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Does your office design appeal to Millennials?

Written by Admin on . Posted in Workplace

Never has it been more important for employers to understand the emerging workforce. With websites such as Glass Door and Seek providing a platform for employees to review their workplaces, jobseekers have more information than ever before. The ambience, culture and comfort of an office can be greatly improved with clever office design, so Evoke Projects has some tips to encourage your staff to rate your workplace highly.

Who’s who in the zoo?

Firstly, who are the emerging workforce and what are their general work preferences? Making up around 34 per cent of employees,* Millennials or Gen Y are the fastest growing group. They were born in the early 1980s – early 2000s and in another ten years, they will dominate the workforce. We also have some Gen Z (a label often used for the post-Millennial group) youngsters starting to enter the workforce, but we know much less about their work styles.

To get the best out of Millennials, work has to be much more than a pay check.
Millennials are in love with technology and like to feel connected and able to self-express, even when at work. They care about the environment and social causes. They want acknowledgement and flexibility from their employers. In fact, work/life balance is a priority for Millennials with 95% of respondents in a PwC survey saying it is important to them.**

5 tips for Millennial-friendly office design

  1. Ensure your office design reflects your brand through colour, logos and maybe even a clever gimmick or two. Millennials love to be a part of something, so make them proud to be a part of your brand.
  2. Embrace technology throughout your office design. Install charging points for smartphones, and add large screens for podcasts and video conferencing.
  3. Give employees the opportunity to be mobile, rather than sitting at a desk all day. Centralised print and copy hubs will encourage people to move around the office. Go paperless as far as possible so that meetings can take place anywhere, any time. Paperless also appeals to the environmentally friendly Millennials.
  4. Flexible working is popular with Millennials so the potential to work from home will be well received. Within the office, design the layout according to the task and work flow so that staff can move to the best zone for the work type. This is known as activity based working.
  5. Help improve their work/life balance by adding break out spaces and lounge-style office furniture to your office design. This will encourage informal collaboration and give staff that feeling of connection. Bring the outdoors inside with pot plants and homely features. Add a coffee pod machine and ditch the instant powder.

Employment in 2017 and beyond will have to be mutually beneficial beyond the ‘work for reward’ relationship. Millennials like to express themselves, so you can expect more and more candid feedback on employer review sites. Why not give them something great to say?!

To find out more about office design to suit the new generation, please call Evoke Projects on 1300 720 692.

* https://nfppeople.com.au/2016/02/three-workplace-trends-your-nfp-cant-afford-to-ignore-in-2016/

** Millennials at work – Reshaping the workplace by PwC http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/talent/future-of-work/key-findings.html

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