The Workspace Branding

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The Workplace Branding The office of cubicles and cabins is changing to creatively executed workplace showcasing company branding. WOW Design, started by Deepti Kshirsagar, Saswata Das and Sai Prasad Karalkar in 2009, focuses on the power of branding the workplace to increase productivity at work. When companies think of branding and marketing, they spend hoards of money on external media like TV and Print advertising, hiring brand endorsers, online marketing, etc. But what they usually tend to forget is their internal stakeholders, the employees. Employees are the most important brand ambassadors. Unless the employees know what the brand stands for, they wouldn’t be able to deliver the desired experience to the clients. The key factor for an effective office space design is that your internal consumers are going to spend approximately 8 to9 hours of their life everyday at the same office. Therefore, it’s of prime importance that it inspires and motivates them continuously and it doesn't get monotonous eventually. The WOW Design ensures that there’s always a sense of discovery within the office space and the space should be able to communicate to all of its internal stakeholders without being too preachy. The Purpose wall round the staircase at WOW Design Branding the work environment is a powerful strategy that continuously reinforces the brand experience among the employees. It plays a critical role in indulging the internal stakeholders into the messaging and philosophy of the brand so much that they can actually live the brand every single day. Approach Branding a workspace is much more than just displaying the company logo at the entry façade. It’s about using the entire environment as a media to communicate the essence of the brand. The idea is to make the workspace a constant immersion into the company’s values and propositions so that it can assist in the aligning the entire workforce to the organisational goals. This becomes even more critical in case of service industries where it’s the people who interact with the clients and deliver the brand rather than an actual product. The approach towards branding a workplace will be to create a unique identity so that whosoever walks in can relate to the overall imagery of the Brand.If we are able to personalize the workplace, it results in greater workspace satisfaction and leads to a higher morale. Employees feel that they belong to this space and hence the overall productivity increases. Design plays a key role in achieving all the objectives outlined above. Design can help in personalizing the workspace by the conscious use of brand colours and elements specific to the design language of the brand. If the company wants to foster fun and collaboration in the environment, a vibrant colour scheme can instil the dynamism. The colours need not be limited to the walls or ceilings but can very well be integrated into the furniture and upholstery.In fact, the entire layout design, the ratio of private cubicles to open spaces, can communicate tons about the work culture. Design also helps in giving a meaningful expression to the company values and can work wonders unlike mere words which lie dormant on coffee-table books. It also helps in engaging the employees better with the brand so that they feel a sense of belonging and purpose. Creative WorkSpace at WOW Design office Awareness of Workplace Branding More than the real estate professionals and developers the workspace branding has to be an initiative taken by the company moving into it. The ‘one solution fits all’ doesn’t work inthis case. The builders can’t do much while creating the larger structure and layout scheme. They need to simply ensure that they leave enough opportunity for the brand owners to craft the space as per their requirements. In fact, it’s the prerogative of the brand owners to involve a brand design firm, right at the start when the interiors are being planned. This opens up immense possibilities to plan everything from the furniture to upholstery to shades on the wall, rather than having to live with already provided brown furniture by the developer. A creative branded workspace demonstrates that the company believes that each and every employee’s contribution is essential in taking it ahead towards the company’s vision. Workspace branding is a key component of an employee engagement strategy and can act as a competitive advantage for companies. Studies have proved that better engaged employees perform atleast 20% more than the others. Companies also in turn are able to attract better talent and retain them. And when workspace branding is done smartly it can encourage a free and creative flow of thoughts which can lead to amazing innovations. Challenges The most critical challenge faced in the metro cities of the world is the space itself or rather the scarcity of it. With sky-rocketing real estate prices, most offices tend to optimize themselves- using every inch of it, leaving very little room for any communication. The solution lies in establishing the importance of open spaces and common areas, reducing clutter and chaos, increasing the ratio of discussion rooms to private cubicles, thus encouraging discussions and debate, and foster a collaborative and productive environmemt. It’s not the size of the office that matters, but the design of it. With a little bit of foresight and careful planning, this challenge can be overcome. With the rising entrepreneurship culture, where more and more startups now operate from shared and plug-and-play office spaces, personalizing an office or communicating their unique story becomes a challenge. The same is true for rented spaces, where you cannot change much. But when there is a will there’s a way!If you can’t paint a wall, you can always use wallpapers and decals to tell your story. Case Study Piramal Group is a diversified conglomerate with operations across sectors such as health care, life sciences, financial services and real estate. WOW Design was brought on board to design the new office space that Piramal’s OTC division was moving into in Goregaon, Mumbai. It was a very important milestone year for Piramal's OTC division when they were achieving breakeven and moving out of the umbrella/shelter of their parent corporate brand Piramal Enterpise. It was very timely for them to realize how critical an office space design is not only in terms of motivating the employees for this new journey towards the large goals of the division but also to allay all fears/uncertainty that might crop up due to this new found "you are all by your own" status. The motto for this division wa “Maximise Consumer’s Life by focussing on addressing the consumer’s routine disrupting needs” through the values of “Consumer Centricity”, “Innovation” and “Continuous Improvement”. The challenge was to depict these values through simple yet smart design forms for better assimilation among the employees. The design solution depicted how the products of Piramal enable the consumers to live their life to the fullest without any interruptions. The happiness of the consumer is reflected through the stories that are infused with the product coherently. The design captures the ease that Piramal has brought in a consumer’s life, letting them take forward their life the way they want. WOW Design created a key visual where they integrated company brands like iPill, Lacto Calamine, Jungle Magic, Saradon, etc. seamlessly in such a way that employees were not able to spot all of them on the very first day but discovered something new, they hadn't noticed earlier at all gradually every day. The entire approach and what was achieved came through the thorough the proper understanding of the client’s businesses.