Today many organizations are maximizing their business benefits by combining non-traditional work arrangements with non-traditional space arrangements. One example of this combination is Nortel in Brampton, Ontario. They have combined telework arrangements with radical change to their office space.
I have read a few articles on Nortel's new office facility and was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to see their new space when I was last in Toronto. Nortel has taken their corporate office staff (that would normally fill a 20-storey conventional office tower) and placed them into a 400,000 square foot factory space which formerly housed one of Nortel's manufacturing plants (built in 1963).
The most significant change in the new space is the "community design concept". Traditional office designs tend to focus on the individual workspaces (offices, cubicles, etc.) and how to create a maze of dividers and partitions which will maximize individual spaces. The new Nortel space is like entering a small town. You quickly notice that there are two main streets which interconnect the communities of workers (those who need to be geographically close for operational/functional reasons), common use areas and outside services. Each community has its own colour and icon which identifies it as a unique group (this also helps in providing directions to others).
Ray Lopinski, Director of Real Estate for Nortel is quoted in the February 22, 1997 Ottawa Citizen as saying "This is not an office; this is an environment. It is a radically different kind of workplace - one that became more of an exercise in urban planning, rather than conventional office space planning." This is obvious when you are in the space as you see the "town square" for sharing corporate information, the "ghetto" wall at the back of the space that separates the shipping/receiving area from the office space, the Zen garden, stores (doughnut shop, coffee bars, computer store, etc.) and services (banking, travel agency, etc.). As one employees commented to me, "you don't need to leave the building - everything is here and yet the space is big enough and varied enough that you don't feel claustrophobic."
The Nortel workspaces are also significantly different than traditional offices. In general, the workspaces are smaller in size and most of them are open workstations; there are only a few traditional enclosed offices within the space. Nortel has also made good use of teaming spaces with employees able to more effectively communicate with each other within their space. Nortel is also a strong supporter of teleworking and the teleworkers utilize shared workspaces when they come into the office.
Overall the Nortel implementation is a great example of creative space design. Nortel expects to reduce its real estate operating costs by $10 million U.S. per year.
Another example of creative space planning is Du Pont's Fluoro Products Division in Greenville, Delaware. According to the February 23rd New York Times, Du Pont is just in the process of completing the renovation of 70,000 square feet of office space. Du Pont will be moving 300 employees from traditional private offices to open cubicles in a shift to open work environments.
Du Pont is using Steelcase furniture to create new types of workspaces for employees. These will include "collaboration zones" (meeting rooms), "docking stations" (a workbench), and "free addresses" (space not assigned to a particular worker). Du Pont will also use Steelcase's personal harbours, "a six by eight foot self-contained bubble which looks more like a state-of-the-art photographer's darkroom than an office. It has its own piped-in music, temperature controls and cylindrical door."
Tucker Kokjohn, Director of Facilities Services for Du Pont explains that "research has shown that when people work without walls communication is more rapid, managers are more accessible and productivity rises. It has been estimated that a 30% increase in density in an office will result in a 5% increase in worker productivity."
The Nortel and Du Pont implementations show some of the creativity that is being tried by organizations today. The two examples should help other organizations to see the benefits that can be derived by redesigning the way they traditionally utilize space.
CONTACT
Ken Robertson
KLR Consulting Inc.
Phone: (604) 294-2292
e-mail: ken.robertson@klr.com
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