New Ways of Working Network

In the latest issue of the Leesman Review, Bridget Hardy asks how the British government will meet new space standards of 8sqm per person. She notes that most civil servants are already “working beyond the walls”  but that the average space per person is about 13sqm in spite of a workplace standard of 10 – 12sqm, which has been mandatory since 2007.

Three steps
Hardy outlines three steps needed to get higher density without creating “becoming cluttered, distracting and uncomfortable places.”

1. Convince the project sponsor that the office will never need to house all employees working in the office at the same time. She cites utilization surveys showing that little more than 60% of traditional individually allocated desks are ever in use at any one time, and oftentimes even fewer.
2. “Remember that work is best done in settings that suit the different tasks required of the employee at a given time.” She suggests that instead of an assigned “home base” in the office consisting of a multi-function desk, “employee ‘homes’ in the office are just as likely to be in collaborative team spaces designed for talking and sharing.” 
3. “Make sure that people can … move freely between spaces, places, real and virtual, using them for only as long as they need before moving on.” This third point is the real stumbling block, she says. Employees need mobile solutions that allow them to work seamlessly between spaces in their own office, in other buildings, on the move or wherever. They also need to have access to collaboration tools that allow them to meet in a virtual reality. And organizations must be “redesigned around a culture of self-disciplined and managed mobility.”