Designing the “Right-Sized” Office – Work Design Magazine

Scott Colson and Diane Chilangwa of HGA share how their agency is utilizing their very own house as a take a look at case for outlining the right-sized workplace.

Over the previous three years, enterprise leaders and workplace designers alike have been navigating the alternatives and challenges posed by the pandemic, a world inflection level that concurrently solidified the work-from-home expertise and compelled an general analysis of the normal workplace house. Ahead-thinking organizations are taking the chance to be on the frontlines of the brand new imaginative and prescient of the office and can reap aggressive advantages together with the strategic positioning of their actual property, growth of a future-focused company imaginative and prescient and institution of a recent firm tradition that draws and retains the perfect expertise.

Firms are presently implementing a wide range of approaches as company philosophies round hybrid work proceed to evolve. The pendulum swings from strict return mandates to totally distant work—typically inside the identical group. With office methods in flux, companies are intently evaluating their actual property footprints in mild of their altering workplace utilization, and that is the place the notion of “right-sizing” is taking middle stage.

Do we now have sufficient of the proper of house?

On its face, right-sizing appears to be answering the straightforward query of whether or not an workplace house is just too large or too small for the corporate that makes use of it. Nonetheless, we’re asking each our purchasers and ourselves deeper questions akin to, “Do we now have sufficient of the proper of house?” and, moreover, “Do we now have an excessive amount of of what we don’t want?” 

Attaining the fitting office technique to your firm is a phased course of. When utilized efficiently, it ought to be rooted in analysis and adopted by to company-wide adoption.

We’ve executed the next six-step course of to design the “right-sized” workplace for our personal workforce:

1. Foundations
2. Discovery
3. Defining
4. Designing
5. Prototyping
6. Guiding

Asking the Proper Questions

By definition, right-sizing signifies that no workplace resolution might be one-size-fits-all. The foundational parts of any such endeavor embrace conferences with organizational management that may set desired outcomes in addition to the methods through which to measure them upon completion.

Step one in any right-sizing design effort is asking the questions that may result in the perfect outcomes, akin to:

1. What’s the goal of the bodily workplace for our group?
2. What experiences might be higher supported by the workplace atmosphere? What experiences are finest for the digital or house workplace?
3. Does our workplace replicate and successfully facilitate the specified proportion of labor actions and workplace tradition that happen there (e.g. collaboration, connection, tradition, productiveness, and so on.)?
4. What are the facilities and experiences particular to our group that may present worth to staff and, subsequently, entice them to the workplace?

In answering these questions, it’s essential to replicate on if and why your staff loved the workplace they left behind. What are they lacking post-pandemic that you may recapture and rekindle?

Discovering Priorities

Oftentimes, the invention section gives the perfect info concerning staff’ experiences and needs for his or her workplace house. Discovery ought to embrace main analysis purposes akin to knowledge assortment, surveys, interviews, in-office observations, journey mapping, sensors and extra, specializing in the methodologies that may result in the fitting knowledge to help the corporate’s imaginative and prescient.

For our personal analysis, we explored these questions by a firm-wide survey in addition to numerous distant work surveys, project-based focus teams and design charettes, as applicable for every workplace. This course of led to insight-driven design standards we used to create workspaces that our staff members most worth, together with those who:

• Are collaboration-focused, supporting a collaborative, studio-like work atmosphere;
• Are extremely built-in, organizing house to showcase work and encourage spontaneity, mentorship and socialization;
• Provide areas for particular person work, offering flexibility and selection for heads-down work; and
• Preserve design attraction, providing an aesthetic and interesting atmosphere reflective of HGA’s core values.

Defining the Proper-Sized Area

As soon as a company’s wants, targets and values for the in-person expertise are established, the defining stage takes that knowledge to develop significant insights and assist determine potential challenges. From there, the designing stage takes these challenges and creates future-focused options backed by the data collected within the previous levels. In some instances, these design options might name for a smaller workplace footprint, however we’ve discovered that they typically end in a considerate reconfiguring to “right-size” the prevailing house.

For instance, we just lately accomplished a two-floor renovation of the Minneapolis workplace utilizing knowledge from the agency’s in-house analysis staff. Analysis confirmed that round 82% of Minneapolis staff are drawn to the workplace for collaboration and face-to-face conferences and roughly 64% benefit from the socialization side of the workplace. Due to this fact, the re-designed house now incorporates a host of various work settings, with an emphasis on daylight and collaboration; balanced by extra personal house and fewer desks. All seats all through the workplace are unassigned with elevated selection in seating choices and devoted house for centered work and Zoom conferences. Whereas the rely of “normal” particular person areas decreased, the precise rely of all seating choices was elevated—the house has gone from 60% particular person seating to 60% collaborative choices and 40% particular person desks. The research-backed design has been so profitable that it’s now being rolled out to different flooring with small, but significant changes primarily based on distinctive wants.

Designing for Flexibility

One other widespread consideration within the defining and designing phases is whether or not workplaces and workstations are to be shared or devoted. Sharing results in a discount of house for desking, maybe liberating up the remaining house for different workplace wants. For instance, since 2020, HGA’s Los Angeles has grown by greater than 50%, and the staff formally outgrew the devoted workstations within the open LA studio house. With a smaller footprint, the LA workplace required a special method from the Minneapolis workplace and is now rising its general space/particular person densities by shared desking.

With a versatile method to the work expertise, we had been in a position to open up some desking for hoteling and add new varieties of workspaces to help activity-based working and extra selection of areas to help tech-enabled work all through the workplace, whereas staying inside the identical sq. footage.

The LA workplace additionally remodeled a mezzanine house initially meant for assigned workstations and a lounge space. As we speak, it contains a wide range of enclosed and semi-private areas, together with coworking house, cubicles, open assembly house with Zoom-enabled know-how, a cellular display screen and digicam and useful informal collaboration areas. The brand new design will increase the capability from the meant 12 devoted desks to over 30 seats with extra and assorted choices that higher help activity-based working.

Designing for a Proper-Sized Future

It’s additionally essential to think about future wants when designing a right-sized workplace. We encourage our purchasers to think about their near- and long-term strategic outlooks and consider their present actual property mannequin to think about different choices, akin to a hub-and-spoke mannequin, that would work higher for his or her targets. We did this for our workplaces throughout the nation.

Within the case of our Washington, D.C. operations, HGA moved to a two-office mannequin within the metropolitan space to satisfy the wants of present consumer and workers geographies and supply extra alternatives to develop companies within the D.C. market. Our 4,000-square-foot workplace in Alexandria, Virginia is designed to finest serve the wants of our groups working with native, state and federal purchasers. With the important teaming and consumer interface house sorts, it gives a hoteling resolution for employees to relocate per undertaking groups and accommodate a hybrid work atmosphere. The smaller footprint house within the coronary heart of the town will observe the identical hybrid work philosophy with a wide range of desking options, nevertheless, it is going to embrace extra amenity and assembly areas for different consumer sorts and can supply extra locations to design and share undertaking tales.

Different evidence-based options that we now have considered throughout our workplaces embrace:

• AV techniques that help hybrid collaboration, giving everybody a voice and place on the desk
• Connection to nature and a deal with wellness, each bodily and psychological
• Group concerns like walkability to public transportation and ample parking

Prototyping and Guiding for Lengthy-Time period Success

When substantial right-sizing modifications are made, there’ll inevitably be a specific amount of disruption surrounding office norms, insurance policies and habits. This is the reason the prototyping section is vital, as it may well assist to ease the disruption by utilizing mockups to check new design concepts earlier than rolling them out throughout your actual property portfolio. Now we have even created a solution to visualize knowledge and “play” with completely different eventualities, making a priceless device to mannequin required footprints, primarily based on head-counts and desired occupancy.

On the finish of the day, the main target of any right-sizing undertaking ought to be on the complete worker expertise, and it goes past simply bodily house and know-how. The method ought to conclude with the guiding section—capturing learnings, documenting the general office roadmap and offering the rules and instruments for workers to thrive of their new house. This could even embrace internet hosting culture-building occasions that help studying and growth, mentorship, socialization, wellness and general workplace pleasure.

Tradition-shifting workplace steerage has included utilizing design to sign what are quiet/focus areas or energetic/loud areas and emphasizing that it’s culturally “okay” to work wherever you need, encouraging staff to thoughtfully contemplate the duty they’re there to do and easily discovering the perfect place to try this.

Though not all firms might be prepared or in a position to help a full office right-sizing reset; it’s the proper time for experimentation. Making an attempt concepts out with a restricted and keen division or staff generally is a secure solution to bounce in and determine significant and substantial options for change in your group.