Hearing the right “silent” messages

Space designers and managers are also really focused on you getting the right messages from what they provide.  Some research studies have found that the nonverbal messages that you pull from your workplace have a more significant effect on your workplace performance than any other aspect of the physical environment in which you find yourself.  The designers are very keen on having you understand that the organization recognizes the contribution that you make to its success and also value those contributions.  This is one of the reasons that you may find a zippy new espresso machine in the break area or marble tiles on a bathroom floor.  Studies have shown that you’re really likely to look for clues about what management thinks about you in backstage areas such as bathrooms—how they are designed, materials used, how well they are maintained—so that’s why your offices’ designers and managers seem so fixated on your opinions of the bathrooms—they’re not perverts!

Building designers and managers also know that people looking for jobs try to decide if they’ll take a job at a company (or not) depending on what the environment looks like—what it seems to say about the company—which is another reason they’re really into getting the silent signalling correct.