Workplace design
We are leading the creation of multi-departmental workplaces across the UK, supporting civil servants to reach their full potential through collaborative, inclusive and flexible workplace design.
We are leading the creation of multi-departmental workplaces across the UK that are providing modern and innovative working environments. These environments are designed to support civil servants to reach their full potential through collaborative, inclusive and flexible workplace design.
We work closely with our clients across the wider government office estate in order to support the adoption of smarter working principles, whilst supporting the needs of each department through industry-leading workplace design principles. We also collaborate with the wider public sector and private sector companies to share learning, identify innovations and make improvements, together.
The creation of major multi-departmental and inter-operable government hubs throughout the UK, through our Government Hubs Programme, is providing cutting-edge, innovative working environments for our people. This is supporting talent attraction, improving productivity and delivering a more diverse and inclusive, modern Civil Service that can work in a smarter, more flexible way than ever before.
Smarter Working and business change
Smarter working is a modern approach to working that provides choice and flexibility, enabling the civil service to achieve the best possible outcomes for the organisation, its employees, clients and customers.
Well designed, activity-based work environments empower our people to work in different ways and in different locations, accessing a variety of settings to support them to deliver a range of tasks. Smarter working optimises the use of our workplaces and technology to improve productivity through a focus on outputs and enables a better work life balance for all.
Smarter working, the Government Hubs Programme and the Westminster Campus Programme sit right at the heart of our ambition by:
Opportunities
Providing greater opportunities to attract and develop skilled, talented and committed public servants from across the UK, where we will be closer to the communities we serve, and able to deliver better outcomes for them.
Places
Providing great places to work that will inspire people to be their best and to find new, creative and innovative ways to solve problems.
Support
Supporting people, teams and organisations to deliver their ambitious plans through workplaces, technology and ways of working that best support the range of activities they need to undertake.
The Government Workplace Design Guide
The Government Workplace Design Guide ensures space is designed to support smarter working, recognising that different work requires different types of space to enable collaboration, creativity and community regardless of how and where people choose to work.
Key working zones
Our Government Workplace Design Guide identifies key working zones that support people to be more productive and effective, while enabling everyone to be themselves at work by providing choice:
Team home
Team home zones are where teams will usually work on desk-based, daily activities. Consisting of work settings dedicated to routine work in work settings suitable for longer durations.
Collaboration
The collaboration zone provides our people and teams flexibility and a wide choice of how and where to work. They offer a variety of work settings ideal for group tasks and activities which can be carried out most effectively in an environment away from a focussed setting. This includes work settings to support virtual collaboration as well as in-person.
Do not disturb
These work settings provide space in which individuals can concentrate, work with complex information or conduct confidential activities, without being distracted or disturbed. These spaces have a higher level of control of the immediate environment (i.e. lighting, acoustics, temperature) to support a wider range of office users.
Shared amenities
Amenity spaces provide the shared facilities required to complement the work settings and support people while using the building. They consist of a variety of non-directly work related settings such as those providing services and facilities or for social interaction and wellbeing purposes.
Business Events Centre
The Business Events Centre provides spaces for our people to engage with the public and visitors securely and professionally. A fully flexible, multipurpose serviced events centre can be used for meetings, training and conferences.
Using the guide
The Government Workplace Design Guide is intended for use by anyone involved in commissioning, planning, designing and managing new or major redevelopments of government office estate. Buildings can vary greatly, as can the organisations that work in them. The guide is not intended to be used as a prescriptive manual, but rather establishes a benchmark in aspirations, space standards, look and feel, corporate identity, and importantly, a consistent design approach to all government office workspaces.
It is our goal that this guide will be the minimum standard for the entire central government office estate. We will drive and encourage adoption of these standards across the wider office estate as part of delivery of the smarter working ambition and through advising and supporting our clients and customers.