Company culture goes beyond just policies and mission statements—the ingrained values, attitudes, and behaviours shape how your team operates day to day. This intangible force impacts everything from employee satisfaction and innovative thinking to client relationships and overall performance. Needless to say, cultivating a strong, positive company culture should be a top priority.

You might be surprised to learn that the very design of your office can significantly influence the culture you're trying to create. How you lay out workspaces, choose furnishings and colour palettes, and incorporate amenities, all send subtle signals reinforcing desired cultural norms. By optimising your office's physical environment, you can intentionally mould and improve the company culture.

In this guide, we'll explore how thoughtful office design decisions can enhance collaboration, strengthen brand identity, foster productive atmospheres, and cater to diverse employee needs - ultimately allowing you to shape the ideal cultural foundation for your organisation's success. Key focus areas include how office layout affects company culture by enabling certain behaviours.

Key Takeaways:

• Company culture encompasses values, attitudes, and behaviours that define the organisation
• Office design intentionally shapes cultural norms through environmental cues
• Elements like layout, branding, colours, and furniture impact collaboration and productivity
• Different work zones should cater to diverse employee needs and workstyles
• First, define your precise cultural goals, then design an office to enable that culture
• Simple, lower-budgets changes can make a significant impact on the cultural environment
• Partner with specialists like Furnify to create an optimal culture-enhancing office

The Relationship Between Office Design and Company Culture

The physical workspace profoundly impacts the cultural norms and behaviours that emerge within an organisation. At its core, office design either facilitates or hinders the company culture you aim to create.

The connection starts with how the layout and amenities influence daily interactions and workflows. An open office with open-plan desks and communal spaces can nurture a collaborative, transparent culture. Whereas a traditional design with private offices and rigid boundaries may reinforce hierarchies and silos.

Beyond the basics of the floor plan, other design elements also shape culture more subtly:

• Colour schemes and textures elicit psychological and emotional responses tied to productivity, creativity, etc.
• Furniture choices promote certain postures and behaviours (e.g. comfy lounge seating for casual meetings)
• Artwork, branding elements, and decoration styles reflect company personality
• Amenities like gaming areas, gyms, and cafes cater to specific demographics and work-life priorities.

Principles of Culture-Enhancing Office Design

When it comes to shaping your company culture through design, there are a few key aspects to focus on. Let's go through some of the main principles:

Open vs. Private Workspaces

• Open office layouts with shared desks encourage collaboration and transparency
• Private offices provide quiet spaces but can lead to siloing
• The right balance depends on the culture you want (innovative vs. traditional)

Branding and Identity

• Use your brand colours, logos, and other visuals throughout the office
• Branding reinforces the company's identity and what it stands for
• Employees will feel more connected to the core values

Atmosphere and Productivity

• Colours, textures, and materials have psychological effects
• Warm tones can spark creativity, while cool tones promote focus
• Natural lighting, plants, and artwork also impact moods/energy levels

Diverse Work Zones

• Dedicated quiet zones for head-down solo work
• Lounges and casual meeting areas for collaborative tasks
• Offering variety caters to different workstyles and needs
• But be mindful of potential distractions for focused work

The main thing is being very intentional with your design choices. Every element - from the layout to the furnishings - should tie back to the specific culture you envision. Small considerations can have a big impact.

Setting Goals for Your Office Culture

Defining Your Cultural Priorities 

Before making any design changes, you must clearly define the cultural goals you want your office to support. Take a step back and ask yourself questions about the core values you want employees to embody daily. Is innovation and creativity paramount? Or is cultivating a more corporate, professional environment the priority? Maybe a collaborative team atmosphere tops the list. Or perhaps you need a balance that caters to diverse work styles and personality types within your workforce.

Aligning Design to Culture 

Once you pinpoint the precise culture you hope to foster, those ideals can directly inform your design approach. For an innovative, creative-focused culture, your office may call for open workspaces to spark idea sharing, bright colours and modern decor to energise, plus brainstorming rooms, maker spaces, lounges, and game rooms where staff can refresh.

In contrast, if you lean towards a more traditional, corporate-minded culture, the design may mix private offices for heads-down work with quiet zones, utilising neutral tones and minimal decor to avoid distraction. You'd want sleek branding and formal meeting spaces that exude professionalism.

Working Within Your Budget 

Budgetary constraints also need to be considered. A complete office renovation may not be feasible, but there are usually lower-cost moves you can make. Simple changes like updating artwork, creating a casual lounge area, adjusting desk layouts, or repainting can drastically shift the cultural environment.

The Fundamental Goal 

No matter your goals, the key is first defining your ideal culture precisely, then making purposeful design choices to enable and reinforce those behaviours, mindsets, and values in the physical space day-to-day.

Additional Tips and Resources: How Furnify Can Help

Beyond the bigger renovations, there are some lower-cost ways to start shaping your office culture through simple workspace changes:

• Refreshing decor with artwork, plants, and brand colours
• Creating momentary social hubs with stylish standing desks
• Using movable partitions to separate different work zones
• Rearranging desk layouts to enable better collaboration

However, for a truly transformative office design that optimises your cultural environment, your best solution is to partner with a specialist firm like Furnify.

Here at Furnify, we provide innovative office furniture and design solutions tailor-made to cultivate your ideal company culture. Our modern product lines include:

• Modular meeting pods for focused collaboration
• Private solo work pods for distraction-free productivity
• Ergonomic standing desks and chairs to boost comfort and energy

Our design experts work closely with you to understand your organisation's cultural goals, work styles, and aesthetic preferences. We then create a customised office plan that intentionally enables the culture, behaviours, and atmosphere you envision.

Don't settle for a mediocre office culture stifled by outdated design. Invest in an energising, purpose-built workspace by getting in touch with the Furnify team today. 

 

FAQs

Can an open office layout really impact culture that much?

Absolutely. How your office is laid out plays a major role in the type of daily behaviours and interactions. An open floor plan with collaborative spaces naturally encourages more communication, idea-sharing, and team-based work. On the other hand, an office with many private cubicles or walled-off areas can inadvertently promote a siloed culture. So yes, the physical layout directly shapes how office layout affects company culture.

What's more important for culture - office design or policies/processes?

Both elements are crucial for establishing a cohesive company culture, but they work together. Your policies and processes provide the formal guidelines for how employees should act and work. However, the actual physical office design reinforces those desired behaviours subconsciously each day through environmental cues. The most effective approach aligns policy with an office built intentionally to cultivate that same cultural mindset.

Our office is already established - is it too late to redesign for cultural change?

It's never too late, as workspaces constantly evolve over time. If your current office design no longer aligns with your desired culture, redesigning is one of the most effective ways to reset and mould new cultural norms. With an intentional design promoting the behaviours, work styles, and values you want, you can quickly overwrite past cultural patterns as employees adapt to the new environment.