how to implement an agile workplace - digital...

HOW TO IMPLEMENT AN AGILE WORKPLACE

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202.742.7310 structen.net

HOW TO IMPLEMENT AN AGILE WORKPLACE

What is agile working?

What drives agile working?

What benefits can I expect?

When is the best time to implement agile working?

Who should form part of the change management team?

What are the obvious barriers to change?

How do you carry out the research?

What are the typical agile working spaces?

How do I communicate with my staff?

What technology do I need for an agile office?

What furniture do I need for an agile office?

How do I measure the success of agile working?

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Agile working is a workplace strategy that provides people with a choice of settings for a variety of workplace activities. Rather than forcing individuals to undertake all their work at a traditional desk setting, agile working allows people to decide themselves the most suitable work setting to complete their work. Spaces are designed to create flow from intense, focused work to impromptu meeting areas and formal meeting rooms, depending on the tasks that an individual is undertaking. It empowers your staff to choose their working style and allows your business to contract and expand in demand of headcount without expensive change management and alterations to the built environment. We need to be clear that agile working does not need to be a hot—desking program in order for it to be implemented. An agile office offers multiple work settings to support a shared desking strategy. Also agile working isn’t a working from home program, but it can be part of an agile working strategy if the organization decides to implement a flexible working policy. However, agile working essentially focuses on the experience the employee has while in their office environment.

There are several key drivers to agile working, and if it is to be executed well, businesses should not overlook the benefits that come with designing a flexible working concept. Adopting a smarter way of working can result in a faster, cheaper and more sustainable methods of work strategy.

Does your workplace support business growth and objectives?

Does your workplace create brand differentiation?

Does your workplace drive talent retention and attraction?

Does your workplace support your sustainability credentials?

Is your workplace cost efficient?

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In a recent letter to the Daily Telegraph, 22 corporate bosses, which include Ian Livingston, chief executive of BY, Martyn Phillips, chief executive of B&Q, Mark Ovenden, chairman of Ford Motor Company, and Adam Crozier, boss of ITV, said: “Our companies and organizations differ in size, sector and location, but we share a common view that workforce agility is generating significant and tangible financial benefits for our businesses.” Check which benefits could be important to your company? Reduce Real Estate Costs

Traditional office space is costly for any business so minimizing your real estate costs is a big part of the equation when it comes to reducing your overheads. By investing in an agile environment, your organization can save on rent, service charges, rates, heating, maintenance, lighting, staff turnover and more.

Space Utilization A lot of companies are spending money on space that is under-occupied. The introduction of agile working sees a significant improvement on workplace efficiency, as staff now require a reduced amount of personal space. This results in significant reduction in terms of fit-out and occupational costs or can free up space for other work, social and leisure purposes.

Accommodate a Fluctuating Workforce An agile office is built with change in mind and will prepare your company for inevitable demands. Because space and resource efficiency are key functions in an agile workplace, your business can quickly adapt to expansion and contraction.

Increased Productivity and Efficiency It is vital to create an efficient and optimal working area where your team can feel energized and motivated. Not only can a great agile office design strategy elevate productivity and morale, but it can also help to promote and reinforce a corporate identity. Agile working empowers the staff and helps them feel engaged and appreciated.

Reduce Carbon Footprint Designing a new office brings the opportunity to creating a greener and smarter workplace. This can greatly improve sustainability while reducing cost and your company’s carbon footprint.

Attract and Retain Top Talent A stimulating workplace encourages staff to stay with their employer, inspires new talent to want to join and generally builds the brand’s reputation as the employer of choice. Agile working creates an environment that reflects the value of your brand and consistently attracts and retains the best people which are a vital ingredient to the success of your business.

Increase Self-engagement An agile office can increase flexibility in communication and staff engagement. In doing so, the business can create a more responsive and measurably productive way of working that can lead to increasing profitability.

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Reduce Absenteeism Costs

Absenteeism comes at a high cost for the employer, but significantly drops after adopting new ways of working. One of the major causes of employee absence is lack of motivation. By optimizing your workplace, you can improve the enjoyment that staff experience when coming into the office and therefore boosting the incentive to come to work.

Business Continuity Agile working enhances corporate resilience and business continuity. For many organizations, the capacity to maintain operations through major incidents is the principal business driver for agile working.

Improved Staff Performance A well-designed office environment is the foundation for a successful workplace. A good design will enable your workforce to be truly dynamic through empowering staff to select the best place and time to undertake the task in hand.

Increased Innovation Agile working is the key to increasing creativity and innovation within a workplace. An effective design strategy can help stimulate divergent levels of thinking by providing an environment that is conducive to employee needs, therefore keeping workers engaged.

Increase Brand Equity First impressions are everything in the corporate world. How a customer views your organization is crucial to your business image. A successful design can act as a great advertising strategy by portraying your company as a strong and dynamic organization.

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Refurbishing and Relocation

These are the main catalysts when considering workplace optimization. A new building is a great opportunity to implement an agile strategy, as it starts as a blank canvas, saving you the time and hassle of removing or changing existing structures, furniture and fixtures.

New Technology Emerging technologies mean that your office will need to be able to accommodate how they work if you want to keep up with your competitors. It’s a good idea to start thinking about future-proofing your office for these advancements, in order to fully take on board a more efficient way of working.

Leadership Change A change in leadership can often be the motivation for change in the office, and thus an opportunity for a positive change. This is a great time to implement agile working to instill new innovation; making the office work more efficiently is a great way to reshape the company and stamp the new personality of new leadership.

Expansion and Project Launches You may need new spaces to accommodate new teams or product launches. A major benefit of agile working is increased shared knowledge amongst colleagues, so the transition and development of new workers into the office is seamless, or at least minimizes disruption.

Merger & Acquisitions Merging companies can present issues with combining different cultures. You need to be able to accommodate the growth or consolidation as well as personal needs from both organizations. An in-depth analysis of both organizations and a change management program can bridge cultural differences and create a harmonious organization.

Lease Event A lease event can be a great opportunity to implement agile working. Given the efficiency of agile working, you may find yourself needing less space, thus reducing property costs or it may be possible to consolidate into less space and consider sub-letting some of your current floor space.

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The CEO The CEO will want the office to support his vision and brand, and will want to have the ultimate say over the design and costs.

Finance Director The finance director will want to reduce premises overheads while accommodating a growth strategy, and will be very interested in the ROI that an agile working strategy will bring to the company.

IT Director The finance director will want to reduce premises overheads while accommodating a growth strategy, and will be very interested in the ROI that an agile working strategy will bring to the company.

Operations Director The operations director will be interested in solutions to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and meeting the sustainability targets as well as operations efficiencies.

Human Resources The HR manager will be interested in creating an office environment that will motivate and support the staff and attracts the best people for the future.

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Office Manager The office manager has an ear to the ground, and knows what’s going on, on a day-to-day basis. They will have valuable input into the type of office space that will best support your employees. They also make good ‘change champions’ and are a vital link and mouth piece.

Marketing Marketing will want to ensure that the new office environment reflects the company’s brand and image.

Workplace Strategy Consultant A workplace consultant will guide you through the change management process and provides a needed conduit between the senior management and the staff.

Designer A great design is critical to the success of an agile working environment, and your designer needs to work closely with the workplace strategy consultant to define the brief and create the perfect office layout.

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Even with the best intentions, at least two thirds of change initiatives fail globally. Workplace change is no exception. Few of the companies that have been exploring new ways of working have been able to roll out their change programs without encountering some difficulties. Likely change management challenges are: Staff fear of the unknown and fear of change

Consistent and frequent messaging through the change management program is paramount along with the one-on-one reassurance and engagement workshops.

Fear of new technology Technology is not only getting smaller, it’s getting a lot smarter, and evolving a lot more quickly. The biggest demand in an agile environment is for bandwidth, and widespread availability – there’s no point in offering constant connectivity if no one can connect.

Concern over loss of personal space / identity Many department heads rail at the idea of giving up their offices and personal space, but those that have often report that they feel much more in touch with their teams and part of the business as a whole.

Executive / Board buy-in Executive coaching may be needed for leadership who are struggling to see the value of agile working, or one-on-one sessions with individual resisters with change management consultant or executive sponsor.

Employees fear of ‘not being seen’ in the office Agile working requires a change to a trust-based leadership model whereby leaders manage by outcome rather than line-of-sight, while communicating objectives that are clear, achievable and measureable.

Cost If your company is committed to an agile working solution, then the first challenge that you’re likely to face is building a compelling business case. This will also serve as the ROI calculator and ultimately contain a number of the effectiveness measurements metrics.

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The first place to start is through a leadership workshop or briefing session. We would expect this to be attended by the key project champions and senior stakeholders who are in a position to make decisions within the organization. Through this meeting, we will introduce the workplace strategy teams that will transform your office into a highly cost-efficient workplace that minimizes the disruption to your business. Goals for an Agile Workplace

It’s important to capture the aspirations of a business through an outline brief. The drivers of the project should be identified, which could range from creating a more efficient workplace and rationalizing space usage, to enabling a higher level of occupancy. Objectives, projections and goals are all key building blocks that will help the team delivery an optimized workplace design within the desired timescale and budget.

Space Occupancy Study A space occupancy study (SOS) is a gathering of physical raw data based upon the current workplace performance. This will enable analysis of the levels of utilization as well as how meeting rooms, cellular offices, break out and general support areas as well as the room booking systems are performing. This data is obtained typically over a 2 week period and during a time that is not during public holidays, peak holiday season or including any specific event which will likely impact the office occupancy.

Discovery Workshops Once the SOS has been conducted, the staff interview process can be started. This process enables a dip check of all the data to be obtained and ensure that it is valid. Teams will be monitored to understand key differences in the survey data and SOS as well as gain a more thorough understanding of how teams function within the larger organization.

Staff Surveys The interviews will be followed up with a staff survey. This can take the form of a paper based questionnaire given to all staff or preferably, an email link to an electronic survey form. The data obtained is strictly anonymous to ensure that a true understanding of staff and their concerns is obtained.

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When considering the design of your agile working environment, you will need to ensure that there are a number of different work settings that people can interact with. These can include:

Private spaces

Acoustic pods and booths

Town hall area

Collaboration zones

Formal meeting rooms

Brainstorming areas

Teamwork benches

Sit-stand tables

Chill-out and social areas

Training spaces

Atrium settings

Informal meeting spaces

Kitchen and café areas

Agile working is a ‘new way of working’, and you will need to communicate well with your staff in order to ensure that they feel included. The communications should include: Homeworking Policy

When implementing agile working, you will need to be clear as to whether this includes working from home. Properly detailed policies should be implemented to that managers and colleagues are aware of when it is appropriate to work from home and when it isn’t.

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IT Protocols and Training Technology is often a significant percentage of the total investment for organizations who implement agile working, so training should form an important component to the change management program. Employees should feel that they have the necessary skills and tools available to support them in an agile working environment.

Way-finding and Support An agile working environment may have less than 50% of its space given over to fixed desking and tables, which can see several changes of occupant each day. With almost half of the building made up of informal and collaboration zones, which again see high utilization, the pressure on good housekeeping is significant. In several locations where agility has been introduced successfully, the building operators have also introduced a concierge service for each floor. The concierge’s role is to ensure that the building is being used most effectively. Alongside this staff need to understand the new ‘housekeeping rules’ so that everyone is looking after the space and keeping it tidy.

Leadership / Management by results Agile working requires moving to a trust-based leadership model whereby leaders manage by outcome rather than line-of-sight. Leadership need to refine their approach to accommodate the greater diversity of personal and professional preferences that are likely to materialize in an agile working environment.

Flexibility / Working hours Within the agile working strategy you will need to decide how much flexibility you will give to employees including home working, flexible working hours, part-time work and compressed work week.

Cloud Services

With the introduction of cloud services, your company may benefit from remotely hosted information and storage; potentially saving on costs of everyday software products. Major corporations are now using iPads and other on-the-go technology to achieve maximum productivity. Young workers can easily access social networking platforms and blogs to engage with clients. This new way of working has resulted in data being easily stored and accessed from anywhere at any time. The inconvenience of a power loss causing your company to lose valuable data and work are a thing of the past. With agile working, the remedy to this problem is for your team to simply relocate to somewhere they can gain access to the internet. In today’s world, it’s as simple as connecting to a different network, especially with Wi-Fi becoming widely accessible for free.

Video Communication Within the last 5 years we have seen a huge rise in video conferencing. People are able to access video communication using free applications such as Apple’s Facetime feature and Skype’s video chat. In particular, the utilization of Skype for video conference and collaboration allow companies to communicate more effectively while avoiding disruption to their daily schedule. The cost savings of travel time and flight expenses can be significant.

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Connectivity Businesses are increasingly finding that the key issue now is the speed with which we can access information. The shift to fiber optic networks and 4G delivers enhanced connectivity with faster download and upload speeds, which companies need to take advantage of if they are to compete in today’s digital economy. The advancement of Wi-Fi technology means that the user can access network resources from nearly any convenient location, and maintain a constant connectivity with their desired networks as the move from place to place. Workers can be more productive as work can be accomplished from any appropriate settings.

Laptops & Tablets Tablets and personal computers are handy on-the-go tools for any business. A new trend in the workplace is the use of these mobile and personal devices instead of desktop systems. With staff not always working from the office, these devices provide an efficient means of communication across the team. You will find that all laptops and tablets are able to access cloud services and with software like Dropbox, workers can easily send and receive files from anywhere there is access to the internet. Tablets are designed as a user-friendly tool and are a great way to stay connected to social media platforms. With this in mind, workers of all age groups can utilize them with ease.

Mobile Units With the evolution of mobile technology and gadgets, we have seen an increase in Wi-Fi hotspots that are available to anyone. This free global technology means businesses are no longer tied to a particular location. Workers can connect to their workplace without physically being there, simply by utilizing cloud technology and remote access. This is becoming increasingly true as we have even begun to see mobile printing. ‘Follow-Me’ printing is becoming ever so popular with its on-the-go features allowing users to print from any enabled device, from anywhere. With full flexibility in mind, you can even print using your smart phone or tablet device.

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Modular Pods and Booths

Modular units are the perfect way to find privacy within the hustle and bustle of an open plan office. They don’t require planning permission and there’s no need to go to drastic measures of constructing walls.

Soft Seating Companies that promote an open working culture experience higher performance. Furniture is required for communication, interaction, presentation, exchange, social encounters and recreation in today’s office.

Personal Lockers When you implement agile working and remove the traditional safety zone that is a personal desk, it’s vital that staff still have a space to keep their things. Personal lockers can also utilize vertical space.

Team Benches Long benches are ideal for staff to co-locate working together at desk type areas. It’s important that there is space for teams to come together and work on a project. Collaboration benches encourage communication within the comforts of an informal setting, and is a highly efficient way to utilize space.

Café Seating An area to have a short break and refuel with fresh energy. Café tables and chairs and soft seating provide the ideal setting for informal communication, small meetings and recreation. These areas are often located on the office floors or near meeting and conference zones.

Conference Furniture Meeting rooms are where knowledge is shared and decisions are made about the future. Face-to-face communication is more important than ever, and it’s essential that a flexible portfolio of furniture is available to enable multiple use of space and perfectly integrated media technology.

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Companies that implement agile working should have a combination of both qualitative and quantitative metrics to measure overall effectiveness. Quantitative – The easiest way to demonstrate value is from a real estate prospective, which might include: Reduced rental costs Ability to consolidate locations Reduced churn costs Energy savings Improved space utilization Extended life of assets

Qualitative – In addition to the hard and fast metrics outlined above, most organizations have also pursued some qualitative metrics to get an overall read on the effectiveness of their agile working program. These include: Increased collaboration Ability to get projects across the line quicker by forming and dissolving clusters with relevant teams

through the life of the project Better access to leadership Less reliance on paper documentation A clearer understanding of the strategic direction of the organization Improved staff engagement and involvement

Improved product cycle times Positive impact on human performance Finance performance Overall organizational performance Reduced dilapidation liabilities

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If you feel that agile working could benefit your organization, then reach out to us at Structen Group. We would love to discuss your individual requirements. Our phone number is (202) 742-7310.

1212 NEW YORK AVE SUITE 425B WASHINGTON, DC 20005 WWW.STRUCTEN.NET [email protected]

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