What We Can Learn From Google

Google has some of the most fun and modern office interiors. Not to mention, the search giant has creative collaborative workspaces and business interiors that make a lasting impression. Google is truly an inspiration when it comes to office design and there’s a lot we can learn from them!

Lesson #1 – Design an environment for the goals you want to achieve.  

Google teaches its employees to have fun. The company wants its employees to be happy and stay for a while. As noted in an article on Google by Fast Company, a sense of play — engineered to break down barriers and encourage creativity — is essential for good work. Being that environment influences behavior, “if you want to facilitate crazy ideas and creative thinking, an environment should be created that can help achieve that,” according to Google’s Global Program Manager for Innovation and Creativity, Frederik Pferdt.

Of course if you can’t have a bowling alley or video game room in the workplace as Google does, you could always have collaborative workspaces in the form of shared desks and informal meeting areas for communication and relationship building purposes.

Employees at Google’s Zurich office share a space.

An informal meeting area in Google’s London office.

Lesson #2  – Diner booths in place of conference rooms facilitate creativity.

This was one lesson that we just learned. It came out of the CBS News article Inside Google Workplaces, from Perks to Nap Pods. David Radcliffe who is responsible for creating the perfect environment for Google employees tests everything in the Google environment from floors to furniture. He discovered diner booths work better than traditional conference rooms and said: “Casual collisions are what we try and create in the work environment. You can’t schedule innovation, you can’t schedule idea generation and so when we think our facilities around the world we’re really looking for little opportunities for engineers or for creative people to come together.”

Here’s one diner booth design from Google’s Moscow office.

And here’s another from Google’s Dublin office.

Lesson #3 – No workspace is complete without a space for a power nap.

As noted in the CBS News article mentioned above, a space for employees to nap in the workplace is a must. Google furnishes its offices with nap pods also known as EnergyPods. Here’s one photo of an EnergyPod.