Workplace solutions

Real estate professionals are recognising the positive impact they can have on their corporation’s competitiveness by providing workplace solutions that enhance individual and team performance. To develop successfully workplace solutions that meet both today’s and tomorrow’s needs of the organisation, the workplace design process must incorporate new ways of thinking about work; include team members who until recently were not involved in workplace design; and provide physical solutions that meet the definition of ‘agile’ (easily adaptable, flexible, and varied) environments. This paper discusses the evolution of work and the changes that have occurred in the workplace in an effort to meet these new workplace needs. The traditional models used for programming and planning the physical environment are no longer effective when dealing with workplaces for today’s knowledge workers. The importance of developing new processes for identifying ‘tomorrows’ workplace requirements; the team members who must be involved to develop and implement these new solutions successfully; and the types of physical environments that must be created in order to enhance workplace and worker performance are all integral in the development of the high performance workplace.