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Strategy
Workplace Primer Issue one
It’s all about change.
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You have a strategy for change in your business.
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We can create one for your workplace.
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A workplace design can only be as good as the brief that drives it, and a brief depends completely on insight from the business.
Talk to us about what you do, and where you want to be.
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Between us we create a strategy. The road map to your new workplace.
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Workplace Strategy Collect
Define
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Hard facts Soft facts Vision
Business
Space Facilities Furniture Technology Engineering
Design
Design enables the business
Strategy translates your aspirations and requirements into a great place to work.
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How can workplace strategy deliver value? A perennial problem with business accommodation is that organisations change shape over the years while buildings remain stubbornly rigid. This is a big conundrum, but yields real value with clear thinking. We can see two very different types of change to be accommodated: 1. 2.
Recent changes in the past that trigger relocation or refurbishment. Future changes over the period that new premises will be occupied.
The first changes might come from a lease expiry, cost reduction initiative, an acquisition or hiring binge, and they will commonly look forward a relatively short time. The second type of changes are more challenging because they need a time horizon that is much longer than a normal business plan. It’s tough thinking about things beyond a year or two into the future, but you will still be working in the same premises. Resolving this riddle creates huge value in the medium and long term. Building leases are much longer than businesses usually plan for, so these future changes need real vision, which is why we
ask organisations to think five or ten years ahead. It is truly strategic and will attract many caveats and error bars, with some comfortably predictable, and others totally unknown. We work out what these possible changes can mean to the building, and the design of the fit out. It is where most value can be delivered, and avoid the mistake of “locking in” today’s business. This approach will make your working environment a valuable asset rather than just a cost, and a place that makes people happy, as well as functionally effective. We look at the importance of things like conversations and collaboration, the real need to own a desk, working at home, attracting talent or impressing visitors, expressing the firm’s values and culture. With answers to these questions we can develop a strategy for accommodation that will make your business sing.
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Steve Gale writing on “the convivial workplace” for Mix Interiors July 2016
Clever people are even cleverer when they learn from each other. Why do serious businesses offer distractions that were once seen as frivolous? There are several reasons, but only one really good one that I can see. We know that tech companies use pingpong and football as recruitment tools, and gimmicks like slides and swings in the workplace are part legend and part standing joke. Now quite stodgy firms are making gestures to make work look like fun. Games and entertainment are allowed space in offices. We can, of course, blame California – but now it’s part of the offer from Shanghai to Bangalore where you are likely to get hit by a ping-pong ball as you step out of the lift, and it’s happening in London. So let’s look at a good reason for doing this. Employers might recognise the need to relax and believe it helps productivity, and possibly retain talent. But the more intriguing reason is about community. Community is largely about inclusion, and although playing games is a great excuse for
bonding, an even better one is the universal attraction of food and drink. Everyone can join in, nobody says it’s not really their bag, and there are no complicated rules or skills. Already in many firms the canteen has expanded to a much wider offer to encourage people to linger and talk. Traditional tea-points are growing into sophisticated watering holes, coffee machines are becoming kitchenettes with micro-waves and toasters where you spend more time with people. Improved catering makes people happy, and employers are pleased that workers are not roaming the streets wasting time looking for a sandwich. But this is not the main payback, it actually improves innovation, and here is how. A few years ago I had to write a brief for a “knowledge centre” in a research campus. This was supposed to be a place for scientists to interact and exploit the knowledge that they each held between their ears – a sort of sharing facility.
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It didn’t get built. The idea of sharing was not in their DNA but the seed of an idea had been planted in me – clever people are even cleverer when they learn from each other – an obvious fact of life, but not that easy to do. The exact same question about knowledge sharing reappeared a year ago, but this time we used a different model. It was based on research that shows how people are willing
At the same time, we make the space somewhere people want to go. Forget the wipe-down frugality of the cafeteria, and the greyness of a vanilla office. Aim for variety, texture, colour, scale – deliver what designers are trained to do, ambience. And there must be food and drink to lubricate the social machinery.
So we come the full circle, back to offering facilities that don’t look like work, a bit more like fun, but now with a deadly serious purpose – to promote the need to share knowledge.
Image © 2016 M Moser Associates Ltd.
to share information and intellectual property with others if they are connected socially. Simple things like knowing their names, having enjoyed a drink together, knowing a bit about each other’s families or hobbies. This is interesting, but not shocking. More useful is the fact that this sort of social network can be exploited and cultivated by the simple fact of proximity. In other words, both social and intellectual intercourse depend on conversation, and you don’t converse with people more than five or six feet away, so get people into an intimate space, not a generous one. This is a big change in focus from giving people functional space for specific activities. It is not fun, or collaboration, and it is certainly not “activity based working”. We are appealing to a completely different sort of creative interaction.
So we come the full circle, back to offering facilities that don’t look like work, a bit more like fun, but now with a deadly serious purpose – to promote the need to share knowledge. We can put all these lessons together to create a design formula for knowledge sharing that can be used anywhere, and generate a particular ambience and density, for working and socialising at the same time. It works for organisations which possess a trusting and professional culture, and which can see the benefits for innovation. In our office we christened this approach the convivial workplace, and the name has stuck for the time being.
90% of strategy is creating a robust brief for happy people and a great workplace
Profile. Steve Gale, Head of Strategy RIBA, ARB, MBA Steve has worked all over the world as an architect, and combines this experience with an MBA from the London Business School to understand client requirements. He is particularly interested in business culture and how it shapes the working environment. Steve helps M Moser and their clients develop a clear brief and manage change within their organisations. He is an active commentator on workplace trends in industry publications.
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The convivial workplace. Medical Research Council Technology (MRCT) want their people to share knowledge and be open to clients and other visitors, starting a new chapter in their century old history.
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It was a pleasant surprise to hear the senior management of this drug discovery organisation propose some big changes. They were about to consolidate from two sites into one, so a change of address was the first challenge. On top of that they were determined that their scientists would speak to each other and share information in a way they had never been able to do in their previous cellular accommodation. And finally, they wanted to appear open and accessible to the many visiting scientists and potential clients who passed through their HQ –
collaboration with partner organisations was their way of working, and they wanted to look the part. We saw how they worked, met most of the people, visited their old sites, and surveyed the employees. We ran workshops with department heads, interviewed the leadership, and tested the values and expectations in the different parts of the business. This last exercise gave us insight into the culture that had taken root over the years.
The idea was to make an open, convivial and homely place where people could work all day if they chose to, and enable the casual social connections which foster knowledge sharing and a collegiate research culture.
Our proposal was to combine the meeting facilities with an open hospitality space at the entrance to their new home, which allowed anyone sharing the same campus to wander in and have a coffee. This space was also generously provided with power outlets everywhere, and excellent wifi for visitors and MRCT staff alike. The idea was to make an open, convivial and homely place where people could work all day if they chose to, and enable the casual social connections which foster knowledge sharing and a collegiate research culture. It is a calculated response to a very clearly expressed set of requirements by MRCT, which we were able to incorporate into a winning strategy for their new space. The MRCT space is a live example of the convivial workplace developed using experience of research and development firms worldwide, but which can be applied to any “knowledge workers”
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Tech advantage. A new organisation has no baggage, so it does not need to ask its people to change, it can start from ground zero. Stripe is a hot new tech business out of California started by two very young Irish entrepreneurs. It has developed an internet payment infrastructure that has attracted a lot of attention and investment, and their challenge is to grow in many countries and attract the right people and deal with all their partners, wherever they might be. Having the luxury of being a start-up has enabled Stripe to define its workplace from new. To do this we interviewed and surveyed their people and leadership, and observed their working practices first hand by camping in their premises in San Francisco. Now in London they have found space near the Silicon Roundabout in Old Street and we had a perfect strategy to drive the design. The findings from our research showed that desk work did not feature at all, couches and kitchens were very productive areas, quiet space was frequently used, and a large proportion of workers never came into the office, but conferenced in from a distance. The high level of interactivity between people needs a lot of physical mobility, so the space
supports this. Many tasks, including meetings, happen standing up, and the furniture reflects this with lots of high tables and space to promenade around the floor. This also means people get to meet others in the business more easily which is a key requirement to keep the business integrated and feeling like one firm rather than separate departments. The 24 hour operation demands a lot from its employees so the ambience is designed to be
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The findings from our research showed that deskwork did not feature at all, couches and kitchens were very productive areas, quiet space was frequently used, and a large proportion of workers never came into the office, but conferenced in from a distance.
friendly, slightly domestic in scale, and full of plants and natural materials. It also needs to be as pleasant at night as during the day. It is a really nice place to spend time, with a very generous kitchen and dining area for what is quite a small office. I think anyone would love to work there. This agreeable ambience is not just to make employees comfortable, it is a showcase
for the many visitors and people that might end up working there. It captures a friendly but savvy feel that fairly represents the Stripe culture. The focus is on health and wellbeing, space, fresh air and light, and an active avoidance of opulence or luxury – it’s closer to a loft or a warehouse than an office, and reflects the brand and the youth of the organisation. It is an effective workspace, but sociable and fun.
Other primers in this series Get in touch to request your copy.
contact For more information about our workplace strategy services or to arrange a meeting get in touch with Steve at: steveg@mmoser.com +44 (0) 7825 560 402
Other members of our global strategy team: San Francisco: Elfreda Chan +1 415 568 0156 elfredac@mmoser.com New York: Grant Christofely +1 908 268 3694 grantc@mmoser.com Hong Kong: Hannah Gibson +852 5149 6089 hannahg@mmoser.com Singapore: SuSan Tan +(65) 9832-8201 susant@mmoser.com Bangalore: Reema Bhandari +91 96113 02239 reemab@mmoser.com
02
Dealing with change
03
Space for innovation
04
Discover the facts
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Happier, healthier workplaces
06
How loud is too loud?