Last month, our launch issue asked if you’re sick of being branded to. A vast majority, 75%, said oh, yes, sick of it, and 25% of you apparently want more! Why? One reader said branded environments make her feel uncomfortable, like it’s a ploy she’s walked into. Another, resigned to branding, said we’re all born consumers, and de-branding is just "another example of the pendulum swinging."
Let’s keep the discussion going. Again,
ReThink Architecture is a conversation between MulvannyG2 Architecture and our readersthat examines how we’re thinking about design, our industry and our practice in light of the post-recessionary economy.
So, on to our second issue. Today we’re discussing how coworkers learn from one another and how workplace design can enable that. Studies show that 80% of organizational learning comes through informal conversation and only 20% through formal training. Basically, you learn from each other, and workplace design can intentionally encourage the collaboration that, some say, increases profits. In the end, the question is: Can a workplace design boost a firm’s profit margin?
There’s been a lot of talk in the past two years about a study that points to not only increased collaboration, retention, innovation and productivity, but increased profits, yes, profits because of better workplace design. Speculation about a positive correlation between design and margin continues today, when companies are still watching every penny, scrutinizing every expense, despite news that the bowof the economy’s ship is lifting.
Also during this time, our industry bandied the term "working smarter," which has grown trite. Of course we have to work smarter! The danger of that phrase is that it cannot become a euphemism for consolidating and cutting space without considering a new paradigm for the way the workplace—the way workers—work today and will be working tomorrow. Rather than measuring real estate effectiveness by square footage, measure how well it encourages employees of different specialties and generations to gather in both spontaneous and formal ways. Only design that considers collaboration and plays to it, while using resources judiciously, will transform an organization’s culture—and margin.
Consider these stats on the positive effects of collaboration:
- Workplaces that promote collaboration, learning and socialization have more engaged employees and higher profits than those that focus more on "heads-down" work. Profits at such companies were 14 percent greater than those with more traditional work environments.
- Socializing was almost three times as critical to employees at top-performing companies, 20 percent vs. 7 percent, compared to average companies surveyed.
- Employees at top-ranked companies consider collaboration twice as critical to job success as average companies, 43 percent vs. 21 percent, and spend 23 percent more time collaborating than average companies.
–Human Resource Executive, "Profiting from Workplace Design," November 2008*
Why now? You may be wondering, why this emphasis on workplace collaboration now? Well, we’re coming out of the cube farm. Forty years ago we moved from the private office to the cube to save real estate costs, typically the second-largest corporate expense after personnel. While cubes accommodated a growing management rank and created a now often parodied form of privacy, no one knew what the other was doing. Since then, we’ve learned from Dilbert, realizing that the cube’s isolation contributesto stagnation.
I’ve also found that a more qualitative sense of the workplace supports those statistics above: A great design that reinforces brand and collaboration can shift the phrase "I have to go to work" to "I want to go to work." That one-word change lifts an organization remarkably. Design can do that by engaging employees and building brand equity. Here’s how:
Engage employees. For every 10 employees, design one collaborative space—an informal conference area, a "living room"—that pulls colleagues of different practice areas, generations, and personality types out of their office or cube comfort to talk to one another. They’ve got to be compelling spaces to do that! The designers of Google’s headquarters implement this strategy, too. People not only clamor to work there, Google gets countless requests for workspace tours! Collaborative spaces there include "igloos" for a small meeting of three, mock ski gondolas for two-person meetings, or, for larger meetings, tongue-in-cheek English "libraries" with tufted, Regency-style velvet sofas and faux "stacked book shelf" wallpaper.
Build brand equity. A quick case study: We renovated the office of Portland, Ore.-based law firm Tonkon Torp LLP, where people now want to go to work to talk to one another. Tonkon Torp was about to renew its lease for the first time in 20 years, and took the opportunity to improve its space—something that hadn’t been altered since 1989—to reflect how the firm has evolved with changes in the delivery of law.
Today, Tonkon Torp’s office galvanizes the firm’s shift to a more collaborative business model, cross-selling numerous legal services to each client. Sharing client information is crucial now relative to the firm’s siloed, ‘80s model of delivery, akin to one service per client.
To encourage the trust required of this new model, we reinforced communication with a branded stairwell that links all three office floors. We also created eight open community meeting spaces from formerly closed (and choice) partner offices along the floors’ perimeters. The spaces’ placement among the floors sustains and spurs different legal specialties’ adjacencies while the allusions of their ambiance—coffee shop, gallery, living room, rec room—cue the relaxed congeniality found in those places. They encourage the impromptu sharing of knowledge among specialties and four generations—Traditionalists, Boomers, GenX, and Millennials, and foster a greater identity with Tonkon Torp’s brand. The result: When the right work mode balance is reached, workers thrive, interacting with one another and their environment in ways that enhance the quantity and quality of the work they deliver.
We’ve finally figured it out: Communication, collaboration, innovation, productivity. They’re causal. Now you decide if profits are, too: Do you think workplace design can boost profit margin? Let’s talk about it!
