Because business is changing, the way people work is changing too. At Herman Miller, our researchers spend time looking ahead, anticipating our customers' needs. As work processes evolve, workplaces evolve. Our researchers are staying ahead of the game by focusing on the future and the impact of change on worker effectiveness.

 

Making Teamwork Work: Designing Spaces that Support Collaborative Efforts

"'Teams' and 'struggle' are two words I hear a lot," says a researcher who has listened to managers, facility planners, and team members from a number of types of companies talk about their efforts to promote and support collaborative work. Despite the benefits that teamwork promises to business organizations determined to improve productivity, quality, and worker commitment, many appear to struggle with the implementation of more collaborative organizational structures and work processes. Managers express disappointment in teams that don't perform to expectations. Workers complain that so-called team activities take too much time from their "real work." Facilities and human resource managers often find themselves caught in the middle, trying to provide environmental and organizational designs that support team efforts, while simultaneously reducing costs and response time.

 

Churn in the Workplace: Understanding and Managing its Impact

The ability to respond quickly to change is one of the major challenges facing corporations in today's highly competitive global economy. Companies must constantly rethink and adjust their business strategies to meet the dynamic needs of the marketplace, and with each successive change they must rethink the ways in which they organize and carry out their work.

 

Experience of Color: Information About the World

Touching, tasting, smelling, hearing, and seeing — these are the ways we get our information about the world, about where we live and where we work. But the world of humans is primarily a world of sights, with 90 percent of what we know of the world coming to us through our vision.

 

Office Environments: The North American Perspective

Change is rampant in North American enterprises — technological, social, demographic, economic, and political change at both global and local levels. Business realities are more tumultuous than ever before. Today's organizations are undergoing a fundamental transformation in the way they think about, organize, and carry out work in a globally competitive economy. This movement is characterized by a change from large, hierarchical, command-and-control organizations to smaller, more fluid, team-oriented enterprises with greater participation from an empowered work force.