Involvement space – the transformation of the workplace

Involvement space – the new role of a workplace.

What is a workplace?

You can ask a 5-year old to tell you what a workplace is, and he/she will tell you, quite obviously, it is the place where you do your work, as opposed to the place where you do activities you do for yourself.

This was accurate a few decades ago, but we came far from the Victorian era. With the birth of concepts like “freelancer” and “remote work”, a coffee shop or your own bed become legitimate workplaces.

Since globalization and information technology provide the perfect context for flexibility, what happens to the classical concept of a workplace?

Involvement space

Transformation fills the void. At the dawn of new work concepts appearing studies show that the human need to gather is even more important. In an interconnected society, feeling alone is becoming the biggest fear to which the remote workers are the most vulnerable.
We need to gather, and we need a purpose.
This is how the concept of involvement spaces is born.

It is relatively new and is born a hybrid out of the classical objective and the newfound need for meaning and purpose of the workers.

With the coming of age of millennials, for whom the number one motivation is not pecuniary gains, the major connecting force is community and involvement.

Companies that recognize and act on this are the only ones who can benefit from the energy and full potential of the “new worker”.
An involvement space is a workspace with a focus on its impact on the community beyond CSR campaigns.

How do you recognize such a workspace?

• The focus is on social involvement and human impact
• It was a bottom-up decision-making process when it comes to involvement
• Employee engagement is the main KPI

Fight For Your Cause

Given its resources, the IT sector is more willing to adopt this model. AROBS Transilvania Software, an international software company recently finished its pilot program for a campaign named, Fight For Your Cause. The implemented campaign took place 100% internally with a single major objective: involvement.
It served as a platform for employees to be able to get involved in their nearest community. The company staked 3 prices to be given to NGOs only, while the employees selected an NGO to which they have become ambassadors.

This motivated long-term engagement, without any artificial incentive.

Hence, the company created the framework, but the decisions were made by the employee – bottom-up.
Even though this was just the pilot edition of the campaign, more than 30% of the total employees got engaged. For further editions, this is expected to grow by at least 20%.

Furthermore, besides the success of the campaign per se, side-initiatives started to grow wings and other groups of employees started their own fundraising projects.

Transformation won’t happen overnight, but initiatives of this sort gradually become values, then a  mindset, thus shaping the business model.
The shift from a classical workplace to an involvement space is not only the responsibility of the marketing or HR department but the whole management structure of any company that is planning to keep its business in the near future.

If you feel like you would like to get involved in projects like this, this might interest you.