace. portfolio, whilst maintaining the best years. The result has been a of other realms that have little ethical standards. complete reassessment of how in common with the traditional A work cafe doesn’t have to be and where we work. office. quiet but shouldn’t be too noisy either. It can work in small and Fortunately, we have never As just one aspect of this, the underutilised spaces, particularly Head Office London Showroom known more about how to get very best modern office design where there are high levels of Boss Design Limited Boss Design Limited the best out of people, address has absorbed the aesthetic and footfall, but can also work as a Boss Drive 7 Clerkenwell Road their wellbeing and what they functional principles of café bigger space. It should also be Dudley London need from the workplace. We are culture to create configurable available at all times to make West Midlands EC1M 5PA also fortunate to have greater elements that create adaptable, the most of both the working DY2 8SZ knowledge of an array of design comfortable spaces. So, just as day and the building itself. Most models and how they can be we choose and then adapt the importantly it should be aligned Tel: +44 (0) 1384 455570 Tel: +44 (0) 20 7253 0364 applied to meet those needs. So, right kind of space when we enter to the needs of the people who Fax: +44 (0) 1384 241628 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7608 0160 as the old demarcations between a café to work on a laptop, read, work in the office. [email protected]