New Design

I apologise for returning to a theme which I have picked up before in these blogs. The design and layout of our offices has been a defining feature for A4e over the years. The bright colour, open plan, shared kitchen facilities, sofas, friendly style, open plan, fresh fruit, quality furnishings, notice boards and positive feel have all contributed to A4e creating a new place in the market for our customers.

Brilliant.

When we bring along our international visitors they always remark on our unique premises. And when we look at our competitors it is easy to see the impact we have made on them and the style of premises they use for their clients. I am pleased that the whole service provision has improved for the unemployed and disadvantaged communities who need our services.

I have recently spent a week in Singapore meeting with the government to explore the way in which our ethos and style of delivery could be utilised in Singapore to support the hardest to help clients. It was wonderful to see that in an economy where there are 18,000 new entrants to the labour market each year balancing against 44,000 new jobs which are created each year, there is still a place for our “Improving Peoples Lives”. Singapore has a population of 3 million people supplemented by an additional foreigner workforce of approximately 1.25 million (to meet the demands of the economy). However, there are still 2.3% of local people who sit outside of that economic success. This community is older, infirm, and unskilled, demotivated and perhaps has a prison record. We hope to have a role in helping this community return and stay in work.

However, in the evening, being away from my family, I ventured out into the night and was thrilled to find a “Borders Book Shop” in Orchard Road Singapore. I bought myself a Starbucks coffee and settled down to a good night of exploration. I like to wander randomly picking out a shelf of books I have never looked at before.

And tonight it was Architecture “New Hospital Designs”.

Wow there were hospitals with big plasma screens in reception, in corridors, in each waiting area, plasmas in the toilets, plasmas on the ceiling in children’s wards. The plasma screens were welcoming people, giving information, showing videos, playing cartoons, carrying CNN news, stock market prices, gardening tips, language lessons, weather reports and traffic updates. It looked so customer orientated, customer centred and “not” like a hospital.

Can we use plasma screens in our centres to raise the impact of our work?

They had climbing walls in reception. 45 metre high, full scale climbing walls. Hard hats, instructors, children and pensioners all experimenting and learning on the climbing walls.

Should we have climbing walls in our centres to tackle confidence and health issues and to add a sense of fun to our work?

There were art lessons and craft workshops in the waiting areas, clowns performing in the corridors and volunteer musicians singing in public areas of the hospitals.

How do we use music and humour in our work?

There were pet areas, so that patients could see their pets, people could bring pets onto ward areas so children could spend time with the pets. Donkeys outside and snakes being held by sick adults.

Should we let our customers bring their pets to the centre, should we have fish and rabbits and snakes as part of our centre?

There were musical instruments in odd places in the hospital so that patients would stroll up and start playing the drums, harp and xylophone.

There was loads and loads of daylight, big open windows that went from the floor to the ceiling and roof lights and glass roofs and open air parts of the building (like parts of the ward where the roof could be peeled back so that on sunny days the patients could effectively experience being outside whilst they were inside.

Has anyone seen the school that holds 50% of their lessons outside? Do we have enough daylight in our centres?

There were pieces of keep fit equipment left everywhere to encourage people to have a go and casually start to build there programmes of rehabilitation. They were not in a gym but just in corridors. Healthy eating areas, outdoor home grown veg and fruit were being grown, and a meadow for daisy chain making.

Could we have a mini Gym in each centre, or just a running machine?

Information was being sent via texts and plasma screens to inform patients of their treatment and progress.

Families were integrated into the system of care and welcomed onto wards to support feeding, washing, caring, touching and cuddles.


So you know what’s coming next.

Could we learn anything from these new hospital designs, can we stand back from our innovations of the last 10 – 15 years and push ourselves onto the next phase. Can we again set the standard, lead from the front, push the boundaries and perhaps create a whole new space in which we can support our clients and enhance their chance of moving into sustainable employment and find news to involve families in the process we are facilitating so that we can bring a sense of family to our impact. So much of the damage caused by exclusion and unemployment is felt within the family, sometimes contributing to the break up of the family. And so I wonder if as part of a review of our physical environment we could also look to the way we engage and bring value to the families of the clients we support.

What do you think?

If you want to be involved in this regeneration process contact me below.

Thanks

Roy