Workplace by Design is written by Frank Becker and Fritz Steele and published by Jossey-Bass of San Francisco, California. Becker is a professor and director of the International Workplace Studies Program at Cornell University. Steele is the founding partner of the Portsmouth Consulting Group. He is a consultant on organizational and environmental change and was formerly on the faculties at Yale and Harvard Universities.
This book describes the transition which is currently occurring in the way organizations view and use space. Space has long been overlooked as a necessary expense of an organization. However, in the past few years many organizations now realize that space is their second most expensive resource. As the business climate becomes more competitive, organizations are starting to look to flexible use of space as a component of their overall business transformation.
The book focuses on the concept of organizational ecology. The key elements of organizational ecology are physical settings and furniture; work processes; and information technology. No analysis of the workplace is possible without analyzing all of these areas and integrating these functions into an overall solution.
Becker and Steele remind us to rethink our old paradigm of assigning space based on identity and status. Examples of "universal footprinting" (somewhat of a one size fits all approach) are provided showing how organizations are trying to avoid the tremendous shuffle that can be associated with promotions or transfers. They also suggest allocating workplaces based on need not rank. In essence starting to use the workplace as a tool to achieve the overall organizational goals and objectives.
The authors also provide ideas on how to design teaming space. They explain that, "the glue that holds the team together is constant communication, some of it planned and some spontaneous and unplanned. It is not like American football, with its regular huddles and time outs. Communications in the rugby model is on the fly, in the halls, on the stairs, at lunch, in the locker room. In the relay-race model (traditional model) communication is in the conference room -- planned, scheduled and predetermined."
The rules of thumb provided for designing the new workplace include: creating magnet spots with good stuff in them for drawing people together; putting magnet spots in the right locations; designing the contact places well; not making too many communal spots; and encouraging people to use the common facilities.
You should also include remote workers in your new workplace design. These workers could be working from home, a plane, a hotel, another office (your client's), airport, car, telework centre, etc. The authors remind us, yet again, that managers are not always supportive of remote workers. "The idea that if the employee cannot be seen she must not be working is deeply ingrained in many managers' minds, despite the fact that were this same test applied to managers themselves, who are out of the office 50 percent or more of the time, they would have to be considered among the least productive of all workers!"
In creating the non-territorial office, an organization can take one of two paths. The cost-driven approach focuses on reducing the cost of the office with little or no concern about enhancing the work processes. This approach is commonly used by organizations that "jump" into non-territorial office concepts solely as a way of reducing operating costs. The second path is the business-driven approach. This approach focuses on the end business results and how the transformed office environment can assist in meeting these business goals. The business-driven approach takes more effort in the front-end planning but the end results will likely be more dramatic from an overall organizational perspective than the cost-driven approach.
Becker and Steele suggest that the main issues in developing an integrated workplace strategy are: realizing the interdependency of changes within the system; changing expectations of how and where work is performed; exploiting the right technologies; educating and training employees on the new concepts; establishing performance assessment criteria; involving employees directly in the process; developing a workplace analysis process which can be used elsewhere as opposed to creating "cookie-cutter" solutions; and realizing genuine involvement and commitment on the part of the organization's leaders.
This book is one of the few facilities management oriented publications which is not exclusively for facilities professionals but rather is truly consumable by all. This book will be of great interest to executives and senior managers who are looking for creative ideas on how to reposition their workplace to use it as a tool for achieving business results.
Workplace by Design
by: Franklin Becker / Fritz Steele
published by: Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, California 1995
ISBN 0-7879-0047-8
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