The key is to align workplace strategies to an organization’s business goals. For example, does your company’s productivity depend on teamwork? If so, a variety of types of meeting spaces, both formal and informal, is likely a good idea, regardless of what the furniture industry happens to be pushing at the moment.

Of course, determining whether a workplace is enhancing productivity and employee satisfaction is not easily measured. Before investing in a complete workplace overhaul, it is wise to decide how you will evaluate success. Is the workplace helping your company to attract and retain top talent? Are particular amenities especially attractive? Is the campus itself a place where people want to work? Is there a sense of place? Once a workplace strategy is implemented, a post-occupancy evaluation can be enlightening as to what changes and which particular spaces are best received.

To minimize costs and to maximize return on investment, it’s a good idea to design for future occupants, rather than following the latest fad. A well thought-out strategy can lead to space that will function well for 15 to 20 years.

A competitive workforce, up-to-date technology, and a wide range of amenities allow people to work in a variety of settings. An alternative office (AO) strategy can be an important tool to achieve a competitive advantage through employee and client retention, improve organizational effectiveness, and reduce real estate costs. Developments in technology make remote work feasible and desirable.

“In short, AO is an integral part of the way we work in an era of rapidly changing global markets,” says Rachel Kessler-Park, director of Strategic Facilities Planning at CUH2A. “Lowering the real estate occupancy cost is simply one potential benefit.”

Other benefits include better employee morale, increased productivity, more effective team building, and reduced furniture costs through component standardization.

Fads and Facts of Work Facilities Modules

In the mid 1990s, AO was thought to reduce space needs and potentially result in better productivity because less time spent commuting meant more time working. In the 2000s, it is about campus branding, identity, and social spaces. The regimented, uniform space distribution of the cubicle has translated into more open seating with privacy in designated areas. Adjustable office sizes accommodate abundant casual and formal meeting spaces. Gathering places are easy to share among many people, rather than assigning private zones that are of a particular size to fit a specific standard.

The three primary components that impact AO success are organizational dynamics, technological infrastructure, and the workplace paradigm. Senior management, which has typically prospered by navigating a hierarchical structure, must be willing to lead by example in forming teams and dismantling the “management row” concept. Full employee participation, including administrative and technological support, is essential.

“Flat hierarchies and universal planning were backlashes to when we customized everybody’s department for exactly what they needed and you were wrong by the time it was built,” says Kessler-Park. “As a result, the corporate buzzwords ‘alternative officing’ conjure up images of sales staff sharing offices in order to save real estate costs of underutilized space.”

Issues, Drivers, and Trends of Work Spaces

The primary business drivers of workspaces include growth opportunities, globalization, position in the industry, and the ability to attract and retain talent. Secondary drivers are a company’s specialized needs with regard to the facility’s adaptability, multiple functionality, and technology flexibility.

Communication technology has been the biggest change in the office environment. Workspaces should include places for soon-to-be obsolete fax machines, Internet connectivity (T1 lines and wireless networks), cell reception, video conferencing, and presentation capabilities.

“Make sure to address cell phone dead zones because people get really frustrated when their technology doesn’t work,” says Kessler-Park.

The environment has a profound effect on the way people think, work, act, and connect with others. The space should offer a sense of cohesiveness, foster an increase in productivity, and encourage a social atmosphere of openness, inspiration, innovation, and team collaboration through a variety of interaction zones.

“The work-anywhere concept is more common in the last 10 years. People are on planes and at sites without offices, making the workplace more social than private,” says Kessler-Park. “When people come back to their main location, they want to socialize. More of their time is spent being social than it is in a high-concentration area.”

“Time-spent studies” in a laboratory setting indicate that 50 percent of work time is spent in a laboratory, 30 percent in meeting spaces, and 20 percent in an office. While the need for “heads-down” work is not of a 9-to-5 nature, consideration should be given to visual and acoustical needs for privacy, if needed, for a portion of the day.

“The office environment should allow you to work anywhere, from team areas, conference rooms, or grab-and-go food court, to the lobby or private office,” says Kessler-Park. “There should be multiple places that allow interaction and collaboration in different parts of your buildings or campuses, in addition to places for quiet, alone time.”

Balancing Facilities Assets vs. Capital Spending

Facility managers face real estate cost challenges when balancing facilities assets and capital spending. Today’s workers require approximately 250 to 300 gsf per person. This square footage allocation has shifted to smaller offices or workstations, with small shared huddle rooms for three to four people from the previous allocation of large offices with meeting space within them.

In the 1990s the implementation of AO was to reduce real estate costs, but this did not have a wide impact as hoped. Providing alternative workspace beyond the main location has shifted back to providing the campus setting. In 2007, branding is a hot issue for the campus and facilities, beyond signage. There is more emphasis on providing the right amount of space to support the ever changing needs of a very dynamic work force. Look to the future of a paradigm shift from having private assigned work space with minimal distributed social interactive zones to having major interaction and collaboration zones with distributed private spaces that you can escape to for more solitary work. This may save capital spending by reducing the costs of renovating to support changes in organizations or occupancy.

Alternative Workspace Examples

Non-territorial offices do not have permanently assigned desks, workstations, or offices. The universal plan is where every workstation is the same size with the identical footprint. The modified universal plan has a small variation that may be applied for status or task indications. For example, a small percentage of workstations with a larger footprint are assigned for managerial personnel and a larger percentage of the workstations of the same size are assigned for the rest of the workforce.

Activity setting workspaces allow employees to choose workspace based on their work on a particular day. Activity zones allow people to socialize or share ideas while engaged in concurrent tasks such as printing, photocopying, collating, etc.

Hoteling is a reservation system for the use of a particular type of technology or workspace, while just-in-time space refers to cubicles and/or technology that are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Hot desking or drop-in space refers to workstations used for a short time. Guesting involves using a fellow employee’s or client’s facility as a remote work center.

Group addresses, team suites, or teaming spaces are areas assigned for those in a particular work group or department. The team is responsible for designing the space to meet its needs. In some instances, the team is charged rent providing an additional incentive for generating results.

A free address has workplace areas open for all workers. A shared, assigned workspace is a single workspace for a small group of people who may share the space or work separately at different times of day.

Telecommuting is working either at an office or at home using technology to maintain seamless contact with other members of the employer organization and the extended enterprise. A satellite office is located outside of the main office, such as a branch office where people work together and are organizationally connected. This small, fully equipped work environment is usually convenient to workers’ homes or client locations. Neighborhood work centers are offices where people in different companies work together. These office centers provide technology and administrative support, and are used full- or part-time by employees living closest to them. Watering holes are attractive public zones in office suites that might feature coffee bars, televisions, reading materials, and communication facilities.

Telework or virtual offices are disassociated from a specific location wherein employees can work anywhere. Employees utilize communication equipment to work at a client’s office, a coffee bar, a copy shop, on airplanes, or in hotels, cars, or airport lounges instead of at an employer’s office. Virtual offices, such as the airport lounge, provide massages, shower facilities, private work booths or conference tables, and food service, in an open, yet private venue with all of the tools required for life and work.

Designing Facilities for Generation Y

Generation Y workers, born from 1980 to the late 1990s, are technologically savvy and visually oriented, spent their school years working in teams, and want easy access to leadership to clarify their roles. Accustomed to remote control lifestyles, they don’t work a traditional 9 to 5 shift and thrive in a public environment.

“Generation Y still needs that departmental campus location, but are also looking for that funky chair over in the corridor where they are going to work. Alternative workplaces even include the airplane, the airport lounge, and Starbucks,” says Kessler-Park.

Aligning Basic Workspace Needs and Requirements

The best time for a change in workplace strategy is in response to an event such as a merger or consolidation. This is when it is most practical to assimilate people with different business cultures and enable a culture shift or cultural integration.

There are many factors to encourage a major cultural change. One, a senior leadership champion of change with different options, trends, and new ways of working, will expedite a change recommendation process. Two, focus groups provide early buy-in and input opportunities. Three, input and training throughout the project will ensure success and reduce the anxiety many people feel when going through major changes. Success will come, but it takes time. Don’t be quick to make requested changes for the first three to four months after move in.

The change recommendation process should include evaluation, benchmarks, documentation, approvals, implementation, design, allotted timeframes, and post-occupancy plans. Provide an onsite and written evaluation of an existing best-in-class facility to discover improvements such as lighting or lack of conference rooms. After the implementation, perform another post-occupancy evaluation to ensure the workplace best supports employees’ needs.
“There is one right answer, especially for your organization. The trick is to find it,” says Kessler-Park.

Lessons Learned

Kessler-Park recommends developing cost models early to avoid project and cost misalignment. This occurs when facility managers have perceptions about project costs and users have higher expectations of the project outcome. Similarly, there should be a correlation between return on investment and productivity expectations.

Tour best-in-class sites and facilities, and use a range of options to make decisions. However, align workplace strategy to business vision, rather than furniture solutions, and design for people and their activities.

“An organization’s biggest mistake is to do what they’ve always done, but with more attractive , up-to-date furniture, new paint color and carpets, and expect things to change,” Kessler-Park says. “People might be happier for a short period of time, but if the work environment doesn’t enable the organization to accomplish or support business goals, then it’s really not going to be effective or a good use of capital. The cost of people far exceeds the cost of real estate.”

By Lisa Brown