The Employee Experience Advantage

CHAPTER 5The Physical Environment

The physical environment is the one in which employees actually work, and it comprises 30 percent of the employee experience. This is our surroundings and includes everything from the art that hangs on the wall to the catered meals the organization may offer to the cubicles or open floor plan employees may sit in. It's no secret why our physical space matters. We all want to spend our workdays in environments that energize and inspire us. These types of workspaces help us feel more creative, engaged, and connected to the company we work for. Not only that but also the physical environments in which we work act as symbols that represent the organization and our decision to be there. Great physical environments act as positive symbols and representations. Poor physical spaces act as negative ones. This was first discovered by Edgar Schein, a former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management and author of the book Organizational Culture and Leadership. In this book he talks about three levels of organizational culture, which are artifacts, values, and assumptions. According to Schein, all three of these things must align, and there are a lot of parallels between these three levels and the three employee experience environments that are explored in this book.

Interestingly enough, with the rise of coworking locations, global connectivity, and collaboration technologies, many people believe that offices ...