WHAT IS WORK?
Work is the process of creating something of value for someone else. It's the result of applying our skills and talents - our potential - to an actual task. When our energy is focused effectively - and the amount that’s wasted is minimized - we're able to do our best work and create the most value for others.
So if work is the output of human energy, when we improve the way we work, we conserve our most precious natural resource.
Doing your best work impacts all of us
It Impacts you
You have an innate desire to reach your potential and contribute as much as possible to our world. When you don’t have the opportunity to do your best work, it can make you feel frustrated and stifled.
But when you do get the opportunity to do your best work, you're more engaged, create better outcomes, and improve your overall wellbeing.
It Impacts Society
We depend on the talent and creativity of individuals to produce the innovations that drive our world forward and solve our most pressing challenges. Individual wellbeing carries over to society as a whole. We are social creatures and are affected by those around us.
The lack of engagement at work has significant negative impacts on our society, including financial, productivity, and health issues. So when you're doing your best work, you impact all of us.
DOING YOUR BEST WORK REQUIRES THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT
Your work environment is the combination of your workspace and your workplace. We believe that the right workplace structure and a well designed physical workspace can unlock your natural talent and potential.
PUT PEOPLE IN THE RIGHT ROLE AND HELP THEM GROW
Help a person discover and develop their skills, then align them with an opportunity where they can fully invest them.
USE THEIR TIME AND ENERGY WITH RESPECT
Eliminate the wasteful items that reduce their ability to contribute. Things like workplace politics and emotional battles, needlessly rigid schedules and policies, bureaucratic decision making, and useless tasks drain creative energy, focus, and motivation.
OPTIMIZE THEIR PHYSICAL WORKSPACE
Ensure they have a space for work that is designed around ergonomics, productivity, and aesthetics. Creating a space to support their optimal physical and mental state helps them stay focused and energized throughout the day so they can do their best work.
IMPROVING THE WORKSPACE EXPERIENCE
When setting up our home offices, we weren’t able to find the products that we wanted to create a workspace that we’d love to work in. So we decided to design our own. Each and every product we design is focused on improving the workspace experience to make it more ergonomic, productive, and aesthetic.
To Work is Human
While our products are focused on the physical aspect of the work experience, we wanted a space to share our broader thoughts and ideas around workspace and workplace design.
The Fourth Element: Aesthetic Design
This article is the fifth and final article in our series The Four Elements of a Great Workspace. After covering designing your workspace for ergonomics, productivity, and communication, in this article we’ll cover the aesthetic considerations of workspace design.
The Third Element: Communication
This article is the fourth article in our series on the Four Elements of Workspace Design. If you’ve been following, you’ve already learned about the first two elements: Ergonomics and Productivity. While these two elements focus on your experience in your workspace, the third element focuses on how well your workspace enables you to communicate with others.
The Second Element: Productivity
This is the third article in our series, The Four Elements of a Great Workspace.
The First Element: Ergonomics (or Human Factors)
This is the first article in a series covering HumanCentric’s four elements of a great workspace.
The Four Elements of a Great Workspace
At HumanCentric, we’ve found it beneficial to design the way we work based on the goals we want to achieve. We’ve applied this approach to many areas: our daily work location, how we manage our teams, how we choose our tools, and how we design our policies are all driven by the type of workplace we want to create and the experience we want our team members to have.
Introducing Our Journal: To Work is Human
This is a space to share our ideas. Our ideas about work: how work gets done, the place work should occupy in our lives, and how to make work better. At HumanCentric, one of our core beliefs is that work is a central part of life, a uniquely human way to contribute to our world. We believe that “work” is not a four-letter word.
We’re a fully-remote team committed to the benefits of independent, asynchronous work.
Our core product team is based in the Chicago area, but we’re a fully remote company based in five countries around the world. We’re passionate about building a high-performing, fully engaged group of talented individuals who create amazing products for our customers.
