By Dan Holstein with Erika MacKay
August 26, 2021
This podcast is hosted by Dan Holstein, a business coach, and his guest is Erika MacKay from NICHE for Design. Her business is a commercial interior design business that specializes in workspaces. They believe that the workspace is a tool to establish a sense of belonging and connection amongst staff members. Basically, their goal is to design a space where people can work effectively, no matter their needs. They take into consideration their client’s business needs, team functions and preferences to make a beautiful space.
The best collaborations they’ve done are when owners or managements have been engaging with everyone and getting feedback from all their team members. Getting as many people as possible in the brainstorming before the design allows them to focus their energy on the right thing and make the client’s investment worthwhile but also to give the staff a comfortable space to be productive in. They’ve even been able to tie improvements, like fewer sick days to some of the updates they have produced. By allowing all these people to be involved in the decision-making creates a sense of appreciation, rather than management just making the decisions for everyone. Management could be all hyped up on standing desks as that is the new hype, but after a quick survey of staff members, all they want is a lounge area.
Dan asks Erica how wellness fits into the design realm and how often that comes up for her. Erika said the topic was relevant even prior to Covid-19. Wellness has been a “trend” in the design world for probably the last 5-10 years. This stems from business owners realizing that their workers are their biggest asset and biggest investment. She mentions the WELL Building Standard, which she became certified for. This designation ensures that businesses are taking into account their space, HR policies, cleaning protocols and other aspects to capitalize on their team’s wellbeing and health. A company showing that they care about these things has proven to be a contributor to the retention of employees and attracting top talent.
Erika and Dan continue talking about the shift happening in businesses, now coming back to the office after being on pause for the pandemic. Erika is seeing a staggering number of requests for more hybrid office designs. She takes these requests and sees that this working from home has gone better than expected for some, but others still want that social connection to the office along with flexibility. Both from staff and management, flexibility has been the number one feedback. Whether that be flexibility in workstations, working hours or location where they are working from.
This could be applied to a variety of different office spaces. As Erika mentioned, her company specializes in workspace design, although they have done other spaces as well. I'm not sure if every company goes to a designer to renovate their spaces or if that is done internally but I believe using a company like NICHE for Design, could be highly beneficial to office spaces everywhere. they seem to know what they are doing and receiving plenty of positive feedback from their clients.
I found it really fascinating that Erika mentioned that most of her clients get input from their staff about new office design changes. personally, I have never experienced this. Most of the time we are the last to even know about changes happening. So hearing that there might be changes being recognized is really exciting. It was also very interesting to hear an interior designer's point of view on different trends and how they go about working with businesses to create these new workspaces.
Holstein, D., & MacKay, E. (2021, August 26). Take flight – business growth strategies with business coach Dan Holstein - Commercial Workspace Design for productivity and connection - interview with Erika MacKay, Niche for Design. Google. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNTUxMzY3LnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC05MDkyMjk5.
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