Workplace design: Thinking it through

In the past five years we have seen a dramatic change around in the perception of the market value of an organisation. In most industries, the shareholder value has very little to do with the asset value of the company.

Valuations of organisations are related to an organisation's ability to use its knowledge and expertise to create additional value within its marketplace. You only have to consider companies like Microsoft to realise this. Its physical assets barely show up on the balance sheet, compared with the value of its intellectual capital.

However, facilities managers are typically managing assets with the old world mindset — with scant regard for the effectiveness of an asset. The sector's key performance indicators reflect this and often include how many people one can squeeze in to a building rather than how the asset supports the knowledge creation of the business.

Gensler Consulting worked with a global management consultant client to look at analysing the workplace in a different way — with particular emphasis upon knowledge creation and transfer.

Knowledge creation is all about ideas generation. Previous research by Management Today highlighted that a typical office is actually not that conducive to creativity. Some of our best ideas are created when we are alone or indeed away from the office. The notion of 'bathtub thinking' is recognised by many business gurus. This would imply areas of reflection and quiet are a key component element in developing such ideas.

However, ideas alone do not create knowledge. Indeed it is only when ideas are shared among colleagues and allowed to grow into fine-tuned opportunities that any commercial value is normally created.

Therefore, knowledge requires settings in which ideas can be developed through interaction — both real and virtual — including electronic discussion areas, the ad hoc ('floating an idea' past a colleague at the coffee machine) and highly collaborative 'brainstorms', 'idea labs' or 'project rooms'.

In spatial terms knowledge work requires social settings as well as quiet settings, and the right balance is key. The complexity is that the balance changes from person to person and at different times. We only have to look to our universities and colleges to see this in practice all the time. Students will chose seating dependent upon the setting. If they are about to start some collaborative research they may get together in a lab room, common room or even the student bar. At exam time they lock themselves away in their rooms or in the library. Universities and colleges are obviously knowledge centres in their own right and there is much to be learnt from studying them.

The starting point for analysing our client's office space was to consider interactions within the workplace. From previous research we knew that it was possible to develop 'collaboration contours'. It is a fact that people sitting together collaborate with each other. The extent of collaboration goes down by a factor of ten for every 25 ft one moves away from a particular desk.

This assumes a perfectly open-plan working environment. An obstacle such as a filing cabinet or partition would reduce the collaboration rate by another factor of ten. Applying this principle you can develop a collaboration contour around any desk position as shown in the diagram.

Maximum collaboration
The interactions and collaboration contours can be mapped across the entire workspace. Using this process, one can create areas of concentration by the erection of contour breaks such as partitions around a quiet room or 'monastery area', while at the same time highlight areas of maximum collaboration where space is free from barriers.

In the case of our management consultancy client, the analysis was completed on a fairly regular shaped office floor, and we considered five different layout configurations.

Effective knowledge management requires a mixture of two types of space: quiet concentration space and collaborative space (where there are high levels of interaction and knowledge transfer). It also requires a clear demarcation between the two. Without such a demarcation the effectiveness of both settings is reduced.

Good design, workplace branding and facilities management can reinforce these principles. As an example, a 'monastery' or quiet area should be designed with good acoustic properties, lots of privacy and perhaps telephones should be banned. In contrast the collaborative areas could include table football or a pool table and may incorporate refreshments to encourage interaction.

If one is to take a truly holistic perspective, it is necessary to create a working environment that reinforces the brand values and employee culture in order to be able to attract and retain the right talent to generate the knowledge. So often there is a disparity between the brand promise and the fulfilment of that promise due to the organisation's workstyle.

There are many other considerations that need to be factored into space planning: air conditioning, provision of services and so on.

But the old adage of 'sweating the asset' has a new focus. The asset is no longer physical, it is intangible and generated by people through knowledge creation and transfer. Analysing the effectiveness of the space in supporting people rather than just its efficiency should be a primary concern to facilities managers now and in the future.