My mom, an only child who grew up feeling lonely, loved working in a hospital because, as she said, “It’s like working in a family.” She thrived in that committed group in an intensely human setting, and loved teaching for the same reason. My father, at the other extreme, always said to me, “The best boss in the world is an asshole.” He was a labor arbitrator and an art dealer on the weekends, and was proud to be self-employed. I can still hear the tap-tap-tap of his typewriter and smell the cigarette smoke as he wrote decisions from his home office in the attic. Both my parents liked their work well enough, but they especially liked their radically different work environments.

One challenge for employers today is building offices that equally support people whose personalities–and subsequent working styles–differ as dramatically as my parents’ did. It isn’t easy, and it’s one reason that the era following the rise of open offices is all about multifunctional spaces. But while physical design–furniture, noise control, and so on–is a big piece of the puzzle, it isn’t the only factor.

For companies interested in building work cultures that support all personality types, there are a few simple steps you can take before deciding where that new couch should go or how many cubicles to disassemble and carry to the curb. Here are a few.

Please click here to read the complete article from Fast Company.