Human Resource Executive - July/August 2018

organization’s time-to-fill from 65 days to 45 days over the past three years.

Europe First

At GlaxoSmithKline, roughly 7,000 of its 15,000 U.S. employees work in open environments in multiple locations, along with thousands more across the world. Its workplace program, called Smart Working and Smart Lab, started with small projects in Europe in 2000 and then moved to its London headquarters, says Ray Milora, head of workplace design at the global pharmaceutical company in Philadelphia.

“The more we built open spaces
in Europe, the more we realized it
worked not only for that culture but for
the people who worked here,” he says,
adding that GSK supports 100,000
global employees. “So we crossed the
pond and started doing more projects
here.”
In 2008, the company created open
spaces, sometimes floor by floor,
at several facilities in Pennsylvania
and North Carolina. In 2011, it hired
multiple architects to build a four-story,
open-space building at the Philadelphia
Navy Yard. The 220,000-square-
foot building is encased in glass so
everyone can see each other, feel
connected and move around, Milora
says. The interior also reflects a
mixture of traditional desks, treadmill
desks, soft-seating areas, catwalks,
a rooftop deck and a grand staircase
shaped like a spiral or helix, which
resembles a DNA strand.

In the past, the company’s environment health-safety team, which reported to HR, introduced standing desks, treadmill desks, centralized printers and trash facilities that encouraged employees to get up and move. Later, Milora’s team, which now manages Smart projects, absorbed EHS’ responsibilities.

According to employee surveys, Milora says, 68 percent reported that their social interactions increased after the move, and 75 percent of employees said they now had access to decision-makers. The number of network printers plunged from 225 in its former building to 30, and printing also dropped off by more than 90 percent. After the move, he says, employee-satisfaction ratings averaged 87 percent.

Milora says his team was “beyond
thrilled” with these metrics and now
plans to apply this same concept to the
company’s lab
environments.

With such projects, HR should never discount the importance of face-to-face employee participation, he says.

GSK staff
attended lunch-and-learns, pilot
sessions, tested new furniture and even
sampled different brands of coffee.
Lab scientists used LEGO models
alongside the design team to help
design and tweak their own space.
“I’ve been involved in over 2-million
square feet of open spaces since
I started this role,” says Milora,
adding that the work environment
can sometimes be more important to
employees than their paycheck. “We
engage our employee population to
really own the space they’re in and
make it their own.”

So Far, So Good

Two years ago, Fifth Third Bank created open spaces for roughly 10 percent of its 2,500 workers across several states. They now work at unassigned desks anywhere on campus, in team huddle areas or at stand-up, treadmill or cycle desks. At its Cincinnati office, employees also access ONE67, its 15,500-square-foot innovation center with movable walls, pod spaces and meeting rooms.

“We really made sure that we have
the best workspaces for teamwork, to
get employees engaged so they can
collaborate and work together in an
agile type of way,” says Bob Shaffer,
CHRO at Fifth Third Bank, which
supports 18,000 employees nationwide.
“We have an ultimate goal of having
our employees do their best individual
He says the bank’s change-
management team led the project but
involved IT and HR in the process. It
environment before presenting your
plan to company leadership, Sladek
adds.

“Once you’ve gotten that [leadership] buy-in, decide to do something and make the change, then it’s really explaining that change to the workforce and making sure that those impacted really do understand that this is a benefit for them and not something being done to them,” Sladek says.

Still, she says, an open-space environment may not work across all company functions—think of a manufacturing plant, she says. In such cases, the company doesn’t have to abandon the approach entirely, but rather can still utilize open designs in administrative areas.

Sladek says such a redesign can be an “extension of total rewards.”

“[Companies should ask] how can we best reward employees who want to work for us, stay and be engaged?” she says. “[Open-space design] is a very powerful tool for driving business results.”

Think It Through

Timing is also critical. Consider organizations that recently under went a merger or acquisition. It may not be the right time to introduce environmental change that requires workers to be temporarily displaced, adds Ali Payne, global practice leader of wellbeing and engagement at Gallagher, a global insurance-brokerage, risk-management and employee-benefits-consulting firm in Rolling Meadows, Ill.

“Maybe this is something you
think about over the course of the
next three to five years,” she says,
adding departments like IT and
communications need to be involved.
“You have to be mindful about when
and where versus saying you’re going
to do this. You want as little disruption
for your employee base.”
Companies also need to get buy-in
from as many employees as possible.
They can act as HR’s advisory team
to help create messaging about the
overall benefits and goal of the project,
Payne says.

Just make sure your culture supports an open workplace, she adds; other wise, you will be wasting your time. While 10 to 15 percent of her firm’s clients support open spaces, she says, 90 percent of them simultaneously introduced work-from-home programs and believe employees now accomplish tasks quicker and are more productive with the combination of the two approaches.

“Don’t just do it and hope it works,” says Payne. “Think about what the strategy is of your organization and how would you tie that strategy back to your outcomes as an organization before you just start implementing it.”

Send questions or comments about this story to hreletters@lrp.com.

was piloted in its Detroit office, where workers provided constant feedback.

Among the lessons learned, Shaffer
says, was the importance of technical
support before, during and after any
redesign “to ensure that WiFi [is]
working and available [and] that there
are enough spaces for laptops and
other technology devices we utilize in
our work.”
Five offices have already been
refurbished. So far, no complaints,
Shaffer says.

Affected employees were invited to tour open spaces on other floors in their building so they could embrace the concept early on. During renovations, these same workers were assigned to other offices or floors in their building.

Eight more offices are scheduled for renovation this year. By 2020, he says, the bank is expected to save $20 million in annual real-estate and property-management costs.

While saving on real estate is an attractive benefit, open spaces are better known for their ability to attract, retain and engage top talent, says Carol Sladek, partner and work/ life consulting leader at Aon, a global consulting firm in Lincolnshire, Ill.

Among HR’s key steps in rolling out this type of project should be reviewing company policies and programs to ensure that they support an open workplace, she says. Conduct employee focus groups to identify their needs, roadblocks and what types of spaces will engage them. Then figure out what specific jobs and people

would fit or work best in this type of Nisha Topiwala

Workplace

Foundations for the Future

Agile employees need an agile workplace.

That seems to be the finding of the 2018 Americas Occupier Survey by CBRE, a global, commercial real-estate-services and investment firm in Los Angeles.