The growing demand for ‘organic workplaces’: Hubs and work spaces that are good for us

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This evening I went to an event at Hub Sydney. I’m a big fan of the global Hub network of co-working environments, am an ‘Ambassador for Awesome‘ for Hub Sydney, and have visited a number of Hubs around the world including running a crowdsourcing workshop at Hub Westminster last year.

Interestingly, in every Hub I have visited I have immediately got a very positive sense about the space, something indefinably common across the Hubs, a feeling that there are good people and good things happening there.

As I left the event I had a conversation with the new Hub Sydney Space Host Emma Higgins. She was describing how from her perspective the people who work in the Hub are healthier, they look better, they have a better color, they’re fitter, you can basically see in their faces and bodies that they are simply more well than people who work in corporate environments.

When she sees executives from major companies who visit the Hub, she sees the result of many years of working in environments that are not positive and supporting.

It made me reflect that we are indeed at a time when people are seeking to work in “organic workplaces”, that are truly natural and not infused with toxins.

The vast majority of workplaces we’ve known until today are absolutely inorganic, in that they are artificial, distant in design from the humans who spend so much of their time and energy in them.

Now is a time when rising expectations mean that people are no longer content with these inorganic, unnatural, forced, negative environments.

We want to spend our worklife in organic environments, naturally emergent, positive, generative workspaces.

All the Hubs I’ve visited, including Hub Sydney, absolutely have a feeling of being organic.

I have to say that in recent years I have visited quite a few corporate workplaces that you could well call organic. Companies are getting far better at recognizing the importance of this, and creating these kinds of spaces for their staff.

Let us see what we can do in coming years to create “organic workplaces”, one in which our essence is supported.