transforming workplaces and workspaces · also need to hold a system orientated design view of how...

TRANSFORMING WORKPLACES AND WORKSPACESSYSTEMS AND USER CENTRED DESIGN APPROACHES

INTRODUCTIONThere is a growing divide in working practice between

what people want to do with information at work, and

what organisations are able to offer. It is a divide often

born from good reasons, such as security and cost

efficiencies, but also occasionally bad ones, such as

ingrained cultures or narrow focus on the short-term.

But whatever the cause, it only becomes possible to

unlock new opportunities and create greater social

value in a business through closing this divide.

To achieve this, we are advocating a change in

workplace practice, so that the next generations of

employees are enabled by technology rather than

restricted by it. This means setting specific design

processes within, and between, organisations. The

emphasis must be on understanding what is happen-

ing in a specific workplace, and working with the

people who see the problems first hand, rather than

basing technological decisions on the description of a

utopia which rarely materialises.

Our belief is that companies need a composite design

strategy. Firstly, a user-centred approach towards

advanced technology in workplace design, to meet

employee needs. And secondly, a system oriented

design approach, to understand how technology

should be created and deployed within the wider

organisation.

In order to demonstrate this approach, in this paper

we will consider the divergence of ‘workplaces’ and

‘workspaces’, why it matters now, what new challeng-

es can be anticipated, and conclude with an approach

to framing systemic workplace strategies which still

focus on the engagement of people.

TO BEGIN THIS EXPLORATION, LET’S ASK A QUESTION: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WORKPLACE AND A WORK-SPACE?

Transforming Workplaces and Workspaces2

INTRODUCTION

At first, the distinction between workplace and

workspace appears artificial, a simple matter of

semantics. But the more we explored conversations

with clients, consultants and within our own

organisation, it became apparent that there is an

important difference between the two.

Workplaces are the responsibility of the employing

organization; all of the people, devices and spaces in

which that company’s work takes place.

But they are made up of all of the personalised

workspaces used by individuals; the tools, devices

and resources they’re provided with to carry out the

work they are responsible for.

The workplace is determined by the organisation’s

policy, whilst each workspace is (to a greater extent)

down to the preference of the individual. Why do we

need to draw this distinction now?

In the distant past, workplaces were the workshops

where things were made. They tended to be small and

singular where a few people gathered under a master

to learn a particular craft. Skills were learnt with

physical materials and acquired through hands-on

experience and observation of others; the apprentice

would copy the journeyman, the journeyman would

WORKPLACE OR WORKSPACE?

copy the master. Learning from others broadened

capabilities on the path to becoming a craftsman.

The industrial period transformed many small crafts

into large-scale replication of raw materials, physical

objects such as cloth and latterly complex assembly

such as cars. Everyone worked around and inside the

machines, housed in specifically designed factories.

Then, during the shift to knowledge economies, a

typical office was the container that held both the

workplace, and all of the individual workspaces of

which it was comprised. These of course appeared in a

variety of styles and systems, such as open-plan

format pioneered by Quickborner in Germany in the

1950s, or the Herman Millar ‘Action Office’ which gave

us the cubicle in the 1960s.

The uniting factor throughout all of these eras is that

work belonged in a single geographical place.

There was no need to distinguish between workplace

and workspace because they were one and the same

thing. Buildings designed for maximum efficiency for a

given workforce, who would all arrive and leave at a

certain time, and the work would remain within the

four outermost walls.


But now, the workplace has changed. That which holds all of the

workspaces demanded by your employees is geographically

stretched, diverse in location and time, shape and size.

WORKPLACE

WORKSPACES

WORKPLACE

WORKSPACE


Your workplace is anywhere your employees demand it. How can

you deliver what they expect?

WORKPLACE

WORKSPACES

WORKPLACE

WORKSPACE


UNDERSTANDING WORKSPACESContrast the origins of workplaces with where we are today in most developed econo-

mies. As employees, we are considerably less bound by office geography in our work as

individuals and as teams, but the official statistics indicate this is lower than may be

expected, perhaps as the workspace shifts to co-working locations:

– The percentage of people working from

home increases with age from 1.6% of

under 24 year-olds to 6.4% of 50-64

year-olds. The highest proportion is in

25-49 year-olds at 14.8% in The Nether-

lands (Source: Eurostat 2018).

– Co-working spaces, including brands

such as WeWork, will have increased

from 7,800 in 2015 to almost 26,000 by

the end of 2022, worldwide (Source:

Deskmag 2018)

– Vacancy rates in Europe are low at 9% in

2019, compared to 12.5% in 2013, which

means that despite high rates of new

building completion, more offices are

becoming more frequently occupied

(Source: Cushman Wakefield, Septem-

ber 2018)


We no longer have all our tools and knowledge in one

physical location. Electronic data represents our work

in many different forms and versions, often scattered

over a number of systems, some of which we own,

some of which are shared. We assemble, disassemble

and rebuild tasks or processes, often repeatedly, both

virtually or physically. This flexible practice is made

possible by a combination of technology advances

and evolving working policies.

What we create for ourselves are increasingly known

as ‘workspaces’, and can appear wherever we want to

work, within a set of boundaries determined by our

role, company culture or industry. More and more

employees are becoming nomadic, and are increas-

ingly adept at crafting their own different workspaces.

It may be through selective connections and interac-

tions with other people, choosing their own mix of

devices (both the software and the hardware), or

selecting carefully the spaces in which they feel they

are at their most productive.

This is the modern workspace sought by end-users,

and when done well it can bring with it the feeling of

effective and natural interaction, despite being

physically remote.

It has been pocket technology, much more than

just portable computing, that has facilitated this

mobility. The phone has become an engine that

generates new ways to find and interact with others

when we choose, or even to be found and interacted

with when we haven’t.

What’s interesting is that real mass adoption of

pocket technology at work started with the end-user

demand, rather than the IT function supply. The

locked-down, IT-approved mobile device disappeared

quickly (and in the case of some brands, famously) as

employees started requesting that their more

powerful, flexible personal mobile devices be inte-

grated into their work lives.

This has given rise to the most commonly heard

phrases at work today; “I can do this at home, why is

it so difficult here..?” This is the heart of the matter.

As workplaces and workspaces become more

separated, how do organisations design technology

systems in support of user needs, not in spite of

them?

The obvious answer here is to employ user-centred

design processes to build the technological infrastruc-

ture your organisation provides to employees.

Starting with well focused research at the point of use,

talking with users and understanding their problems,

iterating solutions to test and using data to focus

direction and deployment are all core parts of the

method that’s being increasingly used in a variety of

different fields.

But only using user-centred design methodologies in

isolation runs the risk of creating a bottom-up

shopping list of demands. Without a view of the whole

system within an organization, an understanding of

the workplace and not just the workspaces, then the

job is only half done.


UNDERSTANDING WORKPLACESFor organisations, the conversation and research around employees within workplaces has never been louder.

There are debates about the value of ‘workplace happiness’, the meaning and value of productivity, and con-

cerns about the risk of paying too much attention to well-being of individuals. Combined with this, there’s a new

generation of employees coming through who’re not looking for long-term salaried roles, but more short–term

contractual work on projects they’re passionate about. There are even indications that the physical workplace

will grow in importance, rather than diminish to an emerging generation of staff as environment, a sense of

belonging and teamwork become factors in chosing employment. Data can help workplace providers under-

stand how to balance the different requirements of space, from individual to team and of what size teams.

So at the same time as you need user-centred design approaches to understand current employee needs, you

also need to hold a system orientated design view of how your organisation works as a whole, and will work into

the longer term.

Illustration: Steelcase is measuring not only presence but true occupancy which

gives an indication of the efficiency of space used compared to demand

76% Efficiency Occupied Average

WSF Hub 1 (4)

WSF Hub 2 (4)

G-01 (42)

Product Development Hub (3)

Marketing Functional Hub (4)

Sustainability Table (3)

Spaces Efficiency

47%

78%

77%

77%

90%

90%


1. ECONOMY:

Over time, the nature of work and its contracting

process is going to change (e.g. nearly half EU

residents have expressed a preference to be self-em-

ployed). If you want greater flexibility in terms of

resource contracting, then new flexible workspaces

will be needed. Planning your building and service

infrastructure to reflect this shift needs to start now.

2. COMPANY:

The workplace and workspace represent a basis for

competition for new skills – if you need a new genera-

tion of skills, you need a new workplace strategy which

reflects a ‘to be’ state. Your workplace must be more

open and adaptable to change than your competitors.

3. DIVISION:

New disruptive businesses are taking workplace and

workspace strategy seriously as a reflection of their

values and operational model; for instance, AirBnB’s

Chief Employee Experience Officer replaced a tradi-

tional HR role and runs cross-functional teams

addressing workplace quality. Divisions must be

involved in determining their own environments.

4. TEAM:

If you want to assemble powerful cross-functional

teams to address specific business challenges, you

need depth of knowledge and stability, agility and

adaptability. Great teams today are a flexible combina-

tion of long-term and transitory, specialists and

generalists. To work together well, look beyond

traditional remote conferencing and files sharing tools

to form new workspaces, with new workspace tools

and methods, especially around physical-virtual

collaboration.

5. SKILLS:

Digital workplaces will become more commonplace –

you will need to understand what they are and how to

develop a digital workplace practice, selectively

testing and deploying new digital workplace services.

Start to understand which skills are more prized

throughout your organization: who become the de

facto experts because they understand how to do

useful things others do not.

In essence, creating a dialogue means establishing

two-way conversation which is educational, informa-

tive and transformational, so that workplace practice

creates the right environments for effective workspace

management by individuals and groups. This way,

responsibilities become more widely recognised and

shared and ideally, that workplace personalisation

becomes enabled by policy.

As with Brand’s model, we can see that these layers are

all related, dependent on one another, and more

robust because of the different pacing. A sharp change

in the fast skills layer, for instance, will be absorbed by

the slower moving, sturdier team and division layers

underneath.

To understand workplaces and workspaces requires a

new dialogue, between the system-level workplace,

and the individual level workplace. This means an

inter-disciplinary approach involving human resourc-

es functions, facilities management, information

technology, finance and end-users.

As an example, taking a cue from the Stewart Brand’s ‘shearing layers’, you might choose to breaking down your

system into a series of layers, from the slowest moving (ECONOMY) to the fastest (SKILLS), allowing you to think

about the effects on the workplace:


HOW MIGHT THE JOURNEY TOWARDS GENERATING NEW WORKPLACES AND SPACES BEGIN?With our Japanese heritage, we believe in

transforming workplaces as a learning

practice, rather than big bang approaches

across whole organisations. There is an

opportunity now to build workplaces and

workspaces like never before, which begin

to take advantage of a new wave of

technology, striking a dynamic balance

between what people want and what is

available through policy and tempered by

legislative requirement. But this requires a

methodical approach. Our suggested

approach is:

1. The first step is to engage in a method or process

which seeks to identify common understanding of

workplace challenges, for example around

information flow, and assemble the ideal solution

from the components required. This system-view

allows a general map of the organization to be

understood, from which user-research require-

ments may be specified.

2. The second step is collect research from specific

areas and disciplines, identifying from the people

within different parts of the organization the issues

and opportunities they see when it comes to their

personal workspaces. This user-view of the

organisation must have a wide enough sample to

build up the map with specific requirements by

role and division.

3. The third step is to establish a cross-functional

working party with a vision such as ‘Workplace

2020’ and involve end users and works councils as

appropriate, to test hypotheses which emerge

from combining the system and user views. For

instance, this may be trials of prioritised practices

and technologies to gauge feedback across the

cross-functional teams, so as to validate tools

before making practical steps towards adoption.


WHAT MIGHT THIS LOOK LIKE?LET’S TAKE THIS APPROACH, AND SEE HOW IT WOULD WORK IN A SPECIFIC SCENARIO.If workspaces can be created anywhere, the workplace has to demonstrate special features to make per-

son-to-person communication especially effective. As one CEO sees it, the workplace is much more important

as an environment in which to communicate face to face, than it is as a piece of real estate. To make this

happen is less a matter of policy and more a matter of designing different facilitating environments, however

temporary.

If the ideal facilitating environment is one which adapts to the needs of what or whom it contains, then we can

infer that technology will play a significant role in helping organisations create these facilitating environments.

Adaptive workplaces that rely on a combination of technology and capabilities should result in environments

which change in realtime, or near-realtime, according to the presence or absence of people. They are design to

act as an environmental chameleon which changes to blend in with whomever is present.


HOW CAN WE USE OUR THREE STEP APPROACH TO BEGIN TO DESIGN SUCH A WORKPLACE?Firstly, the system level map. This can be pulled together at a sketch level from a fusion of organisa-

tion charts, building maps, meeting rooms calendars, travel data and device/service usage. Every

organisation already has the data to use as a basis for workplace and workspace adaptation, but

often it’s not brought together to create a global view of what is happening in the current given state.

Rather than use this map to arbitrarily decide on what technologies will suit a business, it should be

used to steer the second step, a granular, user-up piece of research that tests some of the hypotheses

that the system view throws up. For instance, here are three examples of scenarios we imagine may

come up in a system view around adaptive environments:

– Information systems

adaption – the platforms

needed to access different

systems become invisible to

the end-user. We will be able

to access different systems

without the need for

different tablets, screens and

devices – and the informa-

tion we need will adapt to

where we are and what we’re

doing.

– Environmental adaptation –

heating, light quality,

air-quality, workspace alloca-

tion should be attuned to the

individual desk level wherev-

er possible, and optimised

against the cost of used /

unused space.

– Context adaptation –

individual files should be

made available automatically

according to personal or

group requirement, aligned

to calendar, project and

process management

systems, obviating the need

for teams and individuals to

search for every data file

needed for a scheduled

meeting.


These hypotheses must be tested at an individual user level,

rather than simply validated from the system level. How does

it feel for people working in an office where the environmental

aspects are dictated to them automatically, irrespective of

whether it’s based on personal data? How unnerving is it to walk

into a meeting unprepared, relying on a system to gather the

right files and folders for you automatically? Are you happy to

lose all personal devices, and work on public surfaces instead?

What is lacking today is consistent evidence which helps validate

workplace hypotheses. This is likely to evolve as more data

becomes available from various sensing devices. Such data will

lead to an early-stage science with a special interest in social

behaviours. Examples are:

– By reducing light levels by a certain percentage at a given time

of day, staff concentration improved by a consistent rate with a

measurable impact on productivity in specific roles

– When people are likely to be absent through sickness, inter-

ventions can be made that minimise co-worker impacts which

maintained customer service levels by a demonstrable index

– When regulatory guidelines on computer screen use are

implemented, musculoskeletal complaints will fall by a

predictable rate within a specific period of time

This data will become a blend of both the systems view (“building

science”) and people view (“social science”).

Matching up the workplace system view with proper under-

standing of the workspaces people want creates a dialogue

between the two realms, and in doing so, means you can learn

what an ideal working environment from both the company and

employee perspective might look like.

This leads us to the third step, the trialing of potential solutions

within given contexts. This often means using new technologies,

or minimum viable prototypes of them, in specific situations

that emerge both from a user-up perspective (“we want this to

be better”) as well as the system view (“if we solve this, it helps

a lot of people in the business”). With it, an understanding of

how best to acquire and manage data, both at the building and

individual level will become ever more important.

Let’s look back to our adaptive technology examples. The

environmental elements (heating, lighting and so on) could

be explored using an assembly of off-the-shelf consumer

technologies, rather than large-scale workplace ones, to see

how and if groups of people can create common comfort. Should

it prove useful in small environments, this sort of test can be

used to set the requirements for a larger system throughout the

organisation.

For context adaptation, you might set-up a ‘hand-cranked’ file

system that everyone on a particular project relies upon – one

person in the background creating a file system as if it were

automated, to see how supported the participants are. Before

finding out if automation is the solution, it’s easy to use this

methodology to test the real effects such automation might have.

Finally, for information systems adaption, you might create a

temporary combination of adaptive services for a team working

on a sales pitch, and track progress of the ideas, the feelings of

the participants in the room, as well as the end result itself which

emerges from a new way of working. Asking people to enter a

whole new way of working for one specific element allows them

to express ideas and feels confident in the sense that they are

working inside a prototype, they’ve not permanently lost the

ways of working they are used to relying on.

These examples are low-cost ways of trialling new ways of

working on a sprint-basis, where concepts can be tested with real

people and improved iteratively.


CONCLUSIONIn our work on this project so far, we have

seen how employing both a system orient-

ed design approach, to understand the

workplace requirements for technology,

and a user-centred approach to describe

workspace requirements, offers a frame-

work that can both meet employee needs

and overall organisational requirements.

Having specific design processes to follow, which

makes the most.

It only becomes possible to unlock new opportunities

and create greater social value in a business through

closing this divide.

To achieve this, we are advocating a change in

workplace practice.


YOU CAN REACH OUR DIGITAL WORKPLACE RESEARCHER AT:

[email protected]

HOW WE CAN HELPAs a 140 year old manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Konica Minolta

may not be immediately associated with workplace services. Yet in fact, the company has

been quietly present in all manner of workplaces – especially offices – over that time, and

today is found in over 1.5 million locations in Europe alone, providing everything from

multifunctional printers and copiers and in medical equipment.

From this vantage point, we have learnt a lot of about

the importance of the way a physical environment

shapes the interaction of people with technology

together with the implications for cost and creativity.

To achieve this, we work closely with information

technology, facility managers and more recently with

human resources specialists.

To explore further how machines and people interact,

we have devised a digital workplace toolkit which

maps out the way information flows between people,

devices and spaces. It works by creating dialogue

between the system level of the workplace, and the

user level of the workspace.

Over the last year, we have been testing this approach

with clients in both public and private sectors;

listening and learning in different work environments.

Konica Minolta is pleased to facilitate such dialogue on

workplaces and workspaces with our clients, and

welcomes approaches from organisations with an

interest in developing their working environments

towards 2020.


Written by Paul Chaplin, Business Innovation Centre EU, Konica Minolta, Inc.

Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe GmbH, Europaallee 17, 30855 Langenhagen, Germany

www.konicaminolta.eu 06

/20

19

FURTHER RECOMMENDED READING– The Changing Workforce, Nick Martindale, July 2014,

Confederation of British Industry

– How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand, 1994, Penguin

– Workspaces That Move People, October 2014,

Harvard Business Review

– The Craftsman, Richard Sennett, 2008, Penguin

– Self Employment in Europe, 2015, IPPR

– Five trends that are dramatically changing work and the

workplace, Knoll, 2011

– Four fundamentals of workplace automation, Chui, Manyika

and Miremadi, McKinsey Quarterly, November 2015

– Gallup Workplace Study, US Sample, August 2015

– Using Data to Create a Human-Centric Workplace,

Steelcase, 2019

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