Traditionally, work and the workspace were focused on the individual, with every employee in the company having an allocated workpoint, which became a symbol of their status and identity. Although sometimes used politically, the allocated workpoint ultimately served a positive purpose, allowing individual employees to express who they were and supporting how they worked.
Promoting the human instinct within us all to mark our territory, workpoint ownership contributed to employee engagement and motivation by helping employees create a sense of place and belonging in addition to helping them form emotional attachments and connections.
As the focus of today’s workplace shifts away from the individual and more towards the team, the workspace is following suit. With workspace sharing approaches such as hot-desking and activity based working, the individually allocated workpoint is disappearing and the broader team owned spaces incorporating shared workpoints are proliferating. In this scenario, how do we continue to connect people to the physical workplace, each other and the organisation?