In the past, if managers noticed someone not at their desk, they probably assumed the employee was slacking off. Today the slacker may be the person sitting alone at their desk.
Increasingly, workplaces today are designed to foster collaboration. Bright people working together typically solve problems faster and innovate better than individuals working alone. Some people work in assigned teams. Others more fluidly connect with whomever they need to accomplish a task at a given time.
One result is that productive people are often absent from their desks.
Consider these stats from well-known companies who undertook surveys of office utilization:
- Bank of America found that office usage rates in some departments were 14% (86% were empty at any given time!)
- Cisco Systems discovered an average office occupancy rate of 35%
- Capital One found assigned desk and office utilization rates as low as 5%.
- Accenture discovered its offices were empty 75% of the time.
While offices were poorly utilized, employees often complained about the lack of meeting rooms or could be found huddled in hallways or crammed into one person’s office.
There are numerous conclusions to draw from this, one key lesson is that traditional workplaces are not meeting the needs of the 21st century knowledge economy.
These companies noted above (along with many more including most of their competitors) have implemented (or been working toward implementing) a more mobile and flexible approach to designing their workplaces.
At Capital One and Bank of America, for example, workers were given a choice of either having their own desk and/or office (depending upon what they did) or being a mobile worker. A desk worker was expected to keep regular hours and use their desk. Mobile workers could work wherever they wanted and needed to do their job — home, client office, coffee shop, branch office, or a touch-down space at corporate headquarters.
Apparently, the majority, offered the opportunity, choose to be mobile. Mobile workers for Capital One are typically issued lap tops, video iPods, and cell phones.
The well-documented Capital One workplace offers employees a wide range of seating options when at “the office.” Quiet rooms exist for head-down work that requires concentration. Bookable small medium and large meeting rooms are there for small groups or conference calls. Open areas with moveable desks and furniture are offered so employees can create the space they need and interact spontaneously, sharing ideas.
Although they have a choice to work from home when it makes sense, it should be noted that most employees of companies creating mobile workforces are not telecommuting on a daily basis. Many will work from home occasionally when they need to work independently, but not all the time.
Few companies that require creative thought and collaborative work can afford to have their talent working in silos the majority of the time - whether in private offices with doors closed or at their homes. Thousands of wheels will be continually reinvented, and no one would get around to creating an automobile.
What about you? Does your work involve sharing ideas and collaborating to solve problems? Does your workplace foster collaboration as well as it could?
August 18th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
How do these collaborative efforts measure productivity? Is it straightforward? How does one arrange to detect and award merit? Can the boss distinguish between team members who are deadweight, and those who get a bad rep because a colleague or two don’t like them? The more these questions have clear answers, the more likely that the new work style and space will function well.
Also, how do Capital One et al. organize workers’ on-the-job storage needs? Not everything can or should be stored on computer.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Great questions. Some of these have some well-researched answers, which I’ll report on in subsequent posts.
One point I’ll make now — or touch on now — is that transparency tends to go along with the collaborative and more fluid workplace. Everyone tends to know what you’re doing and why at any given time (required to collaborate effectively). So, someone not producing will be obvious and not just to their “team.”
Storage consequences of the new workplace has a great “green” story actually. As Cisco Systems found, if employees don’t have a permanent desk to pile paper on, and can take their lap tops everywhere including to meetings or home, there is a tendency to print less.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:05 am
[...] At the same time, though, I have been in a lot of conversations with a lot of personal and professional colleagues over the past 3-4 years or so, where the question we’re asking ourselves is, “Is this how work life is supposed to be?” Spoken or unspoken, the answer is “we don’t think so.” Various companies’ data also show a trend toward less vacancy in their physical locations. [...]
August 25th, 2008 at 7:28 am
[...] amount of paper their printers churned through. But that’s exactly what happened.As mentioned last week, Cisco knew that employees were only at their assigned office or cubicle 35% of the time - an [...]