Building better work environments
An EC project undertook investigations into the criteria that formulate a healthier, happier and more encouraging workspace. To define the most important elements within the working environment that people interact with, either of a physical, virtual or hybrid nature, the project constructed a hierarchy of workspace criteria. This hierarchy of elements they termed WorkScape. WorkScape centres on the immediate environment and the elements of setting. The focus as such, was therefore engineered to be location-independent and to ensure workspace compatibility between fixed and mobile, local and remote work areas. However, because emerging technologies are influencing the working environment, the workplace has to be adaptable. In order to construct an environment that pertains to these ideas, workplace elements first had to be developed and identified. WorkScape's listed characteristics that the project would need to deal with. Such concepts as the ability to control boundaries, give access to people, access to information and data and the ability to support group work activity. As such, these concepts advance the workplace as an idea of "overhead" into an idea of dynamic investment in worker productivity.