SUBMISSION TO THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE AND BUDGETARY QUESTIONS

Transcription

1 SUBMISSION TO THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE AND BUDGETARY QUESTIONS Submission by the UNOG Staff Coordinating Council, on behalf of the 3,500 UN staff based in Geneva 6 October

2 Contents Introduction... 3 Understanding work patterns in Geneva... 3 Feedback on current or prior experience in different office space environments 3 Comparison of staff experiences with academic literature on open office space and hot desking space... 5 Conclusion

3 Introduction The Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions has been asked to consider the Secretary- General s report on the Strategic Heritage Plan, which if approved would entail a fundamental renovation of the Palais des Nations complex in Geneva. The outcome of these renovations, besides upgraded conference space and more safely designed and structured buildings, will be office space for staff working on economic and social research and implementation, human rights, and conference editing and translation. The tasks are generally of a highly technical nature, and it is important that the office space that results can provide for this, allowing staff to focus on the work at hand. To this end, the Staff Council wishes to comment on proposals being floated regarding the introduction of open space and hot desking. Understanding work patterns in Geneva Staff in Geneva are present on the premises for nine hours a day 8 work hours plus one hour for lunch. It is the duty station with the longest work hours in the UN system. In April 2015, the Staff Council surveyed Geneva staff on their work patterns and office space experience. 991 staff responded to the survey. The survey confirmed the highly focused, specialized and technical work being carried out in Geneva. 47 percent of staff reported spending less than 20 percent of their time in face- to- face interactions with colleagues. 31 percent reported spending between 20 percent and 60 percent of their time in face- to- face interactions. Further, 92 percent of staff reported being either always or most of their time at their desk. 45 percent of staff report carrying out research and 41 percent of staff report drafting reports (these questions allow for overlap). 18 percent report translation work and 10 percent report statistical work. Feedback on current or prior experience in different office space environments In the same survey, staff were asked their opinion on their current or prior experience with different office space environments. 3

4 I was/am able to work closely with my colleagues when required Answer Options Neither N/A Count Individual office Shared office (2-4 Open plan office (> 4 Hotdesking I was/am able to communicate easily with my colleagues when required Answer Options Neither N/A Count Individual office Shared office (2-4 Open plan office (> 4 Hotdesking I was/am able to work without being unnecessarily interrupted Answer Options Neither N/A Count Individual office Shared office (2-4 Open plan office (> 4 Hotdesking

5 The results show a strong negative experience when applied to open office space (more than 4 and hot desking with regards to being able to: work closely with colleagues; communicate easily with colleagues; and work without being unnecessarily interrupted. At the same time the results show a strong correlation between use of individual office space and being able to work closely with colleagues, communicate effectively and work without being unnecessarily interrupted. Staff were then asked which kind of office space would best suit their work functions. Does the type of work you do lend itself easily to Answer Options Percent Count An open office space 4.3% 33 A shared office space 29.6% 227 An individual office space 64.1% 492 Hot-desking 2.1% 16 The results show that 91.7 percent of staff believed their work lent itself to either individual or shared office space. Comparison of staff experiences with academic literature on open office space and hot desking space Academic literature on office space environments appears to show that open office space (which would include hot desking) increases stress and negative feelings, lowers productivity: Distractions resulting from open office space can lead to poorer work performance. In one study on the issue, 1 nearly half of the surveyed workers in open offices said the lack of sound privacy was a significant problem for them and more than 30 percent complained about the lack of visual privacy. Meanwhile, ease of interaction with colleagues the problem that open offices profess to fix was cited as a problem by fewer than 10 percent of workers in any type of office setting. In fact, those with private offices were least likely to identify their ability to communicate with colleagues as an issue. Researchers also concluded that the loss of productivity due to noise distraction was doubled in open- plan offices compared to private offices. The loss in productivity from distractions in documented in a study showing that workers exposed to open- office noise for three hours had increased levels of adrenaline, a hormone associated with the fight- or- 1 Kim, J (2013), Workspace satisfaction: The privacy- communication trade- off in open- plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36,

6 flight response. The study also showed that people in noisy environments made fewer ergonomic adjustments than they would in private, causing increased physical strain. The subjects subsequently attempted to solve fewer puzzles than they had after working in a quiet environment; in other words, they became less motivated and less creative. 2 Supporting the importance of a distraction- free environment, an article published in the Magazine of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work states that a quiet office with background sound pressure between 20 and 30 db(a) is the ideal work environment for highly demanding mental tasks, 3 as recommended by ISO standard 11690, Part 1. 4 As an example, the typical A- weighted decibel values of a telephone ringing are 60 to 80, and those of a person telephoning 55 to 70, according to the article. Psychological scientists found that in open office settings, the ability to personalize a workspace was key to overcoming the emotional exhaustion linked the lack of privacy. Their findings suggest that both employer and employee can benefit when workers are allowed to personalize their workspaces, especially in open- office settings. 5 Studies show that an open office environment also increases incidences of sick leave. A study of 2,400 Danish employees shows that as the number of people working in a single room went up, the number of employees who took sick leave increased apace. Workers in two- person offices took an average of fifty per cent more sick leave than those in single offices, while those who worked in fully open offices were out an average of sixty- two per cent more. 6 It is therefore doubtful that applying open office space in the SHP will maintain productivity. In contrast, it will more likely lead to increased stress, greater sick leave, more workplace tension and conflict and lower productivity. In contrast, individual and shared office space would provide an office environment that would allow productive interaction among colleagues while maintaining productivity. 2 Evans, G.W., Johnson, D. 2000, Stress and open- office noise. Journal of Applied Psychology, Kurtz, Patrick (2005), Noise reduction in offices. Magazine of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, 8, Laurence, G.A., Fried, Y., Slowikc, L.H. (2013), My space : A moderated mediation model of the effect of architectural and experienced privacy and workspace personalization on emotional exhaustion at work. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, Pejtersen, J.H., Feveile, H., Christensen, K.B., Burr, H. (2011), Sickness absence associated with shared and open- plan offices a national cross sectional questionnaire survey. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health. 37,

7 The box below gives one example of how an open office environment would affect productivity using the case of language staff. Similar feedback has been received from legal and economic researchers, report drafters and statisticians. A typical job at UNOG: Translator, editor, reviser An extremely high degree of concentration is required for the work of UNOG Languages Service staff, such as translators and revisers, whose job description includes studying text and converting it into other languages, using the most appropriate vocabulary and commonly accepted equivalents of professional, scientific or technical terms, and ensuring that the original meaning is retained, ensuring that terminology and nuances are correctly rendered and that the translation is structurally, grammatically and idiomatically correct, verifying the accuracy of citations, spotting manifest or possible errors in original text and informing the editor and author when appropriate, and comparing the translation of text with the original, verifying the accuracy and completeness of the translated version and the suitability of vocabulary and terminology used. The same applies to editors, whose tasks include editing highly specialized or technical texts, verifying facts, figures, terminology, quotations and bibliographical references, and consulting with authors and translators ; reference assistants, who analyse documents for translation and annotate the text to be translated, indicating the sources of the references in the languages concerned ; and text processing assistants, whose duties include checking final documents against originals for correctness and for uniformity and rereading, with another colleague, semi- finals, including semi- finals of important documents and sales publications. In addition to the functions specified in the job descriptions, there are other elements that make an open- space environment unsuitable for our work. At UNOG many translators rely heavily on dictation and speech recognition software for their work, text processing assistants re- read documents aloud with another colleague, and editors and reference assistants typically consult several times a day, by telephone or in person, with submitting officers, authors, programming officers and translators to discuss various issues relating to documents they are working on. In an open- space setting the noise associated with all of these activities would considerably disturb nearby colleagues. Furthermore, the urgent and sometimes highly sensitive nature of some United Nations documents requires rapid turnaround and utmost concentration from translators, revisers, editors and others in a relatively short time span, which would not be feasible in an open- space setting. When asked whether they would be willing to work from home, translators made clear that for their professional development and understanding of the substantive issues that they were translating, frequent interaction with colleagues who had already worked on those issues and with the authors of the documents was essential Source: Report of the UNOG Language Services Sectoral Assembly and interviews with staff 7

8 Conclusion The Strategic Heritage Plan is a once in a generation opportunity to modernize and make safe the facilities of the historic Palais des Nations in Geneva, and to provide the UN with an office and conference centre that will allow the organization to discharge its responsibilities up to 2030 and well beyond. Because the opportunity to renovate these facilities is so rare, it is important that it be done right. With regards to office facilities, this means providing an environment conducive to productive work, in which staff can focus on doing more. Both from staff experience and from academic and scientific review, we believe that both individual and shared office space would prove the most cost effective and productive solution for the work of the United Nations in Geneva in the medium to long term. 8