physical and mental doors and keys

as to be expected, on my first day at work there wasn't a whole lot of work to do, but more settling in, getting to know the people and where everything is etc...and i had an opportunity to think about the impact that physical space has on your mindset/attitude/performance etc....

on the RH (HR [Human Resources] in Portuguese ;) floor there are hardly any doors...from what i saw only the head of hr has a door on her office - the rest of the managers have a semi-separate space to themselves, which they are all sharing with another manager....the divisions do not go all the way up to the ceiling and there is a very approachable and open feeling around the floor...in addition there are three clocks on the wall showing the time in amsterdam, sao paulo and chicago...which helps to give an international, inter-connected feeling...something that you would imagine to be in the international head-quarters right? :P

on floor -1 there is a doctor, cafe, hairdressing and beauty salon and stalls where different people sell their products, changing regularly...and there is also a bank branch on the bottom floor of this building...the whole design of the building gives a very human and open feeling...i wonder if it has anything to do with brasil's record employee engagement scores over the last few years...?

this whole concept of mental and physical doors was reinforced at a workshop that i visited for a short while this afternoon with my colleague, ellen...it was the final session of a workshop in a teenage apprenticeship program that the bank participates in...the kids are about to finish their two year program and the workshop was to help them think about their next steps and what they have learnt from the apprenticeship program...at the very end the facilitator asked the kids to close their eyes and then he talked to them about the different doors they have come through till now and the different ones that will be ahead of them in life...and then he gave them each a key....representing the skills, knowledge and choice they all have to open the doors and opportunities ahead of them