Cape Town-based full service Web hosting firm WebNow recently moved offices after occupying its previous space for six years. Since starting up in 1999, the firm has grown to 20 people, as its portfolio expanded with the acquisition of several significant projects.
These include a cradle-to-grave online shopping site for Toyota South Africa; the full registration management sites for the Cape Argus Cycle Tour, Junior Cycle Tour, Tricycle Tour and Giro del Capo; and a content management-based site for Cape Town's Canal Walk Shopping Centre.
The firm's product offering has also grown to encompass all aspects of Web hosting, domain management, bulk messaging and Web site development. WebNow is currently working on a range of new products, including some SaaS applications.
New plans, new office
With this growth came the need to establish a new office space, designed to help foster creativity and fitted to accommodate a rapidly expanding team.
CEO Jean-Pierre Dumont explains the challenges of providing facilities for different workspaces and different work streams. “We realised early on that the space needed to be flexible. We have call centre staff who spend a lot of time talking to clients on the phone. Our developers need quiet space to think and strategise. Added to that was the need to provide a space for our Web designers to be able to think creatively and brainstorm ideas. So our new space had to facilitate those conflicting needs.”
The new office, which the firm occupied earlier this month, is a linear space on the fourth floor of an office park in Cape Town's Tyger Valley. The layout allows the reception area to form a natural partition between the different functions without alienating the different teams from each other.
The development team is clustered together, set away from the more public call centre functions. The design team benefits from a casual breakout space that flows out on to a balcony that wraps around two sides of the building. This space gives everyone the ability to interact with each other and share ideas.
What the experts say
But, says Dumont, improving productivity is not just about the physical space. “People are inherently sensitive to their surroundings, particularly when they are there for eight hours a day or more,” he explains. So before the move, Dumont did some research into the benefits of providing a healthy working environment to improve productivity. Here, he shares some of his findings.
Research conducted by the UK's University of Warwick has shown that happy staff are 12% more productive than those with lower moods. There are many ways to achieve this equilibrium. Corporate days out, team building exercises, in-house yoga or massage therapy, 360^0 satisfaction reviews and performance-related bonuses are all tried and tested methods of keeping a smile on the company dial. Some are more successful than others.
Many leading firms within the IT sector are renowned not just for their service or brand value, but for the office environment they have built for their staff to thrive in. Googleplex, Pixar and Red Bull are some examples of funky office environments that breed productivity and build success.
Dumont has identified 10 reasons why productivity can be boosted when staff are more contented within the workplace:
1: Get your people to call my people
Hal Rosenbluth, author of management book The customer comes second, says that by building an environment that breeds friendships a company can find success. When people are happy, they tend to have better relationships with their colleagues. If interpersonal relationships are good, teams work more effectively, managers relate better to their subordinates and customers feel more satisfied, which could translate into more sales.
2: Shiny, happy (creative) people
Creative, innovative ideas come out of people who feel happy with what they are doing. Teresa Amabile, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, confirms this: “If people are in a good mood on a given day, they're more likely to have creative ideas that day, as well as the next day, even if we take into account their mood that next day.” When people feel good, they are more flexible, fluent and original in their thinking. Even if the person's mood drops the next day, those creative juices continue to flow.
3: If it's broke, then fix it
In her blog Overcoming Life's Obstacles, Cindy Holbrook explains that happy people don't wallow in self-pity. So, even if every molehill looks like a mountain, when people are happy they approach problems with a can-do attitude, preferring to solve the issue rather than agonising or complaining.
4: Bounce around
The University of Warwick productivity study compared productivity levels between happy and unhappy people. The study showed that positive emotions reinvigorate people. Feeling positive, refreshed and invigorated gives people more energy, helping them to do more and work more efficiently.
5: Yes-men (and women)
Happy people have a more positive, optimistic outlook. Research conducted by Martin Seligman, Director at the Positive Psychology Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that optimistic people produce more successful and productive outcomes in their work. As the old adage says: “Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're probably right.”
6: Go get it!
Productivity suffers when people are not motivated. As software entrepreneur Brett Rykman puts it, 'motivation by pizza' doesn't work. The only sustainable, reliable way to be motivated at work is to enjoy doing what you are doing. And in the wrong environment, the only thing that people gain from pepperoni with double cheese is inches to the waistline.
7: Cough splutter wheeze
Kill the germs before they kill the productivity. Stress in the workplace has been proven to contribute to long-term diseases, including heart disease, gastro-intestinal disorders and back pain, as well as depression and anxiety. With illness prevalent in staff, productivity can be badly affected.
A US-based study by the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology assessed the impact of job strain on the health of 21 290 female nurses. In this study, it was the women who didn't enjoy their work that were shown to be most at risk of ill health.
8: Get it? Got it.
Alexander Kjerulf, aka Chief Happiness Officer and author of Happy Hour is 9 to 5 emphasises how you learn better when you're happy. A more open and relaxed mind is better placed to absorb new information, which contributes to productivity.
9: Don't sweat the small stuff.
We're all human. Humans make mistakes. The difference is how people deal with those mistakes. Going on the principle of Richard Carlson's book Don't sweat the small stuff, people are more productive if they pay less attention to the small things and more attention to the things that really matter. If people make a mistake, the most effective approach is to pick up, apologise, fix it, learn from it and move on. A more relaxed attitude leads to less stress, fewer mistakes and more effective future working.
10: Happy people make better decisions
When people are unhappy they work in permanent crisis mode. As Alexander Kjerulf explains, when people are in this zone, “their focus narrows, they lose sight of the big picture, their survival instincts kick in and they're more likely to make short-term, here-and-now choices”. Happier people are able to make better decisions, informed by facts, and then they use those decisions to prioritise their work. This ultimately leads to improved productivity.
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