5 questions you really need to answer before you plug in to the workplace of the future. Copyright Generation-e Productivity Solutions P/L

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1 5 questions you really need to answer before you plug in to the workplace of the future.

2 5 questions you really need to answer before you plug in to the workplace of the future. Cubicles? Open plan? Hot desks? Or sitting at home in track pants? This paper brings together the views of Australia s leading workplace thinkers and discovers the solution has less to do with where your people sit and more to do with the tools you provide and the culture you build. While there s no single right answer to designing a more collaborative, productive and enjoyable work space, there are some crucial decisions you should make before asking people to pack up and move their desks, again. Here are five questions to help you build a workplace strategy that works for everyone.

3 1 How do your employees talk to each other? Generational shifts and technological change are often cited as the two main drivers for workplace change, but it s worth observing how your people communicate and exchange ideas in a work environment. There s an increase in people wanting to work in different ways and with different people, explains Dr Dominique Hes, at The University of Melbourne s School of Design. But often different people will have different tribes and different languages. That often means that what one person says may not be what another person hears. What we realised was that if we extended our pick list of flexible working options, that was really still just a finite way of encouraging new ways of work. Instead what we did was to engage people in a dialogue to find out how we could allow our people to work however they wanted, wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, whilst still getting their job done and still delivering on their professional commitments. Rose Clements Former Human Resource Director - Microsoft Customer Service & Support, Asia Some workplaces try to install a single office culture that is meant to iron out the cultural differences between workplace departments, with the result being a bland monoculture that can stifle creativity and innovation. Far better to aim to provide a common communication platform where different points of view can be heard and everyone has access to the same information. This allows for some healthy team behaviours to emerge, such as friendly competition, a sense of belonging and shared purpose, without a particular group or department automatically dominating. Even if you are confident you already have the solution, there s real benefit in consulting with your people and bringing them along on the journey. About three years ago we engaged in a conversation with our people to try to think how we can become a more flexible working environment, explains 01

4 Rose Clements, former HR Director for Microsoft Asia. What we realised was that if we extended our pick list of flexible working options, that was really still just a finite way of encouraging new ways of work. Instead what we did was to engage people in a dialogue to find out how we could allow our people to work however they wanted, wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, whilst still getting their job done and still delivering on their professional commitments. The result was not just an increase in productivity and collaboration, but also a real change for the employees themselves. They found they could fit in the things in their lives that really matter to them, be they family activities, schooling activities, community or sports, said Ms Clements. And we ve done that by using our technology and enabling people to become untethered from the workplace. help bridge the generation gaps found in most offices today. We re finding that the different ages are finding different aspects that are really suitable for their work style. So, because local government caters for so many different types of professions, that you find people are all using the building in different ways. The Lesson: Use communications technology as a democratising force, freeing up the flow of information and ideas within the organisation. Cater for different generational approaches to technology and you ll find you re also giving your teams a genuine sense of empowerment and flexibility. Di Ashton, Project Director of Activity Based Working for Cardina Shire Council, believes that new work styles can also 02

5 2 Are you measuring yesterday s definition of productivity? While it s easy to say that you re in favour of giving employees more flexibility and more power to choose where and how they work, many business leaders still struggle to come to terms with what that looks like in a modern workplace. As open plan morphed into Activity Based Working (ABW) and, more recently, into a blend of agile working and geographically dispersed teams, it can be difficult to see the productivity wood for the office layout trees. There s quite a lot of literature out there about people wanting to move away from open plan offices, says Dr Hes, at The University of Melbourne s School of Design. It s because the metrics haven t kept up with the intention of those open offices. Leaders need to learn to trust their employees, to let go of seeing employees sat at their desk and think that that means that they re working. Millie Letori Work-style and Change Consultant at Veldhoen + Company The big cultural change for organisations moving to various forms of Activity Based Working (ABW) is the need to shift from measuring outputs rather than inputs. In other words, worry less about being able to see your people and your equipment and focus more on clearly identifying what they are producing and delivering. The present and visible approach to overseeing talent is comforting to a lot of managers simply because it s familiar, but it s now out of step with how people actually produce work. Leaders need to learn to trust their employees, to let go of seeing employees sat at their desk and think that that means that they re working, advises Millie Letori, Work-style and Change Consultant at Veldhoen + Company. They need to change the way that they monitor the outcomes of their 03

6 employees and focus more on how those outcomes have been achieved with each other, rather than the fact that they re sat at a desk to do those outcomes. Once you decide to switch to measuring outputs, the benefits start to become much more visible and meaningful. The key, according to Biagio La Rosa, Managing Director of Australia s leading Unified Communications Specialist, Generation-e, is to ensure the tools allow people to demonstrate their productivity. If I enable people and I respect them and I respect their ability to deliver then I measure their output rather than their head hours - then I actually get an increase in productivity because people feel empowered. And that s what the technology allows them to do. It allows them to work from a place or style that suits their particular personal motivations. Don t forget to help your leadership make the switch mentally, something Ms Ashton believes was a key ingredient to success for Cardinia Shire Council, We ve spent a lot of time working with the leadership group in terms of building their capability around coaching for results and coaching high performing teams, as well as really trying to give them the skills that they need, because they weren t having line of sight anymore. The Lesson: Identify your business outputs (productivity, innovation or information sharing, for example), let these metrics shape your workplace strategy and train your leadership to manage the same way. Ensure your communications technology not only helps your employees deliver these outputs, but also collects the data to show how you re tracking. 04

7 3 Are you willing to change the way you work? While consultation and discovery are important parts of the process, the role of leadership is to lead, which ultimately means you need to make some decisions - and to be a role model. Crucially, you must be willing to forgo the fortress of solitude, give up your own office and start deconstructing the org chart. Managers who start to put their finger on the pulse of the company by mixing with their employees tend to also start rethinking the company s KPIs. By taking measured risks and being seen to embrace innovation and change, lead-from-the-front managers can use workplace change to bring their team with them on a longer journey. The exposure that I have now within the organisation I think is making people feel a lot more comfortable about having conversations with me. Garry McQuillan CEO Cardinia Shire Council Although change can be daunting, if you start with changing your work style, you won t need to start with a completely blank sheet of paper. One option is to take some standard approaches to building design using ABW and actually make it a little more organic and letting yourself see what happens. But understand that you may need to be a bit more flexible in modifying your footprint. You really have to be flexible about the size and style of workspace that emerges from your workplace strategy, advises Mr La Rosa, who s worked with some of the biggest organisations in Australia. He also recommends starting with a consulting engagement. If you get some expert people in to analyse your needs in the first place, you can avoid spending even 05

8 more money in a different way, such as re-doing technology infrastructure or changing your real estate requirements, further down the track. Garry McQuillan, CEO Cardinia Shire Council, is an example of, well, making yourself an example: In the previous office, I had an office, and it s an interesting contrast where there s no offices in our new Civic Centre But the exposure that I have now within the organisation I think is making people feel a lot more comfortable about having conversations with me. The Lesson: Consider yourself part of the workforce when planning and implementing workplace change. Start with expert advice, put yourself in the process and be a visible example of the benefits of change in your organisation. 06

9 4 Are you trying to change your culture without changing your tools? Responding to increasing range of opportunities brings with it an increased level of complexity, both in terms of what your organisation does and also how it goes about delivering. One casualty of this march of complexity is the underlying technology that supports your talent. , share drives and basic intranets have been left wanting when faced with the demands of real-time access, distributed teams and multiple, merged sources of information. Simply asking your teams to collaborate more without The organisations that take maximum advantage of something like unified communications, for example, have a culture from the top of supporting people and embracing change. These types of organisations realise the productivity improvements they want can t be achieved without opening up the platforms and allowing their people to be able to work in a way that suits them. Biagio La Rosa Managing Director at Generation-e giving them the platform to do so can lead to frustration and can actually harm productivity. On the flipside, some organisations have used a technology upgrade to drive change through the business, tapping into a desire for change that is latent in most workforces. It s something Mr La Rosa has seen first-hand. The organisations that take maximum advantage of something like unified communications, for example, have a culture from the top of supporting people and embracing change. These types of organisations realise the productivity improvements they want can t be achieved without opening up the platforms and allowing their people to be able to work in a way that suits them. Productivity, as Ms Ashton of the Cardinia Shire Council workplace project reveals, isn t the only benefit. We ve also reduced staff turnover from about 13 to 7% in the 07

10 timeframe, which is quite remarkable given that it s been quite a tumultuous kind of change process that we ve asked of people, says Ms Ashton. So yeah, we re really stoked about the results and how people have responded to this environment so positively. As the technology starts to open the productivity floodgates in your workplace, Ms Letori advises senior management to ensure they set clear boundaries for accessibility and availability. When I m at work I m probably more available to work texts than I am personal texts, and when I m at home I m more available to personal communication than I am work communication. So, first of all, you need to have a conversation around what s the difference for me between accessible and available. When am I accessible and to whom, and when am I available and to whom, and making that agreement between leaders and their teams as well. The Lesson: Once you have your strategy in place, use tools and infrastructure to drive change, allowing people to discover different modes of communicating and experience new ways of working. Set clear expectations for work-related communications to maintain balance and control for your employees. 08

11 5 Are you underestimating your people? The one ingredient almost all experts agree is usually short-changed in any workplace redesign is time and not necessarily the time needed to re-arrange the desks and install the tools. Investing in change management and ensuring you take the staff on a journey is more important than ever. You absolutely need the management and psychological input into the processes to allow people to adapt more quickly, be it training or whatever it is, but in a way that feels useful rather than wasting time, advises Dr Hes, who has recently undergone a workplace redesign in her own department at The University of Melbourne. Organisations often believe the biggest hurdle they ll have to face is helping their employees get used to not having a desk. In my experience, employees get used to not having a desk two hours into the move into the new space. Millie Letori Work-style and Change Consultant at Veldhoen + Company Senior management, particularly if they ve been through poorly-executed change programs in the past, will sometimes worry about how their people will adapt to new technology. This view tends to forget the rapid adoption of technology we ve all made, by our own choice, over the last few years, as smartphones, tablets, apps and wearables become embedded in our lives outside the workplace. Now it s time for the office to catch up. If the strategic work has been done up front and the technology choices are appropriate, employees often adapt to their new environment very quickly. I think organisations often believe the biggest hurdle they ll have to face is helping their employees get used to not having a desk, explains Ms Letori. In my experience, employees get used to not having a desk two hours into the move into the new space. 09

12 They ll have forgotten all the fear that came beforehand. The biggest challenge is really supporting the leaders through this change. As someone who s been at the coalface of implementation, Generation-e s Mr La Rosa can attest to the power of the human mind to adapt to new situations. With new technology implementations, a half hour training session is usually all that s needed and then they re up and running. That session doesn t even cover every aspect of the product. Take headsets for example, the session just lets them know that this is the way it works and this is the way I answer and transfer a call. And then they will go and magically discover where else the technology can take them. It s very intuitive, it s very simple. We re not talking ongoing dialogue and training for years to go through the journey. People embrace the change very rapidly. That rapid embrace of change was something of a welcome surprise for Mr McQuillan: I think the level of readiness we are able to provide our staff positioned us to be able to move into the new Civic Centre with minimal fuss. So what I said before we moved in was I want it to be a-ho hum experience, and effectively that s what it was. We moved in on day one and it was very much a seamless exercise. And that was very much helped by the information technology that we introduced into the organisation. I think the calmness of people has been a little bit of a surprising element for me. The Lesson: Remember to support new technology introductions with training and assistance. Factor in time for change management and allow your people to grow and adapt to the new work style but, as some teams adapt more quickly, allow them to explore advanced features and consider letting them teach their peers. 10

13 Conclusion: While it s tempting to jump on a new office design, management trend or piece of technology as a way to boost your organisation s productivity, the reality is that genuine workplace change is more about understanding your people and being clear on the culture you re trying to create. We couldn t have done this without genuine trust, accountability and empowerment, explains Ms Clements of Microsoft s own workplace change program. And our managers needed to think and behave differently than they had traditionally done in the past. But we knew that we employed really intelligent, highly talented people and that they wanted to succeed and achieve in their jobs. All that we did was create the environment to make that happen. And that has been through our technology, and more recently, through the workplace design itself. While the benefits of agile, collaborative workplaces are well known in terms of productivity, collaboration, staff retention, innovation and so on, it s the more human-scale results that Ms Letori points to as the most important. It s about being attractive to the biggest range of employees that you can and giving them something that really stimulates, something that makes employees want to come and work for you, but not just work for you, really thrive for you and give their best. Contributors: Dr Dominique Hes at The University of Melbourne s School of Design Biagio La Rosa, Managing Director at Generation-e Millie Letori, Work-style and Change Consultant at Veldhoen + Company Di Ashton, Project Director of Activity Based Working Cardinia Shire Council Rose Clements, Former Human Resource Director - Microsoft Customer Service & Support, Asia Garry McQuillan, CEO Cardinia Shire Council

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