The Art of Gathering, a placemaking perspective
Work Life by Design
Hey! Have you read Priya Parkers book, ? If you haven't yet, I highly recommend you do, it's a good read! In her book Priya shares: "gatherings in our lives are often vague & unproductive" And I would argue that our workplaces are in fact a place where we gather, rather than places we "go to" to "work", and if we want people to come to the workplace, we need to be offering them an experience. It needs to be a purposeful, and productive contribution to their lives. In today's episode I'm expanding on the framework that I share with you in , to dive deeper into the...
info_outline
Working your M.A.G.I.C at Work
Work Life by Design
"When work starts to work again, it becomes a place where people want to be" Creating a thriving workplace where people want to be, voluntarily, requires us to take a different perspective to the "productivity" approach that our workplaces once swore by. Today's guest is Sharon Darmody. With a background in Occupational Therapy, Sharon is an Organisational Consultant, Mediator and the Founding Director of Strive Occupational Rehabilitation. With over 25 years consulting to organisations, she identified a recurring theme, leading her to develop her M.A.G.I.C model to help businesses, teams and...
info_outline
It's not about RTO Mandates. It's about Fostering Community
Work Life by Design
If we’re still talking about getting people back to the office, we’re having the wrong conversation”. I don’t know about you but I’m getting frustrated with all this RTO talk! I think those that are stuck in this vortex, are completely missing the point! What we should be talking about, is what makes a workplace a COMMUNITY. In the work that I do, creating a workplace where people WANT to be is key, BUT while the physical environment plays a large part, it’s not the whole story. “For centuries our communities have centred around sharing an imagined...
info_outline
Season 6 Fostering Community
Work Life by Design
🎉🎉🎉 Welcome back for SEASON 6!!! 🎉🎉🎉 As I hit record for this episode, #138, I had a nostalgic moment as I reflected on how much the world has changed since I first started the podcast back in July 2020. We were all living in limbo, as we were very much still in the midst of adjusting to the impacts of the pandemic, in and out of lockdowns. Four years on and SOOOOO much has changed; · The way we THINK about work has changed · HOW we work has changed · WHERE we work has...
info_outline
That's it for Season 5! The highlight reel from 48 episodes
Work Life by Design
Well, that’s it for another season! After kicking off season 5 back in November last year, I think it’s well and truly time to switch off the mic for a while! This season has definitely taken on a life of its own and it really snuck up on me that we’ve been going straight for 48 episodes, almost a whole year! I’ve had the pleasure of engaging some incredibly intelligent, wise, and generous guests in conversation over this time which has what has kept me wanting to do “just one more!” episode. But here at COMUNiTI we are heading into our busiest season of the...
info_outline
The Art of Focus in a World of Distraction with Angela Lockwood
Work Life by Design
The art of focus in our modern worlds has become just that. An art. With books like Johan Hari’s Stolen Focus and past guest Dr Kristy Goodwin's, Dear Digital we need to talk, the constant disruption, distraction mulit-tasking and task switching that we are all succumbing to is impacting our ability to truly focus. Add to this all the pressures and competing demands of daily life and we are quickly looking at fatigue, exhaustion and burnout. And whilst the rise of flexible working has given us more freedom to design our days and work lives, it’s a bit of a double edged...
info_outline
Why you need to guide your people through change
Work Life by Design
One of the biggest misconceptions about “a new office” is that it is simply that. A new place for us to conduct our business from. A design and construction project. This could not be further from the truth. “A new office” is a whole of business opportunity and at its core it is actually a “cultural transformation project”. Everything about the way the new office looks, feels, operates is all new. It’s in a new location, with a new commute and with that comes a whole new set of routines and rituals. Now while some of your team might be excited by the...
info_outline
The Pilgrim's Guide to the Workplace with Dr Agustin Chevez
Work Life by Design
Is the workplace really just a ‘task’ place? This is one of the thought-provoking questions that today’s guest poses, for us to ponder about our reality of work and the workplace. Dr Agustin Chevez is the author of . It was after reading a book on the diversity of Iguana’s in the Galapagos Islands, that Gus set off on a pilgrimage from Melbourne to Sydney, to explore the impact that isolation has on the diversity of our idea’s. Fast forward a few years and Gus is sharing his insights as 34 signposts from this exploration in his book, inviting us to reimagine...
info_outline
What I Thought Everyone Knew But Doesn't
Work Life by Design
One of the reasons that I first started exploring this idea of Workplace Strategy was because I am fascinated by how businesses tick. What makes one business a roaring success and another flounder? And one thing that continues to fascinate me is the gap that I see emerge in almost every engagement. And it’s a gap that I feel like I automatically step into fill without a second thought. But this gap is one that differentiates what we do at COMUNiTI apart. When clients approach us, they are likely to be seeking a Design Solution. They don’t go to the design team...
info_outline
To own a Desk or not to own a Desk? What you need to consider when adopting desk sharing with Dr. Jenna Mikus
Work Life by Design
With more of us embracing the opportunity to work from home, it’s leaving our workplaces underutilised as occupancy levels in the workplace drop. The impacts of this vary from workplace ot workplace depending on the design style and approach ranging from limited variety in the spaces available for employees to perform their work through to a lack of energy and “buzz’ that comes from bringing people together in the space. As someone who engages with organisations daily in this delicate dance of who gets to own their desk and who doesn’t, weighing up the commercial realities of leasing...
info_outlineAs organisations are navigating this new landscape of “hybrid” work, a conversation that is happening more and more, is one that centres around “how do we work?” and “how do we want to work?”, before we start talking about, “what does our office look like?”.
Today’s guest, Dan Mottau, did just that.
Dan was introduced to me by a mutual colleague when I was looking for thought leaders in the People & Culture space to join me for my book launch panel in Melb.
From the first conversation I had with Dan, I was completely blown away with his approach to work and workplace. This was someone who spoke my language and absolutely understood the impact of how a workplace design NEEDS to respond to the operations of the business.
So much so, that when the opportunity arose for Dan and the team at Redbubble to create a new workplace, rather than heading straight out to market and chatting with leasing agents, though took a moment to really think about “how do we want people at Redbubble to work?”
That simple question set them off on a journey that completely transformed, not only the way they work, but then also the place that would best support that way of working.
So, I’ve invited Dan to join me here for a conversation, to share what really is a progressive, insightful and in some ways quite a radical approach to the whole process, and one that I would welcome more organisations to consider when embarking on the opportunity of creating a new workplace. To first, really question the nature of work, the way their people work and then what they truly want from their workspace to facilitate and enable that work.
What I find fascinating about this approach, is that it was a people led approach. As Dan shares with us, the project lead was their head of DBI. This was not a project that was handed down to the facilities team, via finance, it was entrusted to the People teams to deliver, hiring in the support they needed, when they needed it.
This is an approach that I want to highlight, as taking this approach to creating your next workplace, leads your business to creating a very different outcome. An outcome that puts you people at the centre, and a focus on create a space that optimises the performance of your people, not just the performance of your building.
Dan is a senior people, organisation development, learning and communications leader, who enjoys examining the underlying motivations and patterns of thinking that elicit amplifying and diminishing behaviours within and between teams.
His approach is heavily influenced by behavioural psychology and anthropology, especially as their principles may be applied to team functioning and the cultivation and sustainment of psychological safety and high performance. With a passion for accelerating the growth of leaders, and for increasing their personal impact through the success of their people.
As you’ll hear him say, he’s a people geek!
So, let’s jump into today’s conversation!
LINKS
Get your copy of Mel’s new Book “The Next Workplace; Designing Dynamic Environments that Inspire Human Potential”
Connect with the Dan;
Connect with Mel
Email | Insta | LinkedIn | Website | Website | Whitepaper - The Road Map to Employee Experience