Offices at Work: Uncommon Workspace Strategies That Add Value and Improve Performance, by Franklin Becker. (2004). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 197 pp. $45 (hardcover). ISBN 0–7879–7330–0.
✍ Scribed by Inez Vanarsdall
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2005
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 50 KB
- Volume
- 16
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1044-8004
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
His many years of research and experience are shared in Offices at Work, a new book that makes facilities management and design accessible to those outside the field.
In Offices at Work, the author shows how the use of space can be a powerful tool for leveraging, encouraging, and stimulating organizational effectiveness. However, he also realizes that it may take a fundamental paradigm shift to identify and implement workplace strategies that alleviate the pressures organizations are facing as they struggle to become more effective. In this shift, workplace design becomes a dynamic tool for new ways of working. Rather than looking at space only in terms of the expense of furnishing a desk, chair, and wastebasket at the lowest cost, we are encouraged to think about the workspace in new ways. Offices at Work helps management (including HRD professionals) understand how organizations can leverage scarce resources of people, space, technology, and finance to strengthen their competitive advantage. This entails increasing the ability to attract and retain the most qualified staff, and improving their work effectiveness as individuals and in teams. The author is able to draw from business, economics, psychology, organization development, and many other areas to blend with workplace design. Becker never loses sight of the fact that people are the most important resource of an organization.