Tag Archives: workplace

Workplaces of the Future: Will the office look like my son’s bedroom?

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Oliver’s ’Big Boy’ Room by Jug Jones, on Flickr One of the questions raised at the Green Building Council’s Workplaces of the Future Summit held on 12 April, was will my office look like my son’s bedroom? The answer is apparently Yes. Now I like to think that this relates to all those cool crazy things like the car bed pictured, and not the mess of a teenagers room, but possibly it could be either! Today I’m covering the second half of the summit, if you missed my post on the first half of the Summit – Freerange Working, click here.

Psychology and the Workplace
Natalie Slessor – Lend Lease
Natalie is an environmental psychologist and talked about what is needed to design places that connect with people, attract staff and promote well being. The workplace should to be synonymous with the organisational culture and values.

Using clever groups of three words beginning with the same letter Natalie identified key issues in designing workplaces to achieve these outcomes.

Competence, Control, Confidence – does the environment facilitate work/productivity, can the occupant control the environment, does the environment make the occupant comfortable, safe and give confidence.

What is the vision? What is the experience? What is the question we need our workplace to help us answer?

End State, Engagement, Evidence – understanding and addressing both organizational and individual drivers and fears, honesty is important as part of the engagement strategy, strength of evidence based research to help in decision making.

Bruce Precious – GPT Group
Bruce was a self admitted naysayer of activity based working – until GPT moved into their own refurbished offices in the MLC Tower, and now he is a dedicated convert.

As a major property owner and landlord, GPT Group embarked on a major fitout of its own space within the MLC tower to demonstrate that existing buildings can indeed keep up, with a showcase fitout designed by Woods Bagot. Bruce spoke on the process of behavioural change management, moving from an environment which housed “more paper than people”. There were certainly many staff for whom the move to non allocated desking and only 1m of storage  space provoked fear and anxiety, Bruce himself among them. However by starting the conversation with staff early and the CEO taking a leading role, the shift has been successful. Within the first 3 months, 88% of employees would not have gone back to the previous environment. The idea of the ‘biggest loser’ competition where staff competed to reduce paper/storage brings some fun into the change management process (I wonder if ‘gamification’ could perhaps be taken further in the context of stakeholder management?)

Whilst research suggests that an office environment in itself might not be motivating it can be demotivating according to well known psychologist and “pioneer of job enrichment” Frederick Herzberg. After the staff had moved in extensive post occupancy studies were undertaken using BUS occupancy survey method and compared to previous studies for the old GPT offices (also in MLC but on different floors). GPT now rank as the most satisfied office occupants out of the offices surveyed in Australia! Bruce believes the GPT fitout may not be motivating but it is certainly inspiring.

GreenStar Interiors – Beyond Office Interiors
Jorge Chapa – GBCA
The uptake of the GreenStar Office Interiors tool and its impact on the market for environmental products has been significant. However rather than just update the existing tool, the GBCA has extended the reach of this rating tool with the release of the new GreenStar Interiors Tool. The new tool takes GreenStar interiors to other environments beyond the office being applicable to any type of interior – education, healthcare, retail, industrial (I must say I was left wondering what an industrial fitout might be?) and is currently in pilot version.

The new Interiors tool focuses on sustainability for people. It is also a simpler tool with less documentation and instead of prescriptive metrics defines criteria that design teams can use to find solutions to suit their projects.

Brett Pollard – HASSELL
The new HASSELL Sydney Studio fitout is aiming to be the first project certified under the new GreenStar Interiors tool. The new tool has a more human centric focus and will help improve a wide varitety of work environments. A wide range of spaces such as healthcare buildings, retail environments and law courts are covered by the tool – and are all workplaces too.

HASSELL has long been a supporter of the GBCA and have designed many GreenStar projects including SA Water House, which achieved a 6 star rating for both Office Design and Office Interiors tools. HASSELL has also obtained ratings for its own studios in Melbourne, Brisbane and Shanghai (LEED rating), which are also located within refurbished industrial buildings rather than new building stock.

Brett spoke of the human need for choice and how we can design the likely choices to be more environmentally friendly, ideas coming from the book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein).  This book uses the term ‘choice architecture’ to describe how human choices can be ‘nudged’. For example if we design the default settings for a meeting room to have the lights and air conditioning off instead of on,  many users will then simply leave it off, only turning on if needed, resulting in energy savings.

Amanda Steel – Stockland
Amanda spoke of how the use of retail space is changing and already includes spaces such as art galleries and community rooms. Shopping centres have become a social hub and are no longer just for shopping. All Stocklands Centres now include community rooms which are used for a wide variety of purposes. Wifi in shopping centres is essential. Shopping centres may already act as a third workspace, and in the future it is likely that coworking spaces will also become part of a retail environment (I am aware of The Milkbar in Canberra which is a coworking space in a former retail space/strip, not in a centre).

25% of people are in shopping centres to do something other than buy a product. Unlike in office spaces, the outcomes of sustainability and human centric measures in shopping centres are easily measured in terms of sales and time spent in centre. For example with an increase in daylight, shoppers will increase time in the centre by 30%.

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Workplaces of the Future: Freerange Working?

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Chickens by Richard Elzey, on FlickrOn Friday I attended the Green Building Council of Australia’s Workplaces of the Future Summit in Sydney. I thought I would share with you some of my notes and thoughts for the day. One of the key messages from the day is that the workplace is changing and there is a big focus on the experience of the user – many of the presentations dealt with this issue and it forms a larger part of the new GreenStar Interiors tool (which is now is pilot version). A number of the speakers used the term ‘freerange working’ to describe a new way of working where the user has more choice and space in which to move as well as a more enriched workspace experience.  The summit was a fantastic opportunity to hear from a wide range of speakers including designers, occupants and researchers.  As I have so much material, this will be a two part post.  Part 2 next week will include an update on the GreenStar Interiors Pilot tool. (Part 2: Will the office look like my son’s bedroom?)

Bilophilic Design – Dr Stephen Kellert (Yale)
Dr Stephen Kellert is a Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology from Yale and was the keynote speaker of the summit. His presentation was an introduction to biophilic design, what it is and a summary of research showing why biophilic design is beneficial to building occupants.

Biophilic design is based upon the idea that we are biologically predisposed to attach meaning to the natural world and therefore incorporate nature into buildings and urban spaces to improve the human response to the built environment. The design can include the incorporation of the actual natural environment through plants, water views or the like, or by the influence of nature through patterns, complexity and variation of design and the use of natural materials. Much of the world’s most famous architecture – for example Gothic Cathedrals or the Sydney Opera House exhibit principles of biophilic design.

Dr Kellert also discussed a number of studies which have shown that such environments improved outcomes for human health and productivity. These studies included healthcare, social housing and factory settings.

Those interested in finding out more should visit http://www.biophilicdesign.net/ where you can purchase the film Biophilic Design: The Architecture of Life or various books written by Dr Kellert.

The Workplace Diaspora
Sarah Kay (Woods Bagot)
Sarah spoke of the “Google Generation” – those born after the mid nineties, who have grown up with the internet – and the impact their coming into the workforce in coming years will have. Sarah described this generation as always on with a need for stimulation and choice, access to information and an ease with technology and virtual communications. As a result the office space is likely to become more of a place for physical collaboration.

The “Google Generation” are also used to being switched on and communicating 24/7 and as a result working hours are likely to shift and line of sight management may become a thing of the past. This will lead to the physical space of the workplace being utilised more intensively both in terms of utilisation (which we are already seeing), but also in terms of hours of working. Trends such as Activity Based Working, Real Time Working, Agile Working and Alternative Working Solutions are already heading in this direction and Australia has seen a number of high profile examples including Macquarie Bank, National Australia Bank and GPT.

Lauren Haas (Brookfield Mulitplex)
Lauren spoke on the need for developing high performance buildings, which she defined as buildings where the value of the built environment can be objectively demonstrated through independent research.

Lauren looked at the changing design of zoos from providing an environment where animals simply survive in small bare enclosures to today’s zoos where animals thrive in environments that are designed to mimic nature and provide stimulation [I thought this was a fantastic analogy!]. This would lead to higher performance of our building stock. The focus of building performance measures to date has been on energy efficiency, rather than the benefits to the human capital of the business. As salaries and the costs of turnover make up such a high percentage of business costs then the cost benefits to be reaped by improving the environment for the human capital through increased productivity, health and well being are huge.

Lauren was involved in the World Green Building Council report “The Business Case for Green Building”, in the chapter on Workplace Productivity and Health, summing up some of the key research undertaken in this field.

Paul Auglys (Commonwealth Bank of Australia)
Paul spoke on the process of change management in the Commonwealth Bank move to Activity Based Working at Commonwealth Bank Place.  Key elements in the decision for a fairly conservative organisation to make the move to ABW were to visit a number of other projects (Microsoft and Interpolis being key influences) and to prepare a business case identifying benefits across employee engagement, productivity and customer service, environmental and space utilisation measures. It was also important to find the ABW that suits the individual business model.  For  the CBA, the concept of staff having home zones rather than a totally free desking environment forms an important part of their ABW implementation.

After making the decision to move to ABW, key to the successful implementation of the project were the intensive stakeholder engagement process, the construction of a large pilot project were 200 staff worked and an integrated project team including Property, IT and Change Management.

Paul’s advice for other organisations looking at moving to ABW:

  1. Don’t underestimate the amount of change, provide support for change and ongoing training.
  2. Technology is a key aspect and must support the environment.
  3. Tailor ABW for your business – connect your ABW with the culture you want to build.

Carol-Ann Pickvance (HASSELL)
Carol-Ann spoke about the future of work beyond activity based working.  ABW is rapidly moving towards the mainstream in Australia and likely to become the norm.  Workplace trends beyond ABW inlcude coworking and codesign.

Coworking is a rapidly growing way of working where members rent space within shared office environments. Originally envisaged as spaces for start ups and individuals looking for work communities, corporate memberships are growing as the coworking space is seen as an environment which offers different opportunities for collaboration or innovation than the traditional corporate workplace. The Hub in Melbourne is an example of a coworking space. Key to the coworking space is that the workspace needs to attract people to it, the space is self organising and user appropriated (everything is on castors for instant rearrangement) and merges the facilities and atmosphere of traditionally different typologies – coffee shop, education space, workspace. The other concept from the coworking space that offers users additional benefits is the concept of the host, who not only manages the space but also seeks to understand the different projects and people and assist in connecting members and creating networks.

Carol-Ann also discussed the role of technology, and identified that the speed of change means that many corporations are just unable to keep up. Frequently consumer technology at home is ahead of corporate technology. The coworking space is based upon bring your own device and therefore the only technology must is wifi. However in some places coworking spaces are also offering members the benefits of shared high end technology such as telepresence.

Carol-Ann believes that many of the elements of coworking will become important in all workplaces, and in particular the element of user choice. The idea of codesign takes user consultation to the next level incorporating the workplace user group in not just the functional requirements but the whole design process and aesthetic. This could be quite confronting for interior designers and changes the focus and process of design.

I will be going back to discussions on the business of architecture and interior design, but the next few weeks posts will focus on a number of conferences I am attending. As well as part 2 on the Workplaces of the Future Summit, in coming weeks I am attending TEDx Sydney (May 4) and attending and presenting and the Revit Technology Conference in Auckland (May 16-18) and will blog further on topics of interest from these conferences.
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What makes a great workplace design client?

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Office Politics: A Rise to the Top by Alex E. Proimos, on Flickr

A few weeks ago I wrote a post on if great workplace design was a result of great business leadership.  This generated some discussion on who makes a great client, so I thought I’d consider some points on what I think makes a great client for a workplace design project.

Working with any organisation there is more than one side to the client – there is both the culture of the organisation and the personalities of the individuals involved – and usually we interact with two or three groups of individuals.  Firstly the key client representatives, secondly the wider user consultation groups (or end users they are often termed) and thirdly the executive or approval level (in a smaller organisation it is likely this may be the same person as the client representative). As interior designers it is the client representatives we have the most contact with – usually at least weekly.  So it is usually the key representatives that have the biggest impact on client relationship and also the design of the workplace.  Working with the same client organisation can be quite a different experience if one of the key individuals involved at this level changes.

Most often my client representatives have been project or facilities managers at various levels within an organisation. Sometimes they were going to be working in the new workplace, at other times they will remain based in another office (often even in another city). There is a variety of backgrounds in these client types- whilst there were many with a background in construction or architecture or others who had been in facilities a long time and had much experience if fitout, there were plenty with absolutely no experience of buildings, property, fitout or design. Now in my view this isn’t a problem – as long as they realise this and engage us for an appropriate scope of work.  I have had a client who had no experience of fitout design argue with me over how I knew what size to make a 6 person meeting room and wanted a list of projects where I had used that size room before! (Even with plans demonstrating the setout of the room) At the opposite end of the scale I had a client representative who was actually an interior decorator outside of her 9-5 job.  This didn’t make my life easy either though –  she used to call at least 5 times a day and for over 1 month would drop by the office daily to look over samples because she was so personally involved in the design. At the end of the project she returned a box the size of a removalist carton full of samples. (How do you factor someone like that into your fee agreement?)  So as you can see from the above example a passion for design (or maybe just too much time?) is not necessarily the answer as to what makes a great client.

My top 10 attributes for a great client representative:

  1. Trusts us – Respect our professional advice and opinion. Sometimes a colour or a piece of furniture might not be what you would choose yourself but if you put your trust in your interior designer you’ll generally have a better project outcome. That said, the most successful design is a result of an open relationship between the two designer and the time where the client can question and debate the interior designers proposals.
  2. Understands the organisation and business – Both at the strategic level in terms of company direction and aspirations, and at the operational level in terms of the different functional groups within the organisation.  Understand what the organisation wants to achieve through the fitout and clearly communicate these priorities to the interior designer.  Be able to direct the interior designer as to which business groups have specialised needs, and be able to make the judgements about what the user groups need.
  3. Appreciates design – To me this does not mean that you must have highly developed design of knowledge, education, or aesthetic appreciation but that you appreciate and value that you are paying for an interior design service and that this service offers tangible value to your organisation.  You respect that my time is valuable . And you understand that it is our job to design the fit out not yours – you understand the difference between providing the design team with functional requirements of a space versus designing the space yourself.
  4. Manages the user groups – It is important for the design team to have access to the end users at some point during the design process. They need to be the option to ask questions and gain a further understanding of the way people work especially if there are very specific activities undertaken by certain groups. However as interior designers we need your assistance to manage the user groups. We don’t have the authority within your organisation to tell people what they can and can’t have or what they do and don’t need – you need to do this.
  5. Tells us the budget – Trust us to manage their budget (I’ve blogged a little on this subject before). Allow your interior designer to suggest where money is best spent. Clients can get quite caught up in the price of an individual chair. I think this is because they understand and can relate to the price of a chair – you have bought one before. However you need to look at the cost of the fit out as a whole or of larger components of the budget rather than just at a single individual expensive item. Especially if there are just one or two of those expensive chairs in the reception area. Of course, if it is a task chair the cost will add up – but here we are talking about then the investment in good seating which is an important consideration not just the cost. Understand that your fitout is not just a one of project with a capital cost budget to meet now. The decisions you make now will impact upon operational and maintenance costs, as well as how well your fitout will age or meet changing organizational structures and needs. Maybe you would be better off spending more up front to have more energy efficient lighting for example.
  6. Has reasonable expectations – particularly with your expectations regarding program or scope changes.  Understand that there is a fine balance between cost, time and quality, you can’t reduce your program and expect the same cost and quality.  We probably can’t revise the design in less time than you spent reviewing it.  Agree and stick to the timeframes for your own internal review processes. Manage your team (and your management) that needs to be involved in this process.  If you make changes later, or want more 3D views understand you have to pay for this (refer point 3 again!)
  7. Understands that significant internal resources are required – we need access to a wide range of your staff through user groups, to your executive team for decision making (unless they have delegated this task), you need to manage your inputs and reviews and someone needs to manage the relocation process as a whole – there is a lot more to be done than just designing a new office.  Interior designers usually don’t undertake relocations planning, but may be able to assist with some tasks if this is agreed as part of their scope (for example fire evacuation plans or phone number/seating plans would not usually be part of the scope but an interior designer may be happy to provide these as additional items).
  8. Has the authority to make decisions – you don’t have to be the final decision maker, but you need to understand the priorities and provide the design team with confident direction on all matters relating to design – be they functional, aesthetic or budgetary.  If the interior designer is not in regular (weekly) communications with the decision makers you need to be ensuring they are kept in the loop and we are heading in the right direction.  Otherwise we might waste weeks of both our time.
  9. Isn’t worried about their own corner office – you have the interests of the organisation as a whole in mind and not just a focus on your own office, own team or a particular driver that motivates you. You understand that the workplace design will influence staff motivation and productivity and satisfaction and you care about improving the place you work.
  10. Is part of the team – you understand that the best workplace design will be the a result of collaboration and trust between you as the client and your interior designer.  Your input, and particularly your detailed reviews and feedback are an important and necessary part of ensuring that we have understood and captured your organisational aims, objectives and functional requirements.

This list might seem pretty demanding, but I guess that is part of the point.  For a major office relocation, being the client representative is an important and necessary role that does take up a lot of time.  As interior designers or architects we can’t just walk in and give you an office without an understanding of your organisation.  One thing you will notice though – is nowhere on my list does a job title come into the picture.  To me it doesn’t matter if your real day job is in FM or HR or you are the CEO – its about your approach to your workplace design project, your organisation and the people that work there.

What do you think?  Are there any qualities that I’ve left off the list?  Do you disagree with any of the above – am I expecting too much? If you are client side – what are your qualities for a great interior designer?  (maybe thats another post someday)

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Great workplace design = great business leadership?

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OFFICE by jk5854, on FlickrFrequently the question is raised “Does office design increase workplace productivity?” or some other slight variation of this such as increases to staff motivation, retention, collaboration or other desirable attributes to enhance business performance.  I came across one such discussion just this week on Linkedin with some great discussion points. With the current trend towards activity based workplaces and the groovy workplaces of Facebook and Google frequently featuring in the media, many organisations use the time for moving into a new office as an opportunity to question how their new office should differ from the previous one. However, the problem that I have frequently seen is that frequently the business leadership are not highly involved in the decisions of design.

On a regular basis, our clients are often represented by the facility managers, project managers or people with a financial background. They will say to us I want x number of desks at x dollars/square metre by x date. And often and this is how big/shaped the desks are to be.  Their brief (or performance metric) is to provide an office with a certain number of desks at a certain cost by a certain date.  And if the desks are the same as what the organisation has now, they believe no-one will complain too much.  However this is not the way to create great work places.  “…a clear understanding of the organizations cultural inclinations (motivations) and therefore their desired behaviors, is the only way to create a workplace design for the future that is truly effective and supports a particular organization.” (quoted from a comment by Jack Webber on Office Insight: The Business of Workplace Design and Management)

How can we as designers help to educate our clients about the human value of office space when the people who care about the bigger picture – usually the leadership team or the human resources staff are absent from the design meetings? These are the people that can provide the cultural information about the organisation to the design team and who should appreciate the project of the new workplace as it impacts upon the overall business – not just as a one of project to be ‘delivered on time and on budget’.

In larger organisations, all too often the business decision makers are only brought into the room when a significant amount of design time has been spent and many basic decisions have been made. They are there to be “presented to” so they can “sign off”. Sometimes the interior design team never have a chance to even present to those with the authority to make the final decisions.

Frequently this means that key players in the business are not party to much information, discussion and preliminary design materials. They miss the opportunity to input into strategies for cultural and business change through design – perhaps because they don’t understand that a new workplace will result in cultural change or they don’t understand the need to align and prepare the business and manage the staff in advance of the move or that design can be used to reinforce desired cultural changes.

Human resources staff are often left out of the equation altogether unless brought in to manage staff consultation (a whole topic for another day). One of the best projects I have worked on had the HR manager as the key representative. It made a huge difference as to what was seen as a priority and what was presented to the higher management. The needs of staff were taken into account in an intelligent way at a high level, not simply giving in to or providing every small thing that was asked for or denying everything, but decisions made with a real understanding the roles the staff performed and the functional requirements.

Whilst facilities managers are quite frequently very knowledgeable about their organisation and its staff and may have an interest in design they are not usually the drivers of change within organisations. One FM once said to me something along the line of “but why would I want to get involved in trying to change the culture via the new office design, it’s not my job and my job is hard enough trying to keep everyone happy with the new office as it is – I have no desire to change too much”. And I guess that’s fair enough, it’s not their role, background or training. Cultural change and change management is a high level leadership issue. However perhaps as the design of the workplace is changing, facilities management will also change. The Sodexo Workplace Trends 2013 report states that

“To be effective, FM leaders must change their behaviors, and indeed their very identity. FM is not about managing facilities per se; rather, it is about enabling the workforce to be productive and engaged, and to produce value for the organization.”

Part of the point though is that it is not just involving the business leadership or the HR team, it is about these leaders valuing their staff and valuing the part the design of their workplace plays in business processes and staff satisfaction. If the business leaders are involved in the design process but do no more than focus on the size of their own office then they are not effective contributers either. In the end a great office design that enhances an organisations business and improves staff motivation and morale comes out of great leadership. Most people wouldn’t stay working in a google type office just because it had a slide and a ping pong table if that was the only positive thing their company could offer them.

How do we as interior designers get our clients to appreciate the role of business leadership in workplace design? Or do they appreciate it already but just not have the time? Do we need to change our approach to business leaders? Does the role of facilities management need to change? Can HR play a greater part in workplace design? And do you think all of this really lead to better workplaces?

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License  by  jk5854