Making Teamwork Work:

Designing Spaces that Support Collaborative Efforts

"'Teams' and 'struggle' are two words I hear a lot," say a researcher who has listened to managers, facility planners, and team members from a number of types of companies talk about their efforts to promote and support collaborative work. Despite the benefits that teamwork promises to business organizations determined to improve productivity, quality, and worker commitment, many appear to struggle with the implementation of more collaborative organizational structures and work processes.
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Office Alternatives:

Working On-Site

The economic realities of the 90s have forced businesses to reassess and make fundamental changes in the way they structure their organizations. In this report, Herman Miller's Advanced Applications Group looks at how new ways of working affect corporate facility design and answers some frequently asked questions about supporting on-site work in a time of continual change.
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Office Environments:

The North American Perspective

Change is rampant in North American enterprises--technological, social, demographic, economic, and political change at both global and local levels. Business realities are more tumultuous than ever before. Today's organizations are undergoing a fundamental transformation in the way they think about, organize, and carry out work in a global competitive economy.

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Third Places:

The Social Side of Work 

Recognizing the social side of work and how the workplace can foster it is likely to generate the kind of innovation that companies need to compete effectively. Research shows that those with extensive social networks receive higher performance ratings and faster promotions than others. The most effective knowledge workers create and tap large, diversified networks that are rich in experience and span all organizational boundaries. Technological advances have liberated people to work wherever they like, yet physical proximity continues to be important--knowledge, talent, and the wealth they generate all tend to cluster. To create a sense of community and foster the social side of work, organizations are combining attitudinal changes with innovative facility design and furnishings.

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