How an Open Office Space Promotes Collaborative Learning & Why Collaborative Learning is Important in the Workplace

As you may very well know, collaboration in the workplace is a powerful thing that shouldn’t be neglected. Workplace collaboration is essential to the overall success of your day to day operations, as it directly impacts productivity, creativity, and other vital facets of your employee performance.

If you’re looking for ways to boost employee performance across the board, we urge you to consider joining the modern revolution of open offices and coworking spaces. As the business world continues to evolve from outdated, rigid office layouts toward spacious, engaging work environments, open office spaces are becoming more and more popular for a myriad of reasons—one of those reasons being collaborative learning.

In this article, you’ll discover the impact that an open work space can have on your company and why it’s so effective in promoting workplace collaboration.

Removing Barriers

Not that long ago, the standard office layout revolved around privacy. Employees were encompassed by a maze of cramped cubicle walls, leaders were confined to closed office spaces, and collaboration was designated to bloom only in stuffy meeting rooms at scheduled times.

Today, we are quickly shifting toward a work environment that is devoid of walls and barriers. In an open work environment, workplace collaboration is boundless, planting seeds and growing ideas over and over again throughout the course of a single work day. Employees and executives alike can start and end a quick brainstorming session without having to schedule time in a conference room or track each other down in a labyrinth of cubicle walls.

The best ideas are fleeting, and without an outlet, they are forgotten and lost under a soft and constant drizzle of urgent to-dos, unexpected tasks, and personal distractions. An open office space removes the barriers that limit collaborative learning, and instead fosters a community of creative minds that are free to work together without constraints. 

Diluting the Perceived Hierarchy

In this generation of high turnover rates and new workplace fads, employee trust and loyalty has become more important than ever. One of the best ways to build strong relationships with your employees is to dilute the old-school perception of a company’s hierarchy, if only just a fraction. In this age of personalization and expression, employees want to know their employers and feel connected to the company they work for.

In an open workspace, employees can engage more frequently with their superiors. Not only does this promote collaboration on several different levels of the company, but it also builds trust, which leads to new ideas from those who wouldn’t otherwise schedule a meeting to discuss ideas.

An open office should also provide more opportunities for the executives to socialize with their employees in shared common spaces, break rooms, etc. This gives employers the chance to connect with their employees and relate with them on a more personal level.

We’re not suggesting that all of the executives at your company ought to take a seat right alongside the employees, but that they take advantage of the open work environment to engage with employees and represent the company in a more relatable light. By diluting the dated perception of a company’s hierarchy, you can build trust with your workers and make them feel more comfortable expressing ideas and sharing their opinions with you.

Achieving a Greater Understanding

In an open workspace, employees are naturally exposed to the way their coworkers operate. They get an inside look at the workflow and challenges of other roles, which gives them a greater understanding of the many different facets of the company. This mutual understanding can level expectations, remove common frustrations, and make it much easier for departments to collaborate effectively.

Interdepartmental collaboration is one great example of how an open office space can benefit the entire company. Without an inside look at how another department operates, it’s easy for miscommunications and frustrations to arise. Customer service is dissatisfied with sales, sales is annoyed with marketing, and so on.

It’s important for individuals in other positions to familiarize themselves with the daily operations of those they need to work well with. Without the barriers of walls or cubicles, they can do just that. 

Harness Collaboration with Davinci

The fate of your company rests in the hands of your employees and how well they’re able to work together on achieving big goals and supporting the long-term vision. Hiring the right people is a start, but making sure those people can participate in effective and open collaboration in the workplace is vital to the success of your organization.

Let us help you create an environment wherein workplace collaboration can flow naturally. At Davinci, we’ll help you find the perfect coworking space for your team to collaborate in, and we’ll even provide you with additional resources to elevate the impact. Contact us today to harness the power of collaboration in an open workspace.

About Coco Quillen

Coco is the Vice President of Operations at Davinci Meeting Rooms. She manages the strategic development and operational implementation of services for Davinci. She works closely with all teams to ensure customers are well taken care of. Google