Innovations in Office Design

Diane Stegmeier: Rachel, I think it's best that we start by my providing a bit of background to lay the foundation for sharing my thoughts on the elements involved in designing an effective work environment. In 1996 I embarked upon a research initiative to study resistance to workplace change and that project came to involve 140 organizations looking at 24 very diverse industries and it spanned over 10 years of time. The findings of that research revealed that the most productive workplaces were those designed to function as what I call a sustainable platform for change, one sort of environment where flexibility, adaptability and elasticity were key drivers in the design and the way I look at it is that we need to stop thinking of the overall office environment as a square box, one that the designer divides into smaller and smaller individual spaces, the private offices and cubicles that we all know so well, after all a box, if you think of the physical object, a container, a box, is a constrained space that's composed of four inflexible walls and stagnant recycled air that stifles performance. We really need to take a look at supporting the workforce better, so rather if you think of this box, this physical container interior designers need to get a mindset that they can actually flip over a box, this box that we call the office environment and use it as a platform or a stage that can change as quickly as the business itself changes, so it's more of a surface or a stage that is very, very flexible to support the changing work environment.

Rachel Salaman: Could you share an example from your research that demonstrates what you mean by that?

Diane Stegmeier: Absolutely. One of the best examples that I like, surfacing from the research is an organization that's begun to reinvent its work environment and has done it very successfully and that is the US Federal Government. We think of governments being very bureaucracy and laden with red tape but here in the US our General Services Administration, which we call GSA, initiated an initiative they called the Workplace 2020 Project and this was begun a number of years ago but was focusing on the year 2020 and what workplaces would need to be and how could we begin addressing some of those issues and important goals were established in the Workplace 2020 project that include improving teamwork, collaboration and importantly innovation and that's another shocker for many individuals, thinking 'Ah the Government should be innovative' but they really were focused on that and they still are. A priority was created looking at workplaces that could accommodate the four generations in the workforce and of course there was an emphasis on significantly reducing workplace costs which continues to be an important goal for organizations whether they're public or private and organizations all over the world, and the workplace transformation team for the Government established what they call the hallmark of the productive workplace. They looked at specific elements that needed to be incorporated into offices being built or existing offices that were being redesigned and these elements included things like spatial equity, flexibility, healthfulness, end user comfort, technological connectivity, reliability and a sense of place, having people really feel like they belong in that work environment and then applying these concepts the US Federal Government then began to create fabulous office spaces for its workforce and I have to say, Rachel, that one of my favorites and it's like a great example was a building called the Strawbridge Building. It's located in Philadelphia and this building was designed in 1931 as a retail department store and recently it was transformed into an open collaborative work environment that works fabulously and is just an excellent example of an innovative approach to physical space in the office.

Rachel Salaman: Can you describe it? What's it like?

Diane Stegmeier: If you think about shopping in 1931, shopping was an experience, whereas now, you know, you will go out to the mall or to the strip shopping center that has the convenience of pulling up, grabbing what you're needing, and going back out to your car but you think about the physical structure of a retail environment and the early 1930s, it was an experience, it was a big deal to walk into a fabulously designed space where you could walk in the front door and you would see through mezzanines and different layers of this shopping environment that you had these different activities going on, you may be shopping in the home goods or shopping for clothing or jewelry but you could see these different activities, so this concept was reflected in the office environment where you would walk in, you could see activities going on in the mezzanine level, you could see different groups meeting in a very open environment, you didn't see closed off cubicles or private offices. It was very open and very well designed, so that even though you would feel this activity, you would have this experience in working in a very energetic office environment, you would still have semi-enclosed areas where teams could meet, you would have white noise designed into the space so that you may be able to detect the other conversations going on but you would still have that privacy.

Rachel Salaman: So how do you know when your office design needs changing, when you would benefit from perhaps changing it around a bit?

Diane Stegmeier: My first signals that I suggest that individuals look at and these aren't necessarily things that an interior designers needs to be looking at, it's individuals within the organization, I think several finds that are commonly observed is that first, when you're walking through the office environment, you're first going to witness that private offices and cubicles can be sitting vacant the majority of the time. In many cases in North America and Western Europe, we're seeing that the spaces, those individual spaces that are assigned or dedicated to one particular individual may sit empty more than 63% of the work day, I mean that's an astonishing waste of corporate dollars. At the same time where there's, these spaces sitting empty there is a severe shortage of conference rooms and team spaces, those are the spaces that are in demand. That's signaling that the current office design is not working and then secondly, you can see things like the results of the ineffective work environment, such as decisions are taking longer to be made in that work environment, communications break down frequently and worker processes appear to be broken, so it's more of the outcome of the physical space sign is that people's task in making decisions or communicating with other are being hindered.

Rachel Salaman: So have you observed in your research that any one particular type of layout is most effective for today's organizations? For example, open plan or cubicles, two things you've already mentioned, or does it depend entirely on the company and its own particular goals?

Diane Stegmeier: Rachel I think I'm going to have to answer that question yes and yes, organizations around the globe are beginning to realize that there are tremendous benefits in both workplace cost reduction and workforce productivity improvement by shifting to a much more open work environment. Stegmeier Consulting Group often gets calls from organizations that want to transform their workplaces, they realize that there are significant advantages, yet they know there are going to be individuals throughout the organization that are resisting this workplace change and unfortunately none of these organizations believe that it's an all-or-nothing situation, you either keep everybody in cubicles and private offices, or you move to an entirely open environment and they're picturing this is going to be a very, very chaotic situation and what, we work with them to share best practices in managing workplace change and also some of the best practices that we've seen in workplace design and guide them in determining the appropriate workplace strategy for their specific company, their specific goals, their specific organizational culture and in many, many cases the final design solution that they determine is appropriate is hybrid approach where you still have some private offices, you still have cubicles but you have much, much more of the physical space allocated towards group work and teaming spaces, so it becomes a less scary proposition if you will, we help them understand that changing the office environment can be very doable, can be very successful by finding the right solution for your company.

Rachel Salaman: What does your research tell us about using office design to support a company's attraction and retention initiative? Is it possible to use it that way?

Diane Stegmeier: Absolutely it's possible to design the space to attract and retain but really optimizing that design solution takes a bit more work, more and more companies are branding their work environment to articulate to people both inside the company and potentially to recruits and into their vendors and customers that this is an organization worth working for, this is an organization worth doing business with and it's particularly important when we look at the number of new hires that companies are going to need to replace the waves of retirement of baby boomers in the coming years and we know that many individuals especially in the United States were faced with this where individuals who thought that they were going to retire over the past 18 months or so have held on to their jobs a little bit longer because of the economy and because of what the financial impact of the economy has done to their retirement savings but those retirements are going to come about pretty quickly and companies are looking at communicating what the employee experience is if you join the company, it's reflecting, using the workplace to reflect the corporate culture in the work design, so that the younger generation that are going to be much more particular about the type of company they work for after they graduate from college are going to be attracted to a company and say wow this is really what I would like starting my career.

Rachel Salaman: Can you share an example from your own experience that illustrates that, somewhere which really gave off those, those messages?

Diane Stegmeier: Absolutely, I think about a particular client that had done a really good job of branding the workplace, meaning that they put together an environment and coincidentally it was a hybrid approach so they still had some cubicles, they still had private offices but they had a very open environment, they had their area that used to be a small coffee break area, now became the corporate cafe where they had, the wonderful cappuccino makers and they had stool high pub tables where people could relax and exchange information, they had white-boards in areas like that in those types of areas where people could capture their ideas and strategize about new ways to do their work, they had breakout areas with very comfortable lounge seating and places where people could kick up their feet and be very relaxed while they were working together.

Rachel Salaman: So how can an interior designer or facilities manager strike the right balance between creating comfortable spaces that promote the kind of interaction you're talking about versus creating spaces that encourage people to sit around chatting and wasting company time? It's a fine balance isn't it?

Diane Stegmeier: It is a fine balance and I will tell you that any architect, interior design or facilities managers that are listening to this recording are probably going to be very delighted to hear that I challenge the way the companies have in the past placed 100% of the burden of changing behaviors in the workplace on the physical space design, so what we do as a consulting organization, what we do when we're working with our clients is educate the leaders in the organization that they have a very, very big responsibility in making sure the corporate dollars are used wisely by them using those spaces because if I'm a junior level person coming in the organization, I'm going to look at the behavior of the leaders, be that the senior executives or the manager to whom I report and if my manager, if my manager's manager and the president of the company are not using those comfortable team areas because it looks like we're not really working, then I will not be caught dead using those spaces because then it looks like I'm not working, so we need to have the accountability of managers throughout the organization to reflect the behaviors that we expect of everyone else in the organization.

Rachel Salaman: In your book you turn the idea of the corner office as a private place for a manager on its head. Tell us what else companies can do with that light, bright corner space.

Diane Stegmeier: It's an important concept we're seeing more and more and especially it ties into this resistance of change of managers losing private offices that they really identify with that status, so sort of tying back to my earlier comment that it's not an all or nothing proposition, that you can have a hybrid approach many organizations are taking the windowed offices around the perimeter of the building and putting managers, if they do need to be in a private closed space, more in the interior corner or the interior core rather of the workspace and those exterior work environments can become things like team collaboration rooms, some organizations are using them as breakout areas where people can gather and do some work while they're having a cup of coffee or having a snack, some of those spaces are being used by companies where they can be used very spontaneously where people can use them on a first come, first served basis or they can be scheduled in advance where a team says, you know, what, we've got a project we need to work on for three days solid, we would like to be able to use that space for those three days. In those cases most organizations will say, you know, we've got a maximum amount of time where you can use that space day after day, so that the space continues to be owned by everyone rather than dedicated to a single individual or to a small team.

Rachel Salaman: You mentioned home-working a little earlier and in your book you explore the advantages and disadvantages to telecommuting or telework as you call it in your book. What issues do organizational leaders need to think about before increasing telework among the workforce?

Diane Stegmeier: Rachel I think the biggest issue by far that we witness is that there is this perception amongst many, many managers that they don't feel that they can manage people that they can't see throughout the day. If they don't know that they can walk 10 feet down the corridor and see that individual working in their cubicle that they really don't know if they're working, they're focused more on seeing the activities being performed rather than on the results that the employee brings to the organization, so what we've designed that has been very, very popular and beneficial to our clients is a training series, we call it mobile workforce management and we've got different training modules that we use to prepare the entire workforce for a more mobile environment, whether it's telework or working in different spots within the office environment, we look at what do the executives need to prepare them and that goes back to my comments about we need a whole different level of leadership in today's work environment, we look at the mid level managers and supervisors and help them understand the difference between the tasks and the results, help them understand that you're not necessarily judged on how many people are surrounding you in your own individual work environment and also look at how we educate individual contributors because it's a major shift for some people to work out of their homes instead of under the direct supervision in that physical office environment that they need to truly understand accountability to their employers, to look at what are the results they need to achieve, how they need to look at if the company is offering them flexibility meaning, you're going to be responsible for putting in eight hours a day but maybe that's four hours earlier in the morning and four hours later in the afternoon, going into the evening hours but you do have some freedom around the middle of the workday to perhaps attend some school programs at your child's grade school, that you're still required and responsible for a certain set of results for the organization, so those are very, very different yet intertwined concepts that really need to be introduced to many organizations because telework is a very, very different type of work than many companies are used to.

Rachel Salaman: And if you do work from home is there a certain way you should set up your office to optimize your productivity when you're working from home?

Diane Stegmeier: Yes and of course you realize people working in a home, homes are very different, so it's taking a look at, for your individual environment. One of the most important things I think is finding a work area where you have freedom from distraction because it's a home environment and because there may be other activities going on at different points in the time and, you know, having an area, hopefully where you can close a door where you need to, is important. Lighting is important so if you don't have natural sunlight coming in your window to have the appropriate desk lighting where you're not going to have strain on your eyes. Ergonomics: if you think about what's provided in your office space, you know, back on the corporate campus, you have a chair that's going to keep you healthy and a work surface that is at a height that's going to keep your body erect and comfortable, you know, the same thing applies in a home office and having the appropriate technology tools we find that clients provide different degrees of technological support for their clients so, you know, some may ask their employees to use their own home computers, others may provide the technology but importantly this is not a tangible element to include in your home office, it's more of a concept that you have to have a mindset to be able to separate work activities from personal ones. As I mentioned you may have the freedom to do different tasks, personal tasks and work tasks throughout the day but you really, really need to be able to prioritize and focus based on what you're accountable to your employer.

Rachel Salaman: There's a very useful part of your book where you bust eight myths about workplace collaboration, if we can just talk about one of those now which is do not rock the organizational boat, don't try to drive other changes while moving employees from private offices to the open plan. Could you elaborate on this?

Diane Stegmeier: Yes, that is a, a struggle for so many organizations where they know that there's tremendous benefits of creating a more open collaborative work environment, that they're going to have such a higher degree of knowledge exchange, of the ability to create innovative outputs and better ideas for the company, yet they think because there are other changes going on in the organization that they shouldn't introduce that workplace change, that physical workplace change right now. We hear this all the time, clients say well, you know, we want to do this but we're reorganizing right now, we want to do this now but we're introducing a new computer system, we want to introduce this but it's a sensitive time because we just came out of the downsizing. Well we found through the research that having an integrated change management plan that focuses on all these various changes that are touching the employees is so much more effective, too many times these various changes whether it's a technology change, it's a workplace change, it's a compensation change, are being driven by different departments and they're been driven without the departments talking to each other and employees tend to perceive that these changes are coming as sort of the change of the month, the flavor of the month and they also realize if they resist the change and hold off doing what they're asked to do as their part of the change that sometimes these changes fall by the wayside and drop off the face of the corporate earth, so we find that the departments that are introducing these changes are frustrated, they're not getting the results they want, employees are finding that hey, you know, we resist and sometimes we can get our way or they, the employees try to embrace these changes, yet they don't know how to do it because everything's coming at them from different angles, so as an approach that's very unified, we connect the message, connect the dots for the employee, so they know we have a workplace change that's going to be introduced here shortly. That is going to be supported by the new technology, that is going to be supported by how we are managing people with our new reorganization, so people can see that that workplace change is connected to what's expected, we have a new direction with the company, we have reorganized because the economy has forced us to do so in order for survival, so in doing that we are introducing technology, so you can be more productive, we are introducing a new workplace where you can exchange information with your peers much more quickly, we are introducing this concept that allows telework so that you can balance your work life and your personal life more effectively. Employees will see that and say oh okay now I understand why you're asking me to make so many different changes, it's all, it's all intertwined, it's all for the best value brought to the company and to me as an employee.

Rachel Salaman: And in your book you say that making effective changes to your office design doesn't have to cost a lot of money does it? What changes can companies make on a low budget?

Diane Stegmeier: Well one thing I should point out that many companies are doing that are saving tremendous dollars and then I'll get into some of those cost changes you can make. We find now because of the downsizing that has occurred over the past 18 to 22 months that there's a lot of excessive real estate, that there are parts, major parts of offices that are sitting vacant, first of all companies should be looking at getting rid of that excess real estate that they don't need, taking the resultant spaces that are left behind and shifting to a more open environment so you can allocate more spaces to team space and then what they can do and they can do this whether or not they, they get rid of the excess real estate is look at very low cost ways to create a more inspiring environment, an environment where there's a greater ability to mentor the younger generation, a greater ability to capture good ideas and share them with others and those are things that are very inexpensive, so you take a look at adding a number of mobile white-boards in the spaces, so that people can capture ideas, they can move these mobile units from team space to team space, they can be adding a number of very, very inexpensive team tables that are on castors so that teams can form and disband very quickly as they're talking about different work paths and projects they're working on, we know in the work environment, the workforce that has been in place for a number of months because of the downsizing that there's more work being done by fewer people, so those teams need to join and disband, join and disband throughout the work week, so that they can be focusing on their different projects that they're working on together, so these mobile tables are a very inexpensive solution and those mobile white-boards are an inexpensive solution to help support those employees in the way they're working today and then probably the least expensive way to add a little bit of energy to offices that seem to be unproductive is a couple of gallons of new paint, we take a look at the office environments from, you know, a decade ago, we're looking at the sea of gray cubicles, pretty boring environments and you can add some pizzazz with color to have the space much more inspiring and that's probably the least expensive solution you can do at this point in time.

Rachel Salaman: So words of advice do you have for people who may think their office design could be improved?

Diane Stegmeier: I would say that there is just an absolute wealth of information out there that would be a good first step for those in the organization that think that there are some opportunities out there but they, they may not know how to approach it to the executive to get a budget, to create a compelling business case, so individuals can do a Google search on alternative work space environments and find a number of different articles and studies and viewpoints that they can begin planting the seeds for what could our office space be like if we did make some changes. I certainly invite them to visit our website which is www.stegmeierconsulting.com. We've got a number of different case studies on our site and a number of different resources that individuals can access, if they're interested in those early, early conversations about what could we be as an organization if we had an improved workspace design, do that homework before you start making plans and also what we find a number of our clients doing, rather than thinking they need to jump at all of this head first and to start by creating a chaotic situation of completely changing your offices, look at an individual department or look at an individual team and think about doing a pilot study where you have a manageable department or manageable size of a group of people where you can begin experimenting with, you know, what, let's make this a very open environment, let's look at a team approach, let's look at this for 30, 60, 90 days and see how we can begin envisioning the workplace of the future for our company and our very unique challenges and goals.

Rachel Salaman: Diane Stegmeier thank you very much for joining us.

Diane Stegmeier: Thank you Rachel, it's been a pleasure.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Diane's book again is Innovations in Office Design: The Critical Influence Approach to Effective Work Environments and as she said you can find out more about her work at www.stegmeierconsulting.com.

I'll be back in a few weeks with another expert interview, until then, goodbye.