Test drives

Commercial property agents are not exactly known for their radical tendencies. Just one reason, perhaps, why KK Ho, head of facilities at international property firm Jones Lang LaSalle, is taking an experimental approach to new working methods at its London-based UK headquarters.

'We're using the building as a laboratory,' says Ho, who has overseen a dramatic transformation at the firm's Hanover Square premises. No longer is the third floor a traditional paper-bound professional's office. It has been metamorphosed into a modern, mobile workspace with a strong dealing-room-style flavour.

The immediate spark for the creation of the new workspace came when the firm's 130-strong markets group, which includes agents handling commercial lets and brokering property investment deals, approached Ho seeking a refurbishment of their working area.

'This was the first chance we had had to rationalise our space,' explains Ho. But this wasn't the only reason for kick-starting a programme of change. JLL is the product of a merger between UK firm Jones Lang Wootton and US firm La Salle Partners in 1998. As a result of this marriage, the firm now offers facilities management services to in-house teams. Not surprisingly, those clients expect their adviser to practise what it preaches.

'Our clients are saying to us "You are the real estate firm – show us the future",' says Ho.

Having decided that he should use the requirement for refurbishment as an opportunity to introduce new ways of working, Ho considered bringing in workplace and IT consultants to carry out an appraisal and draw up a plan for what needed to be done.

However, this approach was rejected on the basis that by the time an external consultant had produced its report, the firm, its requirements and most likely, the technology, would already have moved on. What's more, with a one-off, big bang-style change, Ho felt it would be difficult to bring people with him. 'The issue was how we convince people to change,' he says.

Instead, he and his team chose to talk to staff who used the space about how they worked, and to bring in technologies and changes to the office layout which encouraged mobility, interaction and a more fluid style of working – without jumping straight to a full-blown hot-desking approach. They also sought a solution that would allow for technology and working patterns to evolve.

'If people are willing to hot desk, half the battle is won,' says Ho. 'This [the dealing room floor] is a halfway house.'

The new infrastructure supports greater communication and interaction through the creation of a central meeting area called The Exchange, which takes up around a third of the 920m2 floorspace.

This central area offers a coffee bar at one side, where visitors or staff can work with their laptops or hold informal meetings, and seating areas that are flanked by electronic screens flashing up the latest property deals and financial information such as share prices. The whole space is flexible enough to be used as one large presentation room when required.

The key to unlocking such a large chunk of space for a more interactive working style was the introduction of two things: central storage and flat-screen technology. Banks of storage running along the inner core of the floor area have swept away the paper mountain typical of professional offices. Meanwhile, the introduction of flat screens has allowed Ho to bring in smaller desks.

A third factor has been persuading even international director level staff to quit their cellular offices – they now sit among their less senior colleagues along the full length of the main desk area. This required the creation of small single-person quiet rooms, where confidential phone calls to clients can be made, for example. But perhaps more importantly, the introduction of five pods – small, circular and fully enclosable meeting rooms – means that two or three members of a team can hold a quick meeting or brainstorming session away from the noise of the main desk area.

Ho will shortly begin testing a variety of cordless technologies with 12 members of the group – a wireless local area network is already up and running. At the moment, most of the team are using conventional DECT (digitally enhanced cordless telephony) technology which allows the agents to take their calls where they want in the building. Ultimately, the aim is that those on the 3rd floor should be able to walk from their desks and out of the building without having to disconnect their telephone or laptop.

'The problem with technology is that by the time the equipment is installed, it is out of date. So we are looking at procurement routes that allow us to own but give back the equipment when it is out of date. For that reason, we are reluctant to jump straight to cordless,' says Ho.

The third floor now accommodates more people than anywhere else in the JLL European portfolio. But the occupants aren't complaining. 'When they moved in, they loved it,' says Ho. 'When I gave them less space, they still loved it.'

Space savers

When the real estate team at developer John Laing Property saw BT's experimental cordless workstations at a property exhibition, the high rents of London's West End no longer seemed such a barrier to occupation.

Here was technology that could help the team move from Borehamwood in Hertfordshire to central London. 'We'd wanted to be in the West End for some time,' says associate director Susie Gray, 'but the costs of premises was a real barrier. When we saw this we realised we could use a small office more efficiently than anything else we could think of.'

But a space-saving route to the West End wasn't the only reason for using cordless technology. 'As the corporate real estate team, we strive all the time to get the group to think more wisely about workspace,' says Gray. 'By taking a step into something more radical, we could lead by example.'

The workstations they are trialling from BT's Futurespace range include cordless dect phones, cordless keyboard and mouse, plus flat-screen technology (full details, TheFB, July). Uniquely, the unit is based on a movable pedastal that contains the brain of the computer – the central processing unit. But more importantly, users can store personal belongings, a feature the team thinks will help convert those most opposed to hot-desking-style workspaces.

'People get ever so scared when you talk about hot desking and think "Oh God, where am I going to be based, I don't know what I'm doing...". This is something that addresses a solution to the need for some private space,' says Gray. 'The pod is yours, but you don't possess the space it sits in, you don't possess the table that you work from.'

The 500ft2 office that the real estate team has leased in the West End is designed to hold nine staff. It currently houses six permanent staff, one mobile worker and up to three staff from the investments division on an occasional 'touchdown' basis. In Borehamwood, with traditional workstations, a nine-strong team took up 1,000ft2.

'If we had had a more traditional solution, it would be very difficult to see how we could have accommodated the investments staff. But here, if they need a place, they can sit anywhere thanks to the wireless lan [local area network] card which plugs into the laptop.'

Persuading real estate staff and a few friends to switch on to such new ways of working is one thing – 'Old workspace practices was something the team had been battling with in the group, so our minds were pretty open,' admits Gray – but persuading other workers to buy into such new ideas will be much harder.

For some, it won't work at all: 'It's not going to suit everyone, but it's another string to add to your bow as a corporate real estate person. You need these choices,' says Gray. 'There are some people – accounts clerks for example – that go through huge amounts of paper and are there every day, in the same seat every day. For them, it's not necessarily an option. But for more mobile workers – certainly in the construction business – it is an option.'

The crucial question is cost. The workstations will cost more than traditional varieties once BT puts them on the market. But in a cost comparison that includes reduced premises requirements, the overall spend of setting up office works out the same. And, as Gray points out, with cordless workstations there is an added advantage – when they move they can take the group's IT infrastructure with them.

'We may move in with the rest of John Laing Property at some point, so the last thing we wanted to do was make a major investment in infrastructure here,' says Gray.

'That's why there has always been a misalignment between trying to get flexibility from leases and then spending a fortune on the fit-out. You can't take cabling and all that with you.'