A firm’s new open and flexible office breaks the traditional mould of law firm design, encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing between teams.
Corrs Chambers Westgarth unveiled its new and improved office space in Brisbane this week. The less formal office design is intended to integrate different parts of the business and better meet the needs of clients.
“The work we do with clients is more complex than what we have done in the past and it more regularly requires inputs from various areas of expertise. The old siloed way of working really doesn’t work anymore,” said partner Eddie Scuderi. “We had to find an environment that helped us team more to meet those client needs.”
The office uses shared spaces to promote an egalitarian workplace. Scuderi said the firm has already seen the benefit of the open, less formal space with teams and employees of all ranks engaging with one another.
“In the old days, when you walked into the lunchroom as a partner, the conversation would kind of stifle. Now everyone is in the café area and it’s a real buzz, you are getting that pollination of ideas, people talking about various things and people being happy to be at work,” he said.
The Bates Smart office design also incorporates a large number of quiet workspaces that people to be able to work in an environment that best suits their needs.
“I really think that to get the best out of people, you need to build culture around a teaming effort and that’s one of the best things about this new space it really emphasises it’s an egalitarian workplace and we’re all in this together. It really emphasises that one team approach,” said Scuderi.
