Corporate sterility

I’ve just spent some time customising a few icons on my desktop. After a while it occurred to me that I could have been doing something productive instead. But what’s productive and what’s not?

My partner, Clare, works for a medium sized company that has grown significantly over the last few years. A couple of days ago, she was complaining about the way everything on her computer is now so tightly controlled you can’t even personalise the desktop background. The working environment has become utterly uniform with a one size fits none approach.

To my mind, an employee’s existence is not driven to enhance the business that pays their salary. Whilst most staff display a professional pride, at the heart of it their lives are about enjoying themselves. Spending much of that life at work, it’s understandable that they want a workplace that’s comfortable, inspiring and enjoyable to be around; minimal aggravation and maximum enrichment.

So why do most companies persist in equating success with the creation of a sterile working environment?

Business isn’t just about making happier, better people, it’s about making profit. It’s ability to do that is proportional to the productivity and creativity of its staff. In turn they’ve been repeatedly shown to be more cost effective if they’re happy and motivated.

Creating the icons was a random creative act. I realised later that this initiated a number of useful insights relating to several business focused activities. Thinking back, it isn’t the first time this has been the case, just the first time I noticed.

Computer systems are endemic in the business today, and they have their part to play in enriching the workplace.

Encouraging general creativity in employees can invigorate business innovation, essential in a rapidly changing world. Letting them express themselves, through background images of friends, family or their own graphic creations for example, will certainly help them feel less like a cog in the machine. These small concessions might lead to your most profitable product.