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Offices on the Cutting EdgeDon’t just shrink.

Rethink.

360May 09 e-zine

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Businesses are looking for ways to cut real estate costs, the second largest ex-pense on the books after salaries. Many figure the easiest way is to make indi-vidual offices, workstations and cubicles smaller so that more people can work in the same amount of space, or less.

“Everyone is looking to shed or transition space,” says Mark van Summern, AIA, principal at Perkins Eastman, Stamford, Connecticut. “We’re seeing it across the board.”

“Companies want to do this fast, but they also want to do it right. That’s the strug-gle. Because a workplace that doesn’t support the work that needs to be done, even if it’s a smaller one, is still a waste of space,” says Robyn Baxter of Applied Research & Consulting, the workplace consultancy at Steelcase.

As a result, designers, real estate execs and facilities managers are crafting new approaches to office environments as they’ve been known for the last half-cen-tury. Many of these strategies have little to do with assigned personal offices of any size.

Collaborating everywhere

The urge to purge space is widespread because almost every company, whether it’s recently cut staff or not, has empty workstations. For example, Intel studied workspace occupancy and found that 60% of their workstations were empty at any given time of the day. Most stud-ies concur that the typical workstation stands empty 40%-60% of the time.

The drive to compress real estate for eco-nomic reasons is happening at the same time that other trends are coming into play. For starters, there’s more team work. It often happens outside the workstation in team spaces, small group areas, cafés, client offices, tables between worksta-tions – anywhere two or more people can come together to share knowledge and create more of it.

The ascendance of team work coincides with the rise of technology as the tool of

SEEMS LIKE EVERYTHING IS GETTING SMALLER THESE DAYS. From thinner newspapers to bite-size

hamburgers to dwindling stock market returns, super-size is so last year.

Offices are no exception.

“A workplace that doesn’t support the work to be done, even if it’s a smaller one, is still a waste of space.”

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Access in all forms is especially important to the youngest knowledge workers, Mil-lennials and Gen Xers, who’ve grown up working and communicating differently. Atlanta-based designer Karen League, ASID, says younger workers are helping to drive alternative work strategies across industries, even in more traditional com-panies such as law firms.

“Young attorneys have the same skill sets and needs as their counterparts in other industries. They want to work in different settings.

“In the 90s, when the term alternative workspace was coined, it was either/or,” she continues. “Some people had as-signed workstations, others had hoteling or free address spaces and no assigned desks. But we’ve thought this out now and learned. Many of us don’t work tethered to one location and we frequently work

choice for knowledge workers. Over the last five years, the Steelcase Workplace Satisfaction Survey has found that the most important work satisfaction issues for knowledge workers are the means to connect and collaborate. Here’s what survey respondents said was important to them:

• accesstopeoplewhoarerelevant to their job (98%) • accesstotherighttechnologyand tools (97%) • accesstoinformation(99%)

Technology and place are

merging. We’re on work instead

of at work.

How you work vs. where you workThe icon for knowledge work used to be the office building; today it’s the laptop bag. But when mobile workers are in the office, they still need support for connections, collaboration, and information access.

outside the office, but there’s still a great need to collaborate and work in teams. That goes for every organization we work with. It’s not about just changing your pri-mary workspace, but rather understand-ing the needs of all workers that can help an organization work more effectively.”

On work vs. at work

As trends in real estate, team work, tech-nology, and generations come together,

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“work is becoming increasingly discon-nected from any one place,” according to Jack Tanis, director of the Applied Re-search & Consulting group for Steelcase. “Technology and place are gradually merging into one element to be managed to support the structure, culture and work activities of organizations. Which means we need to stop thinking of knowledge workers in terms of being at work, be-cause it’s all about being on work.”

“On work” changes the game, and not ev-ery company understands this new world of work. “It depends on their organizational culture,” says Baxter. “One company I’m dealing with is interested in looking at all the options and another one takes a very mathematical approach and says, ‘Help us reduce our real estate by providing X amount of square feet or meters of net us-able space for each person on staff.’”

“Net usable” usually means all carpeted office spaces including workstations, meeting rooms, collaborative spaces, hallways, etc.

“Everybody’s space allocation is a little different. Two-hundred square feet per person is pretty generous,” says Mark Chambers, senior vice president of of-fice leasing in the Vancouver office of Cushman & Wakefield LePage, the global commercial real estate firm. Typically it’s about 170 to 180. Call centers are around 100. A law firm with big leather chairs might be 250.”

In fact, a new survey of real estate execu-tives just released by Steelcase shows nearly 60% of workers at or below the

200 square-foot mark. (See page 5 for more survey results.)

Taking an average-square-feet approach can lead to problems if it’s not based in a clear understanding of the organization, Chambers adds. “I talked with a compa-ny recently who said their criteria is 400 square feet per person. I said, ‘What do you mean?’ They said, ‘Well, that’s what we need.’ I said, ‘No, you need help.’”

That’s where planning and design can make a big difference. Since organiza-tions have unique work processes and employees, alternative work strategies

should begin with a clear understanding of what makes each organization tick.

“If one really understands the worker and the organization, you can compress real estate and still create a workspace where the worker doesn’t feel it has been driven strictly by economics,” says League.

“If we once used 8 by 8 workstations and now simply say we’re going to all 6 by 8s, you can achieve some square-foot-age savings. But you can achieve a lot more if you realize many of those work-stations are not being used all the time.

That means you can use ‘free address’: you need it on Monday and Wednesday, but I need it on Friday. Other days I need some team space. If you look at those work patterns you can really make some substantial savings.”

New takes on the office

Even full-time telecommuting workers and dedicated road warriors need to be in the office sometimes. It’s where they receive training, reconnect with colleagues, tap into the organizational culture, nurture personal networks, and do other work that happens most productively in that

space. That’s why the best space plan-ners and designers aren’t just shrinking the office— they’re rethinking it.

Julie Barnhart-Hoffman did exactly that. A designer with the WorkSpace Futures group at Steelcase, she worked with the company’s Global Supply Chain Man-agement department to transform a 7,000-square-foot space of cube work-stations into a community of shared work settings. The space where 36 assigned workspaces once stood now supports 70 people in work settings ranging from private to semi-private to a cafe. No one

Taking an average-square-feet approach can lead to problems. The best planners and designers aren’t just shrinking the office – they’re rethinking it.

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Footprints shrink, AWS growsA survey of corporate real estate professionals just completed for Steelcase by CoreNet Global shows 63% expect their company’s real estate portfolio to contract this year. Only 12% expect it to grow, while 25% say it will remain the same.

Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of survey respondents (69%) say they have implemented alternative work strategies (AWS) in the past year, with 73% say-ing the reason was to reduce real estate. Strategies they’re using include:

•homeofficesonafulltimeorpart-timebasis(78%) •hotelingorfreeaddressworkspaces(74%) •mobileworkatmultiplespaces(69%) •full-timetelecommutingfromhome(57%) •satelliteoffices(27%)

When it comes to using informal locations such as coffee shops and libraries for business, companies are split, with 51% supporting the work style. Of those who support it, here are their reasons:

•improvesemployeework-lifebalance(87%) •reducescommutetime(57%), •reducescarbonfootprints(51%)

The major reasons cited for not supporting third-place work are concerns about the confidentiality of company information (66%) and the work style not supporting the company culture (64%).

“The survey results support what we’re seeing in other research,” says Bud Klipa, General Manager, Details - a Steelcase company. “Companies aren’t just slashing real estate footprints. They’re looking for creative ways to use the space they have and shifting some work to home offices, third places, satellite offices and other spaces. It’s a delicate balance of short-term compression while simultaneously sharpening the performance of their space for the long term.”

The average net usable square feet per employee ranges broadly from one company to the next. However, survey findings show that 58% of companies allocate 200 square feet or less per employee and 25% allocate 150 or less.

Square feet per employeeLess than 75 3%75-100 4%100-125 7%125-150 11%150-175 17%175-200 17%200-225 23%More than 250 19%

The survey of 180 CoreNet members was conducted during April 2009. The majority of respondents are based in North America (79%) with 9% in Europe, Middle East and Africa, 7% in Asia-Pacific, and 3% in Australia and New Zealand. A more detailed report of the CoreNet Global/Steelcase survey will be published in our next issue.

has an assigned space, yet there’s never a shortage of workspaces to match work-ers’ needs. (See page 7.)

Barnhart-Hoffman’s design demonstrates how a flexible space and furniture can support different generations, individual and team work, focused private work and group work – all in less real estate. “By not restricting people to a single worksta-tion, you give them more options, more tools, more empowerment,” she says.

Part of the group still has assigned work-stations in a nearby area. A mix of shared and assigned spaces is typical for most companies.

“It depends on the industry and the organization, but I think there are always people in organizations who need as-signed space. Yet there are going to be fewer of them, and there are going to be fewer storage and filing spaces, and more spaces that promote interaction,” says League .

Not all groups may be willing to give up assigned workstations, reduce their pa-per files and become mobile workers — initially, or ever.

“You have to be sensitive to the degree of change they’re capable of and willing to make, and also if there’s executive support for it,” says Baxter. “You have to under-stand the culture. What do you want to be? Do you want to be more innovative? How do you deal with risk? In the end, when you understand the organization and what they want to be and what they’ll support, you know the kind of space they can handle.”

After more than a year in the space, the Steelcase group has proven that they can more than handle working in what amounts to about 100 square feet person, a figure far below the target many companies set when they decide to compress.

The typical solution for such a low square-feet-per-person design is “benching,” in which people work at a long table without panels and with minimal space division. Benching can be a good solution for highly collaborative work. But for individual work

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Running the numbers

75 percent of the U.S. workforce is expected to be mobile by end of 2011

14 percent of U.S. workforce doesn’t want to telecommute at all

56 percent of Sun Microsystems employees work away from the office at least 2 days a week

Sources: IDC Worldwide Mobile Worker Forecast 2007-2001, Business Week, IFMA

7,000 square feet comprise a new alternative workspace at Steelcase

70 people can work in the 7,000-square-foot Steelcase space

100 square feet is the average net usable space per person in the Steelcase space

140 square feet is the net usable space per person in a typical call center

that requires significant privacy, it doesn’t meet needs.

Planning for what’s next

“You have to rethink work process, work, and the workplace. You have to carefully examine the organization’s willingness and readiness to change,” says Baxter. “Some can handle a moderate change in their space, technology, work process, and culture — a refining of their existing space. Others are ready to redefine their

space through significant change. And some organizations want a paradigm change, a real transformation of their work, processes, technology, and space.”

One mistake designers see is organiza-tions implementing alternative work strat-egies based on where people are on the org chart.

“We need to untether giving people a work-space based on hierarchy, and give it to them based on what they need. When you do that, it’s just amazing how positive their response is. It has to be planned and designed very well, and you have to clearly communicate what they’re going to get, as well as the benefits for you and the organization. But if those benefits are genuine, the response is immediately positive,” says League.

“When you simply refine a space, or even redefine it, the perception is you’ve taken something away. Employ-ees, clients, visitors – they all sense it’s a reductive approach,” says Tanis. “Transforming the organization’s work, processes, and space adds enormous value for everyone involved with the or-ganization.”

Real office transformation is more attain-able now than at any time in recent years as work and the workplace undergo ex-

ponential change and businesses depend on smarter use of real estate. Design, real estate and facility professionals have un-precedented opportunity to apply break-through thinking and, in so doing, bring much more to less.

“By not restricting people to a single workstation, you give them more options,

more tools, more empowerment.”

Office reality show*Behavioral prototyping is a research method used extensively by Steelcase and other leading researchers of the workplace. It consists of building out real space with real products, based on workplace trends and user needs, and then studying it in use by real workers. Data is collected from video ethnography, surveys and interviews to gain insights into the emerging behaviors of workers. These insights become the basis for new approaches and solutions to meet the needs of workers and address business issues.

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Designer Julie Barnhart-Hoffman calls this alternative work space a “behavioral prototype”.* Most of the furniture is easily adapted by users and larger reconfigu-rations are based on feedback from the staff. But it’s also a permanent, working space with real furniture where real work gets done.

This innovative space for the Global Supply Chain Management department at Steel-case was designed to address the new ways work gets done: giving workers a choice about where and how they work, a measure of control over the space, and a place to improve connections and col-laborations between people.

Barnhart-Hoffman worked with the group to transform their old space — 7,000 square feet of traditional paneled work-stations — into a community of shared work settings. Space that housed 36 assigned cubes now easily supports 70 people in a range of workspaces. “From a design view, it isn’t about reducing the number of cubes, it’s about making space more effective,” she says.

No assigned workspaces here. On a first-come first-served basis, workers choose a space for the day: a semi-private office, team space, huddle room, stool-height workspace, etc.

A café takes center stage in the space. There are booths, small tables with mo-bile chairs, a refreshment bar, a flat panel running cable news (also used to dis-play presentations during meetings), and stand-up-height workspaces that define the space. Plenty of natural light, a bright surface materials palette and Wi-Fi add to the cafe’s appeal.

GREAT SPACE, MORE FILLING.

“Visitors are surprised that people actually work in the café, but some workers, es-pecially younger ones, work here all day,” says Cindy Bessey, the concierge for the department. “We see a lot of backpacks.”

Bessey and her colleagues, 50 people in all, gave up their traditional 8-feet X 8-feet cube workstations, reduced their paper files, and became mobile workers. Part of the department still works from assigned workstations nearby.

“You can’t stuff everyone into the same work mode,” says Bessey. This alterna-tive space supports multiple work styles with private and semi-private spaces, a team room, a telepresence room (two-way videoconferencing), partially enclosed team spaces, lounge areas, a Details WalkSta-tion (electric height-adjustable worksurface integrated with a low-speed treadmill), and of course the café. Workers learned very quickly how to use the different spaces and new collaborative technologies such as media:scape™, a tool for helping teams access and share information.

Quarterly department meetings host 85 people in the café (“more than ever attend-ed the meetings before,” notes Bessey), and mobile staffers are conferenced in by phone. Soon telepresence technology will allow those staffers to see, and be seen by, everyone else in the meeting.

The space is such a draw that workers from other departments prefer to meet there, in-creasing cross-functional communications.

New hires are more productive from the start, says Barnhart-Hoffman. “When they had cubes, they had to move, reconfig-ure — all the things you have to do when people are hired, change jobs, move, etc. Now, someone new to the group comes in, they say ‘Here’s your Blackberry® and laptop, go to work,’ and they kind of melt into the space.”

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Private and semi-private spaces support focused work.

Café sets a welcoming “this is different” tone for the space.

media:scape group setting connects laptops, PDAs, etc. to one screen, lets groups see and share information effortlessly.

Group collaboration spaces have mobile seating, display, and storage.

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360: Designed to inspire and inform Architects and Designers, 360 explores the latest in workplace research, insights, and trends.

© 2009 Steelcase Inc. All rights reserved.