transforming workplaces and workspaces · also need to hold a system orientated design view of how...
TRANSCRIPT
TRANSFORMING WORKPLACES AND WORKSPACESSYSTEMS AND USER CENTRED DESIGN APPROACHES
INTRODUCTIONThere is a growing divide in working practice between
what people want to do with information at work, and
what organisations are able to offer. It is a divide often
born from good reasons, such as security and cost
efficiencies, but also occasionally bad ones, such as
ingrained cultures or narrow focus on the short-term.
But whatever the cause, it only becomes possible to
unlock new opportunities and create greater social
value in a business through closing this divide.
To achieve this, we are advocating a change in
workplace practice, so that the next generations of
employees are enabled by technology rather than
restricted by it. This means setting specific design
processes within, and between, organisations. The
emphasis must be on understanding what is happen-
ing in a specific workplace, and working with the
people who see the problems first hand, rather than
basing technological decisions on the description of a
utopia which rarely materialises.
Our belief is that companies need a composite design
strategy. Firstly, a user-centred approach towards
advanced technology in workplace design, to meet
employee needs. And secondly, a system oriented
design approach, to understand how technology
should be created and deployed within the wider
organisation.
In order to demonstrate this approach, in this paper
we will consider the divergence of ‘workplaces’ and
‘workspaces’, why it matters now, what new challeng-
es can be anticipated, and conclude with an approach
to framing systemic workplace strategies which still
focus on the engagement of people.
TO BEGIN THIS EXPLORATION, LET’S ASK A QUESTION: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WORKPLACE AND A WORK-SPACE?
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces2
INTRODUCTION
At first, the distinction between workplace and
workspace appears artificial, a simple matter of
semantics. But the more we explored conversations
with clients, consultants and within our own
organisation, it became apparent that there is an
important difference between the two.
Workplaces are the responsibility of the employing
organization; all of the people, devices and spaces in
which that company’s work takes place.
But they are made up of all of the personalised
workspaces used by individuals; the tools, devices
and resources they’re provided with to carry out the
work they are responsible for.
The workplace is determined by the organisation’s
policy, whilst each workspace is (to a greater extent)
down to the preference of the individual. Why do we
need to draw this distinction now?
In the distant past, workplaces were the workshops
where things were made. They tended to be small and
singular where a few people gathered under a master
to learn a particular craft. Skills were learnt with
physical materials and acquired through hands-on
experience and observation of others; the apprentice
would copy the journeyman, the journeyman would
WORKPLACE OR WORKSPACE?
copy the master. Learning from others broadened
capabilities on the path to becoming a craftsman.
The industrial period transformed many small crafts
into large-scale replication of raw materials, physical
objects such as cloth and latterly complex assembly
such as cars. Everyone worked around and inside the
machines, housed in specifically designed factories.
Then, during the shift to knowledge economies, a
typical office was the container that held both the
workplace, and all of the individual workspaces of
which it was comprised. These of course appeared in a
variety of styles and systems, such as open-plan
format pioneered by Quickborner in Germany in the
1950s, or the Herman Millar ‘Action Office’ which gave
us the cubicle in the 1960s.
The uniting factor throughout all of these eras is that
work belonged in a single geographical place.
There was no need to distinguish between workplace
and workspace because they were one and the same
thing. Buildings designed for maximum efficiency for a
given workforce, who would all arrive and leave at a
certain time, and the work would remain within the
four outermost walls.
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces3
But now, the workplace has changed. That which holds all of the
workspaces demanded by your employees is geographically
stretched, diverse in location and time, shape and size.
WORKPLACE
WORKSPACES
WORKPLACE
WORKSPACE
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces4
Your workplace is anywhere your employees demand it. How can
you deliver what they expect?
WORKPLACE
WORKSPACES
WORKPLACE
WORKSPACE
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces5
UNDERSTANDING WORKSPACESContrast the origins of workplaces with where we are today in most developed econo-
mies. As employees, we are considerably less bound by office geography in our work as
individuals and as teams, but the official statistics indicate this is lower than may be
expected, perhaps as the workspace shifts to co-working locations:
– The percentage of people working from
home increases with age from 1.6% of
under 24 year-olds to 6.4% of 50-64
year-olds. The highest proportion is in
25-49 year-olds at 14.8% in The Nether-
lands (Source: Eurostat 2018).
– Co-working spaces, including brands
such as WeWork, will have increased
from 7,800 in 2015 to almost 26,000 by
the end of 2022, worldwide (Source:
Deskmag 2018)
– Vacancy rates in Europe are low at 9% in
2019, compared to 12.5% in 2013, which
means that despite high rates of new
building completion, more offices are
becoming more frequently occupied
(Source: Cushman Wakefield, Septem-
ber 2018)
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces6
We no longer have all our tools and knowledge in one
physical location. Electronic data represents our work
in many different forms and versions, often scattered
over a number of systems, some of which we own,
some of which are shared. We assemble, disassemble
and rebuild tasks or processes, often repeatedly, both
virtually or physically. This flexible practice is made
possible by a combination of technology advances
and evolving working policies.
What we create for ourselves are increasingly known
as ‘workspaces’, and can appear wherever we want to
work, within a set of boundaries determined by our
role, company culture or industry. More and more
employees are becoming nomadic, and are increas-
ingly adept at crafting their own different workspaces.
It may be through selective connections and interac-
tions with other people, choosing their own mix of
devices (both the software and the hardware), or
selecting carefully the spaces in which they feel they
are at their most productive.
This is the modern workspace sought by end-users,
and when done well it can bring with it the feeling of
effective and natural interaction, despite being
physically remote.
It has been pocket technology, much more than
just portable computing, that has facilitated this
mobility. The phone has become an engine that
generates new ways to find and interact with others
when we choose, or even to be found and interacted
with when we haven’t.
What’s interesting is that real mass adoption of
pocket technology at work started with the end-user
demand, rather than the IT function supply. The
locked-down, IT-approved mobile device disappeared
quickly (and in the case of some brands, famously) as
employees started requesting that their more
powerful, flexible personal mobile devices be inte-
grated into their work lives.
This has given rise to the most commonly heard
phrases at work today; “I can do this at home, why is
it so difficult here..?” This is the heart of the matter.
As workplaces and workspaces become more
separated, how do organisations design technology
systems in support of user needs, not in spite of
them?
The obvious answer here is to employ user-centred
design processes to build the technological infrastruc-
ture your organisation provides to employees.
Starting with well focused research at the point of use,
talking with users and understanding their problems,
iterating solutions to test and using data to focus
direction and deployment are all core parts of the
method that’s being increasingly used in a variety of
different fields.
But only using user-centred design methodologies in
isolation runs the risk of creating a bottom-up
shopping list of demands. Without a view of the whole
system within an organization, an understanding of
the workplace and not just the workspaces, then the
job is only half done.
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces7
UNDERSTANDING WORKPLACESFor organisations, the conversation and research around employees within workplaces has never been louder.
There are debates about the value of ‘workplace happiness’, the meaning and value of productivity, and con-
cerns about the risk of paying too much attention to well-being of individuals. Combined with this, there’s a new
generation of employees coming through who’re not looking for long-term salaried roles, but more short–term
contractual work on projects they’re passionate about. There are even indications that the physical workplace
will grow in importance, rather than diminish to an emerging generation of staff as environment, a sense of
belonging and teamwork become factors in chosing employment. Data can help workplace providers under-
stand how to balance the different requirements of space, from individual to team and of what size teams.
So at the same time as you need user-centred design approaches to understand current employee needs, you
also need to hold a system orientated design view of how your organisation works as a whole, and will work into
the longer term.
Illustration: Steelcase is measuring not only presence but true occupancy which
gives an indication of the efficiency of space used compared to demand
76% Efficiency Occupied Average
WSF Hub 1 (4)
WSF Hub 2 (4)
G-01 (42)
Product Development Hub (3)
Marketing Functional Hub (4)
Sustainability Table (3)
Spaces Efficiency
47%
78%
77%
77%
90%
90%
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces8
1. ECONOMY:
Over time, the nature of work and its contracting
process is going to change (e.g. nearly half EU
residents have expressed a preference to be self-em-
ployed). If you want greater flexibility in terms of
resource contracting, then new flexible workspaces
will be needed. Planning your building and service
infrastructure to reflect this shift needs to start now.
2. COMPANY:
The workplace and workspace represent a basis for
competition for new skills – if you need a new genera-
tion of skills, you need a new workplace strategy which
reflects a ‘to be’ state. Your workplace must be more
open and adaptable to change than your competitors.
3. DIVISION:
New disruptive businesses are taking workplace and
workspace strategy seriously as a reflection of their
values and operational model; for instance, AirBnB’s
Chief Employee Experience Officer replaced a tradi-
tional HR role and runs cross-functional teams
addressing workplace quality. Divisions must be
involved in determining their own environments.
4. TEAM:
If you want to assemble powerful cross-functional
teams to address specific business challenges, you
need depth of knowledge and stability, agility and
adaptability. Great teams today are a flexible combina-
tion of long-term and transitory, specialists and
generalists. To work together well, look beyond
traditional remote conferencing and files sharing tools
to form new workspaces, with new workspace tools
and methods, especially around physical-virtual
collaboration.
5. SKILLS:
Digital workplaces will become more commonplace –
you will need to understand what they are and how to
develop a digital workplace practice, selectively
testing and deploying new digital workplace services.
Start to understand which skills are more prized
throughout your organization: who become the de
facto experts because they understand how to do
useful things others do not.
In essence, creating a dialogue means establishing
two-way conversation which is educational, informa-
tive and transformational, so that workplace practice
creates the right environments for effective workspace
management by individuals and groups. This way,
responsibilities become more widely recognised and
shared and ideally, that workplace personalisation
becomes enabled by policy.
As with Brand’s model, we can see that these layers are
all related, dependent on one another, and more
robust because of the different pacing. A sharp change
in the fast skills layer, for instance, will be absorbed by
the slower moving, sturdier team and division layers
underneath.
To understand workplaces and workspaces requires a
new dialogue, between the system-level workplace,
and the individual level workplace. This means an
inter-disciplinary approach involving human resourc-
es functions, facilities management, information
technology, finance and end-users.
As an example, taking a cue from the Stewart Brand’s ‘shearing layers’, you might choose to breaking down your
system into a series of layers, from the slowest moving (ECONOMY) to the fastest (SKILLS), allowing you to think
about the effects on the workplace:
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces9
HOW MIGHT THE JOURNEY TOWARDS GENERATING NEW WORKPLACES AND SPACES BEGIN?With our Japanese heritage, we believe in
transforming workplaces as a learning
practice, rather than big bang approaches
across whole organisations. There is an
opportunity now to build workplaces and
workspaces like never before, which begin
to take advantage of a new wave of
technology, striking a dynamic balance
between what people want and what is
available through policy and tempered by
legislative requirement. But this requires a
methodical approach. Our suggested
approach is:
1. The first step is to engage in a method or process
which seeks to identify common understanding of
workplace challenges, for example around
information flow, and assemble the ideal solution
from the components required. This system-view
allows a general map of the organization to be
understood, from which user-research require-
ments may be specified.
2. The second step is collect research from specific
areas and disciplines, identifying from the people
within different parts of the organization the issues
and opportunities they see when it comes to their
personal workspaces. This user-view of the
organisation must have a wide enough sample to
build up the map with specific requirements by
role and division.
3. The third step is to establish a cross-functional
working party with a vision such as ‘Workplace
2020’ and involve end users and works councils as
appropriate, to test hypotheses which emerge
from combining the system and user views. For
instance, this may be trials of prioritised practices
and technologies to gauge feedback across the
cross-functional teams, so as to validate tools
before making practical steps towards adoption.
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces10
WHAT MIGHT THIS LOOK LIKE?LET’S TAKE THIS APPROACH, AND SEE HOW IT WOULD WORK IN A SPECIFIC SCENARIO.If workspaces can be created anywhere, the workplace has to demonstrate special features to make per-
son-to-person communication especially effective. As one CEO sees it, the workplace is much more important
as an environment in which to communicate face to face, than it is as a piece of real estate. To make this
happen is less a matter of policy and more a matter of designing different facilitating environments, however
temporary.
If the ideal facilitating environment is one which adapts to the needs of what or whom it contains, then we can
infer that technology will play a significant role in helping organisations create these facilitating environments.
Adaptive workplaces that rely on a combination of technology and capabilities should result in environments
which change in realtime, or near-realtime, according to the presence or absence of people. They are design to
act as an environmental chameleon which changes to blend in with whomever is present.
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces11
HOW CAN WE USE OUR THREE STEP APPROACH TO BEGIN TO DESIGN SUCH A WORKPLACE?Firstly, the system level map. This can be pulled together at a sketch level from a fusion of organisa-
tion charts, building maps, meeting rooms calendars, travel data and device/service usage. Every
organisation already has the data to use as a basis for workplace and workspace adaptation, but
often it’s not brought together to create a global view of what is happening in the current given state.
Rather than use this map to arbitrarily decide on what technologies will suit a business, it should be
used to steer the second step, a granular, user-up piece of research that tests some of the hypotheses
that the system view throws up. For instance, here are three examples of scenarios we imagine may
come up in a system view around adaptive environments:
– Information systems
adaption – the platforms
needed to access different
systems become invisible to
the end-user. We will be able
to access different systems
without the need for
different tablets, screens and
devices – and the informa-
tion we need will adapt to
where we are and what we’re
doing.
– Environmental adaptation –
heating, light quality,
air-quality, workspace alloca-
tion should be attuned to the
individual desk level wherev-
er possible, and optimised
against the cost of used /
unused space.
– Context adaptation –
individual files should be
made available automatically
according to personal or
group requirement, aligned
to calendar, project and
process management
systems, obviating the need
for teams and individuals to
search for every data file
needed for a scheduled
meeting.
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces12
These hypotheses must be tested at an individual user level,
rather than simply validated from the system level. How does
it feel for people working in an office where the environmental
aspects are dictated to them automatically, irrespective of
whether it’s based on personal data? How unnerving is it to walk
into a meeting unprepared, relying on a system to gather the
right files and folders for you automatically? Are you happy to
lose all personal devices, and work on public surfaces instead?
What is lacking today is consistent evidence which helps validate
workplace hypotheses. This is likely to evolve as more data
becomes available from various sensing devices. Such data will
lead to an early-stage science with a special interest in social
behaviours. Examples are:
– By reducing light levels by a certain percentage at a given time
of day, staff concentration improved by a consistent rate with a
measurable impact on productivity in specific roles
– When people are likely to be absent through sickness, inter-
ventions can be made that minimise co-worker impacts which
maintained customer service levels by a demonstrable index
– When regulatory guidelines on computer screen use are
implemented, musculoskeletal complaints will fall by a
predictable rate within a specific period of time
This data will become a blend of both the systems view (“building
science”) and people view (“social science”).
Matching up the workplace system view with proper under-
standing of the workspaces people want creates a dialogue
between the two realms, and in doing so, means you can learn
what an ideal working environment from both the company and
employee perspective might look like.
This leads us to the third step, the trialing of potential solutions
within given contexts. This often means using new technologies,
or minimum viable prototypes of them, in specific situations
that emerge both from a user-up perspective (“we want this to
be better”) as well as the system view (“if we solve this, it helps
a lot of people in the business”). With it, an understanding of
how best to acquire and manage data, both at the building and
individual level will become ever more important.
Let’s look back to our adaptive technology examples. The
environmental elements (heating, lighting and so on) could
be explored using an assembly of off-the-shelf consumer
technologies, rather than large-scale workplace ones, to see
how and if groups of people can create common comfort. Should
it prove useful in small environments, this sort of test can be
used to set the requirements for a larger system throughout the
organisation.
For context adaptation, you might set-up a ‘hand-cranked’ file
system that everyone on a particular project relies upon – one
person in the background creating a file system as if it were
automated, to see how supported the participants are. Before
finding out if automation is the solution, it’s easy to use this
methodology to test the real effects such automation might have.
Finally, for information systems adaption, you might create a
temporary combination of adaptive services for a team working
on a sales pitch, and track progress of the ideas, the feelings of
the participants in the room, as well as the end result itself which
emerges from a new way of working. Asking people to enter a
whole new way of working for one specific element allows them
to express ideas and feels confident in the sense that they are
working inside a prototype, they’ve not permanently lost the
ways of working they are used to relying on.
These examples are low-cost ways of trialling new ways of
working on a sprint-basis, where concepts can be tested with real
people and improved iteratively.
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces13
CONCLUSIONIn our work on this project so far, we have
seen how employing both a system orient-
ed design approach, to understand the
workplace requirements for technology,
and a user-centred approach to describe
workspace requirements, offers a frame-
work that can both meet employee needs
and overall organisational requirements.
Having specific design processes to follow, which
makes the most.
It only becomes possible to unlock new opportunities
and create greater social value in a business through
closing this divide.
To achieve this, we are advocating a change in
workplace practice.
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces14
YOU CAN REACH OUR DIGITAL WORKPLACE RESEARCHER AT:
HOW WE CAN HELPAs a 140 year old manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Konica Minolta
may not be immediately associated with workplace services. Yet in fact, the company has
been quietly present in all manner of workplaces – especially offices – over that time, and
today is found in over 1.5 million locations in Europe alone, providing everything from
multifunctional printers and copiers and in medical equipment.
From this vantage point, we have learnt a lot of about
the importance of the way a physical environment
shapes the interaction of people with technology
together with the implications for cost and creativity.
To achieve this, we work closely with information
technology, facility managers and more recently with
human resources specialists.
To explore further how machines and people interact,
we have devised a digital workplace toolkit which
maps out the way information flows between people,
devices and spaces. It works by creating dialogue
between the system level of the workplace, and the
user level of the workspace.
Over the last year, we have been testing this approach
with clients in both public and private sectors;
listening and learning in different work environments.
Konica Minolta is pleased to facilitate such dialogue on
workplaces and workspaces with our clients, and
welcomes approaches from organisations with an
interest in developing their working environments
towards 2020.
Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces15
Written by Paul Chaplin, Business Innovation Centre EU, Konica Minolta, Inc.
Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, Europaallee 17, 30855 Langenhagen, Germany
www.konicaminolta.eu 06
/20
19
FURTHER RECOMMENDED READING– The Changing Workforce, Nick Martindale, July 2014,
Confederation of British Industry
– How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand, 1994, Penguin
– Workspaces That Move People, October 2014,
Harvard Business Review
– The Craftsman, Richard Sennett, 2008, Penguin
– Self Employment in Europe, 2015, IPPR
– Five trends that are dramatically changing work and the
workplace, Knoll, 2011
– Four fundamentals of workplace automation, Chui, Manyika
and Miremadi, McKinsey Quarterly, November 2015
– Gallup Workplace Study, US Sample, August 2015
– Using Data to Create a Human-Centric Workplace,
Steelcase, 2019
Imag
e(s)
or F
oota
ge (a
s app
licab
le),
used
und
er li
cens
e fro
m S
hutte
rsto
ck.c
om