Could Fung Shui Improve Engagement?
Sometimes the things that seem the most irrelevant that make the biggest impacts.
It all started when Program Manager Supervisor Charlene Reavey moved into her new office here at Hinda. Her first impression of the layout didn't exactly fit what she liked.
The new open space"It felt cramped," Reavey said. "It didn't encourage open communication. The room felt like me sitting behind a desk while anyone who was in there listened to me."
Her office layout wasn't uncommon from many offices out there. You walked into the room and there sat the desk, parallel to the door facing. Not too bad honestly but Reavey wanted to change things up.
"I felt closed in and cluttered...I feel like your environment can have a direct reflection on your productivity," Reavey explained about the change. "I wanted the feeling of the room to be a more open and encourage mroe collaborative thinking than to just simply be an office."
Creative stuff. Eventually, Reavey shifted her desk around to a more open look. After several weeks with the change, Reavey could tell a huge difference.
"It completely opened things up to encourage more team-based collaborative work. It helps open up not only myself but the other people coming into the room. Most people like it better...they feel it's more conversational."
One of our own inside Hinda found that a little thing such as re-arranging the furniture in her office could make her employees feel even more comfortable, make her more approachable, and ultimately improve engagement with those she worked with. It wasn't a dramatic change, but just subtle enough to make significant improvements.
What do you think? Could the fung shui of an office improve employee engagement?