Cover story
Collaborative work space Creating space for staff to develop and interact does not necessarily involve jetting across the globe and is just as achievable in the workplace. The Lane Crawford Joyce Group recently brought its four companies together in a new headquarters in the stunningly beautiful and soon-to-be commercially vibrant setting of Wong Chuk Hang, Aberdeen. The Group’s new workspace has been specifically designed to foster collaborative growth within and across the companies and to help facilitate innovative work practices. Creative teams have adapted their respective communal areas to represent each company’s ethos visually and generate cross-company alliances in a nonconventional manner. Jennifer Woo, Chairman and CEO, Lane Crawford Group and her HR teams explain the importance of the new space to them. Space for vision Woo’s ambition was to build a community of individuals who could achieve a singular vision. The Group’s new headquarters is the hub for that community—a home where innovation, creativity and fashion can coexist. Woo explained, “The design brief was simply to identify what they did not want. We wanted to take the word ‘office’ out of our lexicon…nothing expensive or
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HR Magazine
foreboding…nothing monotonous or samey…we still needed the space to be functional, useable. We didn’t want to limit personal space…and we didn’t want anything to be a limitation or a hindrance to delivering excellence.” The HR managers from the Group all agreed that the new workspace had brought new opportunities to spark conversations and helped facilitate creative thinking—by helping to break down former physical and perceived boundaries. Eva Chow-Slaughter, Director, Human Resources, Pedder Group commented on the impact of the project in its current embryonic phase, “Whilst the true benefits of this plan and design have yet to be measured in business terms, it is clear from the outset that the staff enjoy, and are inspired by, their new environment.” Redefining staff workspaces The stimulus for the Group’s project came from the decision to reduce overheads in the recession of 2008 and at the same time re-define the environment in which work was done. With this change, came the huge opportunity to shift the organisation’s culture through physical space. Specifically the aim was to break down physical barriers and allow easier interaction—the antithesis of the conventional cubicles found in their
former offices. The new environment meets this challenge, being fluid and democratic with a partition-free, wireless workspace that offers staff the freedom to choose communal or solitary areas based on their specific immediate needs. When asked how she envisaged staff working together, Woo replied that changes were already apparent, “Everyone has found their own groove in the new space…there is no formula.” Breakout space vs manager space The building is a mixture of industrial minimalism and specially sourced vintage and contemporary chic to reflect the various brand identities. While the basic materials are common to all floors, each company’s creative teams have customised their respective breakout spaces through the use of colour, store merchandise and furniture, thereby characterising their unique identities within the Group family. Tellingly, the zones allocated as breakout areas are those corners that afford the best views—areas monopolised by higher management offices in more bureaucratic business models. These spaces are open to all staff to meet socially, work or just relax and reflect the entire ethos of what the Group wanted the new headquarters