Who is stealing all the sugar!?

“Who is stealing all the sugar!?” — said almost everyone. How do companies get here? Why do items like coffee, sugar, milk, the stash of candy and cleaning up the kitchen drive people toward anti-social behaviour?

Nowadays it’s not just your product or service that sets your organisation apart but also the employee experience. We believe that all of the good work organisations do is the direct result of a healthy, happy and challenging working environment. When work culture goes wrong and unhappiness creeps in it tends to manifest in the weirdest ways. When adults are treated like kids they tend to act out, and the more they do, the more organisations tend to impose rules upon them and the more rules they impose the more people act out… and it so it goes on and on…

So what happens when a firm famous for a culture of innovation and design tries to act corporate for just one day?

The results are astonishing! They are a reminder that whilst we all experience things differently — ideas like an open office may work for Inquisition but may not work for you — in spite of this we can and should design the employee experience. Via experimenting with rituals, habits and governance practices your organisation will learn what nudges employees toward positive behaviours and pushes them toward negative behaviour.

Who knew a cookie jar could spur a rebellion and result in an opportunity to design such a worthwhile experiment.

So our hint to you, try a one-day experiment or run through this handy checklist to see how your organisation is doing. As a first idea why not replace your traditional meetings with 15 minute stand-ups instead? Intentionally observe and reflect on the results and who knows, maybe you’ll find a hack which boosts happiness fast?

READ THE RESULTS HERE — https://medium.com/ideo-stories/its-the-little-things