Nigel Oseland: shedworker

Hertfordshire-based Nigel Oseland is a workplace strategist, change manager, environmental psychologist and author whose Workplace Unlimited business helps people to "redefine their workstyle to create space-efficient and cost-effective workplaces that enhance business performance". He's also a shedworker (his garden office is pictured above) with whom we shared a beer at the most recent St Albans An Afternoon in the Pub meetup.

Nigel has written a nice piece about working in his garden office on his blog which is well worth a read (the other posts are fascinating) and here's a snippet:

"The distance from the house means I have fewer interruptions. The wife and children never bother me down there. I am not a fan of architectural determinism but I am a believer in Baker’s behaviour settings. Barker proposed that our experiences and expectations of a space determine how we behave in that space as much as the physical attributes of it. My family respect that the shed is my primary place of work and treat it as they would treat the office of any organisation I worked for. My main visitors these days are the occasional cat and other distractions come from the occasional squirrel running across the roof, the pitter-patter of rain and a friendly robin prospecting for worms – all welcome."

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What working in a garden office sounds like

listen to ‘I am enjoying working out of the office shed today. Lots of nice sounds.’ on Audioboo

Courtesy of Nigel Oseland -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Workplace Trends Conference 2017: Wellbeing & Productivity

Though not specifically for shedworkers, the Workplace Trends Conference always has sessions of interest to all those with garden offices (or who work remotely) and the concept of shedworking is often raised. This year the conference is focusing on wellbeing and productivity with various presentations from expert folk, plus good networking opportunities. Among the sessions are:

* Re-Thinking Nature for the Workplace - a look at how we can ‘learn from nature’ to come up with hi and low-tech solutions for workplaces

* Oliver Heath on Biophilic Design – how to improve our connection with nature in the workplace

* Friend of Shedworking Nigel Oseland on Creating Environments for Collaboration, Creativity and Concentration

And another FoS, Su Butcher from Just Practising, will be live tweeting the whole thing at #wtrends

It's all happening at Kings Place in London, on March 22 from 10am to 5.30pm. Click here for details. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Beyond the Workplace Zoo (book review)

Workplace strategist, environmental psychologist, and longstanding friend of Shedworking Nigel Oseland has a new book out, Beyond the Workplace Zoo. While it concentrates on traditional offices, what's wrong with them (essentially, too much like old zoos and too much thoughtless open planning), and how to fix them (make better use of space), it does touch on elements such as third place working which we follow with interest on this site as well as a mention of garden offices (Nigel works in one himself). 

He also looks at issues which are of interest to shedworkers in terms of humanising the workplace, focusing on the psychology of work and practical considerations such as thermal comfort, acoustics, lighting, etc, with particular emphasis on biophilia,the belief that humans work and live better when they are properly connected to nature e.g. putting plants in workplaces, providing views of nature from desks, etc. Even big boys such as Amazon are waking up to the benefits of this – their ‘Spheres’ headquarters in Seattle is essentially an enormous conservatory with more than 40,000 plants and 300 plant species as well as treehouse meeting rooms and major water features. Nigel's solution is what he describes as a 'landscaped office' which has obvious overlaps with garden offices.

It's a very interesting read, extremely well researched and authoritative, but not packed with academicspeak and so is properly accessible to the general reader. And at 188 pages, including photos and other illustrations, it's not a wristbreaker. Strongly recommended, whether you work in a garden office or not. Below, Nigel talks about it all in an interview on a Journal of Biophilic Design podcast.

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Shedworking AGM...

The marvellous annual Workplace Trends conference was held last week on the theme of 'Property is a People Business' and looked at office environments and how we could improve them in the future. There was a big buzz about it on Twitter and naturally we stuck our shedlike oar into the debate a little. We also rather liked this impromptu cartoon (copyright Workplace Trends 2011) by Nigel Oseland of Workplace Unlimited
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