The new workplace - don't call an architect

Design of the new workplace is simple. Make a place for connecting, collaborating, recharging, branding, mentoring and training. Scale it to a percentage of total headcount calculated using an onsite occupancy algorithm (we have that). Model it on a Clubhouse & Library rather than a factory. Any talented architect or interior designer can rock that assignment in their sleep.

But the new workplace is a not a design problem; it's a management problem.

A hybrid or remote workforce cannot be managed by walking around. Trust, accountability, and inner motivation is critical in the absence of daily interaction. 

 Not to knock on all managers but it’s no secret that the best widget-maker is not always the best manager of widget-making. The transition can be tough. It seemed to work, though, thanks in large part to the dedication and skill of unpromoted widget makers.

 After nearly two years of autonomy, surveys indicate that more than 40% of them would leave for another opportunity in a heartbeat; "I realized I just didn't want to be micromanaged and disrespected."

 Micromanagement and disrespect may not be the norm everywhere, but for any post-pandemic workplace to function, we need to adopt management methods that work equally well for both onsite and remote work, and that reduce stress for managers and staff. 

For many companies, task-ticket approach provides such a platform. Just ask your IT people. For decades, software developers have been using workflow systems like Atlassian JIRA, which may explain why IT departments have thrived with remote work and really don't want to go back.

However, in order to implement and maintain such a system, managers need to:

• define and prioritize tasks unambiguously,

• distribute opportunities and demands fairly,

• evaluate based on outcomes not hours,

• get comfortable with a flatter power dynamic.

That's a tall order, which can't be solved with new lounge furniture and more huddle rooms. The best architects will work consultatively to understand the total productivity infrastructure before addressing physical design options.

Space programming is the time to take a hard look at the bigger picture, with attention to how management policies, procedures, and platforms overlap with physical design. 

We need to engage the full team to get this right. Bring in the managers, HR leads, IT experts, and organizational psychologists for that matter.

But don't listen to me, I'm only an architect.

Predicting Workplace Demand

Pandemic science proves that blather is directly proportional to uncertainty. Take the sheer volume of articles about post-pandemic workplace change as Exhibit A. I feel kind of bad about delivering yet another one.

Chase Bourdelaise at Transwestern and I teamed up to develop a methodology that predicts space needs with 90% likelihood based on various remote work assumptions. The method relies on two key concepts; workstyle personas and stochastic modeling.

Click to download the article.

An argument for unassigned seating

Return to work: an argument in favor of unassigned seating

Amid the current wreckage of routines and norms, it is natural to gravitate to any illusion of personal control. A private office or workstation armored with family pictures and professional credentials may feel like a bulwark against chaos. Unfortunately, such a place may also be an isolating container for viral contamination.
 
Let us start with a few things we know, and then connect the dots.

Safety

The safest environment is one that is generously spaced and regularly cleaned, ideally immediately before and after use by the user. Touchable surfaces need to be sprayed with disinfectant cleaner and thoroughly wiped down. With assigned desks, the inevitable accumulation of personal belongings makes such regular cleaning impossible. 

• An unassigned desk free from clutter is likely to be more reliably cleaned than an assigned desk.

Cost Control

If people are working remotely at least some of the time, excess unassigned desks can be removed to allow for greater distancing at no additional cost, or total area may be reduced if lease timing is right.
 
The table below shows that if 40% of the workforce works remotely two days per week (60% retain assigned desks), 17% fewer desks are needed. If 80% of staff work remotely one day per week 11% fewer desks are needed. Even more dramatic savings can be achieved if a higher percentage of people work remotely some of the time.

• Unassigned seating offers new opportunity for substantial cost savings.

Purpose of the office

Following months of work from home we recognize the true purpose of the office is to foster a sense of belonging, accountability, and trust. We crave the chance to look one another in the eye, collaborate in real-time, develop relationships, mentor and learn in unstructured ways.
 
Heads-down work is part of the mix, but not the driver. Solo work can happen at home for many or in a quiet setting within the office for those without suitable home office space.

• Collective experience in the office is more important than individual domain.

CONCLUSION
Unassigned seating is more hygienic, more cost-effective, and more consistent with the collective purpose of the office than individual assigned seating. Rather than reject the whole concept, now may be the right time to solve for its drawbacks (personal storage, support for focus work and virtual collaboration, recognition of life stage needs) while capitalizing on a broad new awareness about work. 

Unbundling the Office Lease

Today is not the best time to be a commercial landlord. Or a tenant, actually.
Smaller footprints, shorter terms, mismatched tenant improvement costs, and workforce mobiity demands are breaking traditional leasing models. How did this happen, and what will change?

---

How did this happen?
Employees need less physical space to do their work. Support functions have shrunk even more. Acceptance of a “sharing economy” means turf ownership does not signify value the way it used to do. And a technical ability to work from anywhere allows high productivity with fewer seats on-site.
 
Add volatility, uncertainty, and rapid social change. The risk of too much space dwarfs the potential benefits of stability. So lease terms are shorter.
 
With a smaller footprint and shorter terms, tenant improvement (TI) funding goes way down, well below tenant’s actual capital costs. For landlords, shorter lease terms translate to lower property asset value, which increases borrowing costs to fund even reduced TI’s.
 
It gets worse. Theoretically, the TI allowance for a ten-year term on a smaller footprint should cover design and construction of the reduced area. In fact, it does not. High-finish areas like reception, conference, and café represent a greater proportion of total lease area, resulting in a higher net cost per square foot, and higher out-of-pocket capital expense obligation for the tenant.
 
We conclude that traditional office leasing is unsustainably expensive and risky, for both landlords and tenants.

---

What will change?

An organic solution is evolving out of necessity. . . . . Unbundle the office lease into three separate transactions:

1. Long-term lease for core square footage only; conference, operations infrastructure, executive leadership. Building systems improvements covered by landlord under terms of lease.

2. Capital improvements financing by Tenant to optimize terms.

3. Landlord and Tenant manage volatility with office sharing solutions; (a) co-working space in building managed by landlord, (b) sublease-ready co-working modules within tenant envelope, (c) off-site co-working space

Implicit in these trends is a transformation that affects the entire industry;  landlords, tenants, brokers, base-building architects, interior designers, bankers, lawyers, and employees.

• Shared office space will become a new service/profit center with a battle to see who ends up in control

• Base building core design will support higher density and greater multi-tenant flexibility

• Shared office floor(s) will be incorporated in most office buildings

• Menu-based broker fees will cover a wider range of services delivered through more and smaller transactions

• Interior design will become even more generic, "portable", furniture-driven

• BOMA load factors will lose their historic meaning as an efficiency metric (rentable:usable ratio)

• Lease documents will address a moving target of flex options, amenity access rights, and pass-through expense formulae

• Commercial loan structures will support new tenant capital expense obligations 

If you’re like many of our clients, you’ve already seen these trends emerging. We’d welcome your stories and questions.

contact: marcia.hart@workplace1080.com

Blog Index

Open Casket

You may have seen the provocative article published in Fast Company, “Here’s the Final Nail in the Coffin of Open Plan Offices” by Libby Sander, assistant professor of organizational behavior at Bond University. The Washington Post picked up the story too.

Studies cited seem to justify hatred of the open plan. Notably, "…an innovative new study has found that employees in open plan offices spend 73% less time in face-to-face interactions. Email and messaging use shot up by over 67%, ...productivity declined due to a substitution of email for F2F." The implication that sacrificing privacy improves neither collaboration nor productivity is the final nail.

Should we concede failure and bury the open plan once and for all? Not so fast. Close reading of source material reveals the real problem with open plan, and it's not the lack of private offices.

First, the main study examined controlled transitions from bounded workstations to boundaryless bench-style seating. Enclosed office environments were not examined. Data suggest that heightened exposure upon removal of physical boundaries drove people to retreat and avoid further stimulation.  A low-grade fear of people sneaking up behind you or the extra-annoying distraction of partially intelligible conversation really does make it hard to think. Ironically, when you're in flow, such distractions and vulnerabilities recede but you can't get to flow if you're distracted and vulnerable.

It seems obvious that design solutions must allow humans to feel protected and secure so they can concentrate;  visual privacy while seated, smaller neighborhoods with boundaries, no circulation behind exposed chairs, opportunities to be alone.

Productivity questions are more elusive, as usual. Study data were collected “just over two months after the move, enough for people to have settled into their new environment but not so much that the work they did could have changed much.” For productivity to improve, collective intelligence would have to accrue and positive new behaviors would have to evolve. Furthermore, we don’t know what conditions were included in productivity measures. [Workplace1080 suggests (a) revenue per employee, (b) annual hiring costs including enrollment administration and training, and (c) sick days.]

In any case, the benefits of collaboration, if any, require a variety of activities and spaces to develop. Enclosed solo carrels, huddle rooms for 2-4, distributed team rooms, central conference rooms, collaborative café, and some quiet soft seating are essential. Sander’s article comes to the same conclusion:

… Organizations should focus on providing workplaces that support the requirements for privacy and focus, as well as interaction and collaboration.

The good news is there is ample research to support hating the open office. The other good news is we understand better than ever why they fail due to excess exposure and over-stimulation, and how we can get the benefits of collaboration without undermining the individual.

_________________________

References:
Libby Sander, “Here’s the final nail in the coffin of open plan offices,” Fast Company, 2018-07-19 https://www.fastcompany.com/90204593/heres-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-open-plan-offices.  Original publication in The Conversation https://theconversation.com/a-new-study-should-be-the-final-nail-for-open-plan-offices-99756

Ethan S. Bernstein and Stephen Turban, “The Impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration,” Harvard Business School, pub. The Royal Society Publishing accepted: 3 May 2018 http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/1753/20170239

Jungsoo Kim and Richard de Dear, “Workplace Satisfaction” The privacy-communication trade-off in open plan offices,” University of California, publication date: 2013-01-01 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gq017pb

Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci,  “Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being,” University of Rochester, https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2000_RyanDeci_SDT.pdf

Kimberly D. Elsbach, Francis J. Flynn, “Creative Collaboration and the Self‐Concept: A Study of Toy Designers,” Wiley Online Library, Journal of Management Studies, First published: 27 February 2013  https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12024

Rob Cross, Reb Rebele, Adam Grant, “Collaborative Overload,” Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 2016 issue, https://hbr.org/2016/01/collaborative-overload

Clayton P. Alderfer and Ken K. Smith, "Studying Intergroup Relations Embedded in Organizations,"Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp. 35-65, Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University https://www.jstor.org/stable/2392545

Recognizing change

By mid-January, the new year doesn’t always feel so new. But change is happening every day regardless of the date on the calendar. Recognizing change before it’s entirely obvious is your advantage. 

Here’s a crib sheet for what’s happening in the world of workplace. 
Things we know:

• Impact of digital documents on the physical workplace cannot be overstated. Less paper means less storage, less support space, smaller desk area, and real freedom to work productively from a laptop. Dematerialization of “stuff” continues.
   
• File management is destiny
  • shared drive is where collaboration really happens – consistent and searchable file naming conventions take discipline to use all the time, but the rewards will amaze you and inspire gratitude among your colleagues. More on this 
  • piles of paper = not a team player
• Conference, hospitality and café areas are growing, in physical dimension and as a percentage of total area. Multipurpose space is central.
   
• Natural light is actual energy, not a perk of seniority or status. Wide distribution is the sensible expectation.
   
• Personal control (formerly known as “privacy”) remains hot. Freedom to choose where to work supersedes the ever-diminishing private office. Choice is the new privacy. 
   
• Variety of work areas is critical
  • distraction-free zones
  • huddle rooms, phone booths, small video conference 
  • headphones are not just for Millenials
     
• Remote work is lonely; social life at the office might be a feature, not a bug
   
• Activity improves brain function 
  • active workplace gets people moving all day long
  • workplace wellness initiatives are real; illness is a downer for everyone
  • bonus tip: fitness is stress-management; leaders embrace it

If you work in an office or know someone who does, consider using what we know to your advantage. Focus on file management, invest in some decent headphones, move around, purge those piles of paper, reduce stress through fitness, enjoy your colleagues.

Happy new year.

Tailwinds and support

I participated recently in the AIDS/LifeCycle San Francisco to Los Angeles fundraiser ride. It was a fantastic experience offering many lessons. Among them, tailwinds and rest stops!

On the first day, tailwinds literally pushed us UP hills over the 82 miles from Daly City to Santa Cruz. The next day on 110 miles to King City we got superhuman speeds on gorgeous descents overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was a thrill.

But eventually, you don’t even feel it as your capability is massively enhanced. Tailwinds, combined with graham cracker crunch bars and electrolyte drinks roughly every 20 miles, made the whole 550 miles to Los Angeles about as effortless as a long ride could be.

Tailwinds and support are incredibly effective indirect ways to accomplish more with less effort and lower stress. That’s the whole point of workplace strategies, by the way. 

So, how can we produce tailwinds in the workplace? 
Well, remove the headwinds. Get rid of useless barriers to productivity --  legacy systems, bureaucratic policies and procedures, convoluted decision-making. This typically means making changes in the virtual workplace; file management, communications and record-keeping.

Then, add a little push to get people up the hills in their day – mentoring, knowledge-sharing, encouragement and recognition for a job well done, or even just done. This typically means making changes in the physical workplace. New configurations and occupancy policies can promote social and professional connections that give people a lift. Along with connection and collaboration, don’t overlook privacy for focus and individual renewal.

As for support, that’s easy. Make it okay to take regular breaks within the normal flow of work. Drink before you’re thirsty and get back on the bike. 

Finding Meaning: Why Workplace will Converge with Hospitality

Since the 2016 presidential election I’ve been uncharacteristically disengaged from my consulting practice. The rejection of widely-held values consistent with my own sucked energy out of the operation. In the aftermath, it turns out that finding meaning in work is critical for motivation and performance.
 
In January I wrote about how workplace interaction contributes to “development of rich relationships, meaningful impact, and personal growth that define professional success today.” (Workplace Distraction: The Upside.) This theme continues to resonate. Think about what’s most meaningful in your own career. You may agree that relationships, challenge, and contribution are the real source of value regardless of the type of work you do.

Now, more than ever, we need the workplace to support deeper relationships, help us learn from each other and develop our skills, and highlight contributions to a greater whole. Furthermore, as we only need a brain and a laptop to get work done anywhere, the physical workplace darn well better deliver more than a mere place to perch our tools.

This is where hospitality design can show the way. The best hotels create a feeling of belonging, with lobby spaces that give us permission to connect, or not. They provide creature comforts and functional support as needed. They maintain a public side for connection and a private realm for production and renewal. The best hotels are attractive; they make it worth the trouble to put on pants and show up.

Workplace can learn from that model. Start with the prospect of interaction with actual humans, wrap it with a feeling of inclusion, take care of functional requirements that support learning and individual contribution, sprinkle in a recognition of something larger than our own selves. Add food and beverage.

...sounds like a great hotel, doesn't it?

Workplace Distraction: The Upside

I recently posted a blog entitled Expect 143% From Remote Workers. The premise is that people working interactively contribute a lot more than just deliverables; they provide social motivation, knowledge transfer, and shared experience that builds trust. So, if someone is working remotely they ought to compensate for NOT contributing these qualities by producing more deliverables. How much more? 143% more to be exact. See for yourself here.

Furthermore, as appealing as remote work may be for some, it is rarely the cornerstone of a successful career. On the contrary, remote work can quickly undermine development of rich relationships, meaningful impact, and personal growth that define professional success today. (ref. Aaron Hurst, The Purpose Economy.)

But Workplace1080 is not about dictating individual preferences and priorities. It’s about managing organizational implications of workplace change. The impact on organizations of non-strategic remote work is the issue today.

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One of my valued readers pointed out that no amount of additional output from remote employees can replace the loss of interaction in the office. It's hard to grow in a vacuum. Friction and connection are catalysts for innovation.

Instead of looking at all those quick gotta-minute-questions and whad’ya-thinks and meandering-coffee-chats and overheard-one-sided-phone-calls as distractions from our “real work,” we might recognize them as building blocks in the foundation of corporate capability.

The sample table below shows generic advantages and disadvantages of remote work for both individuals and organizations. To capture the benefits and avoid pitfalls in all quadrants, get strategic about remote work policy. Put social motivation, knowledge transfer, and trust on the same page with freedom, privacy, and access to talent.

Get started with a strategic assessment. Complete a table like the one above for your specific group or situation. Ask questions:

What jobs are best suited for remote work?
Is remote work a privilege or a requirement?
If it's a privilege, what criteria apply?
Can a flexible schedule include regular face-time to build relationships and trust?
What is the minimum expectation for on-site presence, if any?

Pay attention to physical and virtual workplace design too. There’s no point in bringing your whole workforce into the office if they don’t interact while they’re there. Poorly integrated technology tools and procedures in the virtual workplace will exacerbate isolation and reduce teamwork regardless of geographic location. 

Interaction is not merely a distraction from so-called real work. It IS the real work.

(Wherever you are in your workplace evolution, Workplace1080 can help frame the issues, explore options and model likely outcomes. Like any interaction, another perspective may be just the spark you need to stimulate and clarify your thinking.)

Expect 143% More From Remote Workers

Let’s say there are only two basic modes of work – individual or interactive. Working individually in an open environment with intermittent interaction still qualifies as interactive. Each mode offers different benefits.

In the first mode, working by oneself in a private setting there are no barriers to cranking it out. You’re entirely focused on the task -- except for daydreaming or, if at home, the distraction of laundry. (Assuming of course that your goal is clear and you know what you’re doing.)

In the second mode, working in a group setting involves unavoidable encounters and ambient awareness of others that distract from such a direct march toward a goal. At the same time, you’re motivating one another, discovering and learning together; getting to know strengths and weaknesses,  failing safely but publicly in small ways that build capability over time. You’re building trust with eye contact and mutual reliance.

Personal development and corporate vitality depend on such shared experiences. Without social motivation, knowledge sharing and trust there is no growth or innovation. These are not merely ancillary by-products of other work; they are essential corporate assets created through interaction.

Let’s say we expect each person to deliver 100 units of value each hour, regardless of where they’re working. Even with the “cost” of distraction lowering interactive output of deliverables to a guesstimated 70, total value creation matches the baseline 100 when we properly count intangible benefits as well.

Meanwhile, the solo/remote worker provides 100% of their value in deliverable output alone. Therefore to maintain parity the solo worker must produce 100 units of deliverables for every 70 units produced in the office. Looking at it another way, the solo worker must deliver 1.43% more than an interactive worker. (100 = 70 x 1.43)

No matter how you weight each component of value, the fact that individual work only contributes in one category makes it clear that we can and should expect more from people working alone, whether remotely or in a private office or focus room.

How much more? 143% more

Digital Literacy

If you discovered that someone on your team struggled with reading and writing, I’m guessing you would see the necessity of helping that person gain an essential life skill. It might be awkward to align the right support and motivation but I don’t think you’d let it pass. If you discovered that someone on your team struggled with electronic documents and processes, I’m guessing you’d get frustrated and try to avoid working with them.

What if technological competence is the literacy of today’s workplace?

Without it your organization is stuck in the 1980’s; dependent on paper files, perpetuating manual processes, burdensome approvals, no mobility. Unless you like being trapped at your desk surrounded by stored paper, that makes it your problem too. Or maybe it’s you who gets frustrated and tries to avoid new ways of working

Regardless, it’s high time we ensured that everyone on our team has these essential skills. Here’s a handy checklist of key concepts and capabilities.  Does your whole team have mastery over every item?

Key concepts
Files: Awareness, Findability, Authorship, Access
Email: Action, FYI, CYA
Database: Record, Field, Relationship, non-duplicative

File Management 101
“Where” is the file?
Shared network drive - folder organization
File naming conventions
Search features
Save As
Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
Print to PDF
Archive and purge

Aging Workforce: The Real Danger

"... Baby boomers includes people who are between 52 and 70 years old in 2016 …. It is projected that by 2020, the proportion of the U.S. labor force that is composed of older adults (55+) will be 25.2%. This continues a trend in increasing rates of older adults remaining in the workforce, as the rates were 13.1% in 2000 and 19.5% in 2010." [1]

This simple fact of workforce demographics can ruin a business in two ways:

#1 Boomers are still here.

In 2008, they lost 40% of their retirement savings and haven’t gotten a real raise since then. Short on cash and eager to stay active, they're blocking the career advancement ladder and hoarding good jobs. Seniority allows them to work from private offices and vacation homes, depriving the next generation of both opportunity and information.  [2]

#2 They’re going to retire eventually.

Even with delayed retirement, Boomers won’t be around forever. When they go they will be taking thousands of years of experience and knowledge that has not been transferred to the next generation.

What to do NOW

We need to encourage immediately more fluid transfer of knowledge – in both directions. Subject matter expertise flows from old to young; work process improvement flows from young to old.

Here are three ideas that can work for any company:
A. Design the workplace around face-to-face interaction – F2F is the main benefit (maybe the only) of coming into the office, considering that most people can “get work done” anywhere with wi-fi and a laptop. So we need to really push that work mode: face to face. Perhaps more even more importantly, looking someone in the eye builds trust, the core of positive workplace culture and essential foundation for innovation.

B. Recognize that 68 year olds might not thrive in an airline hangar with bean bag chairs. A demographically diverse workforce needs a variety of interactive workplace options. Let’s not design valuable older workers out of the picture prematurely.  

C. Incorporate virtual workplace improvements: network drive organization, file management protocols, chat and screenshare applications. Tools for online collaboration are exploding right now – they’re affordable and readily accessible.

Contact workplace1080.com to find out what a knowledge-transfer initiative could look like for your organization. Explore strategies for supporting a demographically diverse workforce.

www.workplace1080.com/blog-index/

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The Virtual Workplace: your collaboration hub

“Work” used to be a place, as in “I can’t talk now, I’m at work.” The work-place housed the things we needed to do our jobs: desk, phone, computer, copier, files, fax machine, mail sorter, supplies, etc. 
 
Now, work is an activity that can happen in a variety of places anytime. The only constant is the shared network drive. That's where everyone goes to work, no matter where they are physically. But for many organizations the shared drive is a non-collaborative, counterproductive mess.

How to fix it

State the goals:
Awareness       I know this file exists
Findability        I can find it
Accessibility    I can view and edit it unless it’s private for a good reason
Ownership       I know who is in charge of this file
Sharing            I can share this file with others as needed
Disambiguity    I am confident there is no other place for this subject

Organize the network drive by function rather than by department. You might be surprised at how may functions involve more than one department, spawning duplicate inconsistent files. Ask what does your company deliver that people are willing to pay for? A good place to start is your website tabs. This is your value proposition, and the basis for your functional buckets.

Welcome to the new collaborative workplace – it’s the shared network drive.
Promote collaboration, eliminate redundancy and highlight intersections that spark innovation. A fresh network drive is a lot cheaper than renovating the office.

Soap and cramps

Do you suffer from leg or foot cramps in bed? Next time it happens place a bar of bath soap near the cramp. Wait a minute or so. Experience the joy of release. 

This ridiculous treatment is not “scientifically proven” or even understood, but it works (based on loose experimentation by my own self and numerous friends). Don’t expect double blind tests and FDA approval anytime soon, in the absence of related profit-making opportunity.

Maybe cramps are caused by an energy feedback loop. Soap interrupts the feedback loop. Or something like that. 

How could this possibly be relevant for workplace design? 

It has to do with trying new things. The workplace is changing radically, and yet many of us resist new approaches with the claim that “it won’t work for me” or with a challenge to “prove it.” Yet we can’t know what works without trying new things. And we don’t know what we’re missing except through new experience.  When thinking about workplace changes consider this: 

Some good ideas --
•    cannot be totally explained or demonstrated in advance, but are nonetheless valid.
•    lack research and marketing (due to limited profit potential), but are nonetheless valid. 
•    don’t work for everyone, but are nonetheless valid. 
•    are cheap and easy to implement, but are nonetheless valid.

When we demand rational explanations and documented results we can miss out on real value.  

So if you get occasional cramps, keep a bar of soap on your bedside table. Next time, after you stop laughing, grab the soap and place it near the cramp. You might find that a new approach brings benefits that you didn’t even know were possible. Same goes for the new workplace.

Millennials Don't Want Your McMansion

They would rather have brunch with their friends than mow the lawn. They don't want your status-symbol car either. What makes you think they’re going to want your old office?

Until recently it didn’t much matter what Millennials wanted. But now you need them. Look at this – it’s the demographic dumbbell, and it's a huge looming problem.

What it means in the workplace

Boomer retirements eviscerate management ranks.
Generation X population lacks bandwidth to take over.
Competition for qualified leaders gets ugly.
Productivity goes down. Resources are scarce for reactive change.

The fix

Get active about knowledge-transfer.
Cultivate millennials for leadership.
Prepare to compete for talent.
Apply known principles (natural light, social interaction, physical movement, personal choice) for a more productive workplace now.

What it's worth

Changes that improve knowledge transfer, innovation, quality, and well-being, can improve productivity by 10%, measured as gross revenue per employee. For just 50 employees, that's worth $600,000 every year, assuming a modest $120K gross revenue per employee. For gross revenue per employee of $200K, the gains are worth $1.0 mil. per year. Serious numbers.

Action

Who is responsible in your office for thinking about this stuff? If your workplace feels old or you have a lease transition coming up, consider calling us for an expert assessment. We’ll identify your opportunities and create a realistic roadmap. Whether or not you implement the plan, learn what you’re missing out on.

While you're toiling away in your private office, Millennials are eating your brunch.

Workplace Logic for Law Firms

To be successful, lawyers learn to privilege precedent over logic. As a result, common sense and legal prowess don't always go together. Nonetheless we can use logical reasoning to show how freedom from the past can make the workplace more productive for today's attorneys and staff.

Given:
A. The traditional law office is socially isolating, sedentary, dark, limited by perimeter conditions, and inefficient with excess interior square footage. 

B. Known factors that contribute most to workplace productivity --

• Natural light
• Social interaction 
• Physical movement
• Personal control

Prove:
The traditional office floor plate can be transformed within the same footprint for greater productivity. 

Figure 1 - Traditional Layout

Statement
1. Break continuous perimeter
2. Add attorney offices inside
3. Group staff together
4. Centralize support functions
5. Create alternative work areas

Figure 2 - Logical Transformation

Reasons
1. Critical for natural light
2. Use excess space
3. Foster teamwork, reduce isolation
4. Encourage physical movement
5. Enhance social connections, add variety and choice

Conclusion:
No one needs a reason to do things the “way we’ve always done it.” But to achieve greater productivity in today’s workplace, logic demands a break in precedent. That goes for every company, not just law firms. To find out more contact marcia.hart@workplace1080.com

Estimating Commercial Real Estate – you’re doing it wrong

A lot of things we do by habit are flawed, mostly out of ignorance. Peeling a banana. Folding a fitted sheet. Making a BLT sandwich. Just look at LifeHacks: You're Doing It Wrong.

Along these lines, the latest fail is that handy rule of thumb that real estate professionals use for estimating rentable square feet (RSF) for corporate offices -- RSF/Person. It doesn't work anymore. One Person = One Seat is over. 

To estimate square footage now you need to know how many days per week each person will be on-site. Occupancy profile is more important than office size for determining actual space needs.

Let’s say there are three kinds of people: Resident, Mobile, and Drop-in. The table below shows a range of occupancy scenarios – 0% mobile, 20% mobile, and 40% mobile. For simplicity, Drop-in count is set to zero. Total headcount is set at 150. The resulting seat requirement and RSF requirement for each scenario shows how a mobile workforce affects real estate.

To calculate the RSF requirement start with the days per week that each member needs a seat. For residents the number is five (days in the work week). For mobile members it's some number less than five. The model uses 2.5 (half-time on-site.) Vacancy rate also affects the seat requirement and is set at 10%. Vacant seats are essential for staffing flexibility and are available for mobile members.
 
This algorithm generates the new metric: RSF/Day. Note that RSF/Day is 50 across the board, regardless of the mobility mix. For corporate space in the United States the typical range is about 45 – 55 RSF/Day, depending on office sizes and the amount of shared space. If you're a commercial real estate broker or in-house professional, imagine the value you'd bring with a quick and easy method for estimating  true real estate requirements for the new workplace. 
 
Start doing it right. Get to know the new rule of thumb. It’s 50 RSF/Day.

When Workplace Change Fails

People at parties love to tell me about workplace disasters . . . the cool new collaboration space as storage dump, . . . the low-panel exposure to a neighbor who coughs and farts all day, . . . the working at home on deadline because laundry is less distracting than other peoples’ speakerphone calls. What went wrong?
 
Clients rarely mention the possibility of failure. They’d rather float down a river in Egypt. But denial won’t solve this problem and may even be the cause.

Let’s start by acknowledging that big change carries big risk. It’s easy to crunch numbers and modify a space, a lot harder to modify attitudes and behaviors. William Bridges, Ph.D. author of Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change says, “It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions. . .Change is situational,… Transition is psychological.”  

Successful workplace change involves an emotional shift – and not just resignation but also embracing new benefits. (If there are no benefits, don’t do it.) Bridges identifies three overlapping phases for making a transition:

• Ending, Loss, Letting Go
• Neutral Zone
• New Beginning

Tactics for supporting people through it all may include focus on the reason for the change, defining what’s changing and what’s staying the same, recognizing “losses” to support the process of letting go. You can read more at http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/bridges-transition-model.htm
 
The Heart of Change Field Guide by Dan S. Cohen (protégé of change guru John Kotter) provides a good structure too. Like Bridges, he emphasizes the personal. http://www.kotterinternational.com/the-8-step-process-for-leading-change/.
 
Of course there’s more to change management than a few quick steps. Remember that transitions are psychological, not situational. Change means loss, as well as gain. That does not mean workplace change is a bad idea. The real risk is in thinking you can re-arrange the furniture and call it done. 

Would You Pay $1000/mo. for Office Space?

Would you pay $1000 per month for office space? Your employer does. With annual costs of $52.30 per SF and average 230 SF per seat one assigned seat costs $12,029 (based on 80% workstations, 40% of total leased area allocated for workstations and private office seats, with 15% vacancy). See for yourself by editing shaded cells in the table below, or just send me a note if you want to customize the calculator for your specific situation.

Is It Worth It?

Value is always more difficult to measure than cost, but if you had a monthly allowance of $1000 to spend at your discretion for office space, what would you do? Here are four options:

• A. Keep the money and work from home
• B. Give the money back and keep your assigned office space as is
• C. Give the money back plus another $1000 of your own money for a private office
• D. Keep half the money and work in a shared space 2-3 days per week

There are two issues here-- what do YOU get from showing up at the office and what does your EMPLOYER get. What's that worth? 

Office Politics Explained

Book Review: Cubed - A Secret History of the Workplace 

image credit: officemuseum.com

I read Cubed so you don’t have to. But you might want to learn for yourself how the author Nikil Saval connects the insecurities of 19th century clerks to today’s workplace.

The big takeaway: It all began with clerks in the 19th century angling for status to compensate for the unmanliness of their tedious and sedentary work. Here’s what Vanity Fair had to say about clerks in 1860:

 “vain, mean, selfish, greedy, sensual and sly, talkative and cowardly” and spent all their minimal strength attempting to dress better than “real men who did real work.” p.14

Unlike laborers in fields and factories, clerks worked side-by-side with the men who would promote them. Clerks were relatively few in number and had the opportunity to learn all aspects of the business at the right hand of their boss.

The possibility of advancement offered a powerful incentive to maintain non-adversarial relationships with owners. It also fueled fierce internal competition among peers in the office.
__________

In keeping with a genteel image that signaled membership in the middle-class clerks resisted calls to join the growing labor movement during the Industrial Revolution and Gilded Age. They formed associations, rather than unions. Instead of collective bargaining they relied on trust and individual relationships to promote their interests. Saval sums up the legacy of this approach:

“With reformers promising a utopia of one kind, the office promised another, which would prove more enduring: an endless, placid shaking of hands.” p. 32

Fundamental Beliefs of Office Workers

• Value of proximity to boss·       
• Possibility of advancement
• Norms of internal competition
• Reliance on individual achievement over collective bargaining

Meanwhile, telecommunications and railways were changing the structure of commerce from local to regional, resulting in massive growth in service sector employment. The US Census shows 750k clerks in 1860, growing to 2.2 mil. in 1890, and 4.4 mil by 1910. During this period, proprietorships were superseded by a new form of the corporation that separated ownership and management for the first time. Workers were further isolated in narrow functional departments.

Still, office workers remained loyal to the idea that proximity to leadership and individual achievement might lead to advancement into the owner class. And they were eager to beat out their colleagues to do it. (Entrepreneurship is today's manifestation of the same drive.)

These fundamental beliefs have persisted through every management trend, technology boom and demographic shift ever since. Even with ever-increasing demands and erosion of real wages, the roots of office politics remain firmly planted. Mess with them at your peril.

Part II “The Perversion of the Cubicle” will take a quick look at physical workplace design and the (mostly failed) attempts to prioritize efficiency over deeply held beliefs. Coming next month.