Managers and companies looking to grow in profit can barely disagree that employee productivity has become a major struggle for managers. Supported by workplace design and service, nudging can be an effective method to increase both employee productivity and workplace efficiency.
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Nudging applies insights from behavioral science to design organizational settings to optimize fast thinking and unconscious behavior of employees in tune with the objectives of an organization.
Google is a great example of a company that has succeeded by doing just that. Stated in several books written by Google insiders covering the principles behind Google’s success – the company applies a very distinctive approach to employee management.
Rather than micro-managing, Google applies simple nudging to improve productivity, decision-making and recognized freedom of their employees. By its open views, the workplace design was created to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing, while the food choices in the cafeteria are laid out to increase healthy eating and thus to manage the health and productivity of its workforce.
A tool to apply when looking to nudge behavior is the office design and set-up. From research, it is known that stand-up meetings cut meeting time with 25% without influencing the quality of decisions. Thus, introducing stand-up meetings could be a perfect way to nudge higher meeting efficiency and employee productivity. Run a test in your workplace by replacing regular desks and chairs with stand-up desks only and evaluate the effect with your employees or design a walking path around or in your office building, that encourages people to do walk-and-talk meetings instead.
Nudging can also help if your goals are to enhance organizational knowledge sharing and innovativeness. If you want your employees to start surrounding themselves with people from other departments, re-designing the break and food areas or even creating coffee corners will allow employees from different departments to meet and interact with each other. Naturally, those areas must be arranged in a certain way to create the best and most comfortable atmosphere to engage in discussions and exchange ideas.
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