Work- anywhere, any time, anyplace

In the war for talent, enabling the emerg­ing “technology-savvy” team to work anywhere, any time and any place has become paramount in corporate weaponry. Networked, distributed workplace strategies integrating physical workplace solutions with technology connectivity are the key to the future success for new millennia corpo­rations such as Sun Microsystems, Nortel and Cisco. However, the more traditional corporations and government agencies need to pay attention if they wish to compete in this war for talent.

These convergent workplaces, which maximise the benefits and synergies of phys­ical space and technology connectivity, are creating new challenges for the CRE execu­tive in having to engage more closely with the HR and IT support groups within organi­sations. With physical workplace, technolo­gies and even human resources being able to be substituted for each other, the corpo­rate responsibilities between the groups that have traditionally managed these resources are becoming less clear and meaningless.

The corporate challenges in managing the workforce in enabled distributed work­places were considered by Jeffrey Huang in his Harvard Business Review paper entitled Future Space – A New Blueprint for Busi­ness Architecture, published in April 2001. It is well worth re-visiting these consid­erations as new challenges arise for the CRE executive in designing workplace options for the future.

Matching workplace form to function

In a physical design sense, matching form to function is fundamentally related to de­signing buildings with external built forms that reflect the functions being carried out within the structure. With connected work­space, matching form to function takes on a broader meaning.

The workplace form relates more to how the function and activity itself is to be per­formed. Are the activities to be delivered in physical workplaces, virtual workspaces or a combination of the two? And how are the human resources to be deployed – via em­ployment and other contracts or outsourcing arrangements?

The design of integrated physical and virtual workspaces should not think of cus­tomers and employees’ physical and on-line functions separately, but rather holistically within a single structure. Specific functions need to be broken down into component ac­tivities and these allocated between physical and technologically linked workspace. This will ultimately dictate the form of the physi­cal workplace, the technological support and the contractual form of the required work­force support.

Visualising the presence of others in various workplaces

After plotting the connections of the dif­ferent operating activities between those performed physically and virtually, the next challenge is connecting the people in these fundamentally different workspaces.

In a physical corporate world, we gen­erally know who is in the workplace and available for interaction. In a mixed virtual and physical world, the challenge is to know which part of the team is “at work”, either physically present or logged-on remotely. Obviously flexible working and contractual arrangements exacerbate the problem.

New approaches to managing the teams will, by necessity, begin to evolve. On a virtual basis, team members can easily “hide” or be virtually present while sitting on the beach. New management controls and motivation processes will need to evolve to ensure productivity is maintained and en­hanced.

These will be supported by emerging protocols designed to ensure that all are aware of the presence of others in the work­place – whatever form that may take – so that corporate interactions are facilitated. Daily “clocking in”, albeit virtually, may soon become a reality once again. Digital workspace registers either via PC screens or large electronic display screens, indicating presence may become ubiquitous in the cor­porate environment for all to scrutinise.

Personalising workspaces to individual preferences

The new top performers in the workforce will want to personalise their workplaces, both physical and virtual, to suit their pref­erences and team requirements. Although customising virtual workspaces is generally more flexible and cost-effective than physi­cal workplaces, team members will also expect the flexibility in their physical work­places. Instant personalisation of physical workspaces to meet the needs of the current workforce priorities will become a neces­sity.

The ability to meet the requirements of the continually changing activities that form part of the typical day of digital age workers is part of the challenge. Daily activities may include trading, advising, negotiating, con­trolling, creating, communicating, manag­ing, learning and researching, with or with­out interacting with others, either physically or virtually present, in small or large groups. These activities all need to be accommodat­ed instantly.

Designers and suppliers are responding to these challenges with the next generation of workspace components. Innovative design solutions are likely to be the key to cost-ef­fective flexibility. However “self churn” and constant changing floors are challenges that traditional facility managers and CRE ex­ecutives may find daunting.

Choreographing connectivity between workers

The most complex challenge in creating convergent workspaces is designing the ap­propriate interface between team members in the physical and virtual worlds. The in­formation technology and communication industry is evolving rapidly and enabling interfacing on a more seamless basis with new devices, both mobile and fixed. These connectivity devices are emerging continu­ally and in the future may include walls, ceilings, floor, mobile phones, screens, com­puters, cars, PDAs, MP3s, etc.

A critical success element of this con­nectivity is ensuring that content is tailored to match context. This will require select­ing the right places for interfaces; choos­ing the right input and output devices; and ensuring the right content is delivered at the right time and in the right form. New man­agement and corporate governance issues are plentiful.

Within the new workplace, spread across virtual and physical locations, choreograph­ing of contact will need to replace much of the informal contact of the past. Much of the team spirit of an organisation is based on in­formal interactions. Team members drinking coffee in break-out areas is often the source of the most innovative ideas. Corporate loy­alty has traditionally been based on regular physical presence, which will now occur less frequently. In a mixed virtual and physical environment, these interactions may have to be choreographed. But can management meet this new leadership challenge and will the contrived choreographed contact prove effective?

Response to this challenge for the CRE executive and workplace managers starts by engaging with the business units in the organisation to understand their future un­articulated needs. But this needs to be sup­ported by also engaging with all the other corporate support groups, including IT, HR and finance to provide the optimum enabled workplace platforms for the business units. This will require that traditional corporate support responsibility barriers be removed and corporate support in whatever form is delivered on an integrated basis