By Jim Ware
Edition 4 – September 2014 Pages 6-9
Tags: business strategy • case study • facilities management
Raise your hand if you agree: “The workplace is obviously a strategic resource.” We facilities management professionals know that to be true. But if you often feel like a voice in the
wilderness when speaking to anyone other than a fellow FM or workplace professional,you are certainly not alone. For many if not most senior executives,their facilities are a necessary evil that always – always! – cost too much.
That reality frustrates me as much as it does you. So my colleague Paul Carder and I conducted two extensive research projects in 2012 and 2013 aimed at making the case (mostly to FM professionals themselves) that facilities and workplaces are incredibly strategic – and very poorly understood.And while we’ve gotten lot of positive feedback about our findings and conclusions,we haven’t seen much change in mindsets, management practices,or business outcomes.
Maybe we’re just naïve optimists,but we believe deeply in the strategic impact that workplace design can have on organizational cultures and bottom-line results.
I am therefore very pleased to be able to report an important story about how a workplace transformation made a major contribution to a new CEO’s ability to turn around a struggling financial services company.
Picture this: On the day the company moved into a new –and dramatically redesigned – workplace,two employees bumped into each other in the hallway. One said to the other, “Who are you? Why are you walking around our office?” The other replied,“I work here – I’ve worked here for several years.” They had never seen each other before,even though the company’s headquarters office in Chicago,Illinois,is home to only about 115 employees.
Today that company – National Equity Fund (NEF),a nonprofit financial services organization that constructs deals for the funding of affordable housing across the United States –is an industry leader that enjoys low staff turnover,high productivity,and a reputation as a high-energy,compelling place to work. It’s characterized by open collaboration and a free-flowing,can-do culture.That encounter between two “strangers” took place in 2001,right after NEF moved from two floors of a dingy,cramped building to a new,open-office single-floor environment filled with Herman Miller Resolve workstations,lots of conference rooms,and an employee “Back Yard” with bright colours on the walls,a miniature golf course along the window,and a pool table where spirited games enable staff to burn off stress and enjoy each-others’ company.
And it all came about because Joe Hagan,NEF’s CEO, recognized almost immediately when he joined the company in May 2000 that the office design was completely out of sync with his values and with the culture he knew he needed to build if NEF was to survive.
He said: “The culture I found when I arrived at NEF was really depressing. People were holed up in small cubicles and hard-wall offices.The office was dark and dingy – not a place to show our customers,and not a place that our people wanted to be.They weren’t happy – I think they spent most of their time on their computers looking for other jobs.”
Ed Simon,Senior Vice, President of Information Technology (IT),described his first
encounter with Joe:
“I was working on a new core software system for the company. I think he had been with the company about two months and he didn’t know who I was – he didn’t even know I worked there.We were all in separate offices,so no one really walked around and saw each other.We were all living in our own little silos.”
It had become clear that NEF needed a new workplace. GayleneDomer,Vice President of Facilities,took a small team of senior executives (including Joe Hagan) to visit Herman Miller’s corporate headquarters in Zeeland,Michigan.
Hagan admits today that the open nature and bright colours of Herman Miller’s Resolve® furniture at first turned him off. But GayleneDomer persisted,arguing that a new,open office would bring staff out of the “woodwork” and help to create a collaborative work environment. Over the next year Domer oversaw the design and build-out of a completely open and totally nonhierarchical office a few blocks down the street.While NEF got a new open office environment where everyone,including Joe Hagan,has the same size workstation, interestingly,the design was developed rather autocratically. It was Hagan and Domer who orchestrated the new design; they only consulted with two other NEF executives as they completed the design (one was Sue Ann Reed,Senior Vice President of Human Resources,and the other was a Senior Vice President of Asset Management). Hagan did not want endless debates; he wanted results – quickly.
Furthermore,Hagan did not allow anyone else to see the new facility until the day the staff moved in.Why the secrecy? Explained Hagan: “Back in 2000 NEF ran by consensus.
Everyone wanted to have a say in everything. I needed to completely change how we worked. Before the move we’d have fifteen people in the room for every decision. You can’t run a company like that.
“I had to lead; I had to define where we were going. Yes,you need to listen,but ultimately the CEO has to lead. I had to have the staff see what I wanted – so we could build on that sense of direction and move towards a more reasonable collaborative culture.”…