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.
Based on the responses of 138 real-estate executives:
45% anticipate
migrating to an activity-based workspace
curated for employee
effectiveness and
future design flexibility;
81% perceive amenities
as integral to the employee
experience and engage landlords
and other service providers to
enhance these offerings.
59% plan to introduce
mobile apps to enhance
the employee experience
by helping them navigate
the built environment more
efficiently; and
52%
anticipate
implementing
some level of
unassigned
seating in their
workplace;