Insights

#5: Dear Self-Starting Team Player..

by | July 14, 2020 0 Ideas

Hey You. Y‘know, you’re really special.  No, we mean it. Your collective experiences and skills polished over your lifetime make you uniquely qualified to do the work you’re doing. Maybe you’re an architect with an anthropology degree that makes you particularly adept at predicting behavior and use patterns within a building. Or perhaps you’re a […]

#4: Rules of Engagement: Constant Cooperation

by | July 9, 2020 2 Ideas

As we’ve sheltered in place and avoided social contact over the last few months, many of us have thought quite a bit about what the return to office life will look like. How do we share space and physical resources? How will we provide the mental and spiritual support for each other? How can we […]

#3: Rules of Engagement: Building Trust

by | July 7, 2020 0 Ideas

At SERA, we come to work knowing that our offices are environments of respect, cooperation and collaboration. That’s not going to change when we return after working from home for so long. But it won’t be exactly the same office we left either. Social distancing, face masks, obsessively cleaned surfaces and a conspicuous lack of […]

#2: Social Contact Requires a Social Contract

by | July 1, 2020 0 Ideas

Welcome back to the SERA Workplace series! Have you thought much about social contracts? No? That makes all of us. Prior to this pandemic, it was (hopefully) understood that you shouldn’t take up two seats on a crowded train, trim your nails at the conference table, stand facing the back of the elevator, Reply All […]

#1: The Future of Workplace is Us

by | June 29, 2020 6 Ideas

Have you seen that feature on the Web about the new plastic dividers between desks and the new social-distancing-conscious layouts for conference rooms? So have we. All fifty-thousand versions of it. We would like to approach the question of our future workplace not from the perspective of furniture layouts, but from the point of view […]

Making Our ‘Sustainable Action Celebration’ An Online Success

by | May 15, 2020 4 Ideas, Sustainability

Every year near Earth Day, SERA hosts a firm-wide celebration in honor of our sustainable workplace culture and project accomplishments. As Chair of the Sustainable Action Committee (SAC), my vision for the celebration this year included a physical timeline of SAC’s 15-year history, an unveiling of our 2020 Sustainability Action Plan, and collaborative break-out sessions to […]