5. Break out areas, but better
Every office has a break-out area, but they’re usually dull places with a couple of cheap sofas and a drooping pot plant. What the nation’s trendy media and technology companies have learned is that encouraging employees to hang about in a break-out area for longer than is strictly necessary could actually be a good thing: it means they’re more likely to talk to others who turn up.
Lots of companies have installed video or pub games without seeing any drop in productivity. When MySpace opened its office in London in 2007, it put musical instruments in its break-out room, with the idea that musical collaboration would beget collaboration of another kind…
This article originally appeared on Management Today.