Renner Lauren, a financial analyst at Steelcase, has just had a new office, but there is not a fixed seat for her. This office used to only belong to the financial sector, after the transformation has become a financial, procurement and quality of the work of the three departments to share.
Now, Renner is the first thing to do is to go to work to WorkCaf selection for breakfast, and then find a seat while eating check email. If you have a partner in the project, they are ready to sit down and have an instant meeting. When she needs to think about it, you can take the notebook to the side of the mobile office area to pick a desk to sit down. There's no fixed seat. Not far away, there is a meeting room for the HD video system for her and her colleagues to have a meeting.
These changes have come from the recent Steelcase of their transformation project in the U.S. state of Michigan's global headquarters office. The initial motivation of this project is very simple, because of cost savings considerations, to the original two buildings of the staff to focus on a. This is a problem that many companies are facing, and the increase in staff and cost savings seem to be the eternal paradox. However, with the development of research, the problem gradually from the "how to put more people into a building," has become "better respond to their office needs, and provide better tools."
A Steelcase's leading edge research team has come up with a bold solution: to cancel the allocation of the number of fixed office seats, according to the demand to divide the space, so that people flow up. "The concept of the table was designed decades ago - it provides you with a job where you work. But change has taken place. The mobility of the device allows the office to not necessarily need to be like an 'office', which can be a person to go to the cafe." Steelcase Jason, vice president of the Asia Pacific region, said Heredia.
　　
Steelcase used to be famous for office furniture design, but now, they have begun to focus more on the design of office space. People usually think that improve the efficiency of using high-tech office facilities, but they found, in a traditional office environment, that is, to use another high-tech products is unable to meet the needs of people are mobile Internet era has changed. This is more important than saving the rent.
"Technology is not just a phone, a computer, the space is a kind of technology." Heredia says. He was the person in charge of the Steelcase front research team. The team not only includes furniture designers, but also a number of sociologists and anthropologists, whose mission is to find the possibility of future office. They recently released a report on the topic is the Internet office".
You may have been vaguely aware of your desire to move: a day to many times the chair and colleagues of the exchange of communication, a lot of time inspired by the fact that the tea from the chat. And the traditional office environment to fixed in a grid, each department and each array, people can only step by step.
As early as 20 years ago, two management experts Nonaka Lkujiro and Hirotaka in a groundbreaking report on the creation of a knowledge-based enterprise, pointed out that the knowledge is divided into two types, explicit and implicit. The hidden knowledge is personal, not in any written form, only through personal stories, effective way to share the indirect. That is to say, in the office space, the premise of this kind of knowledge acquisition is the interaction and cooperation between employees.
And Steelcase through further study found that no matter what you are engaged in career, build and share the knowledge of the way can be summarized into four kinds of office form, the main body and space by the use of the form of two variables. For example, the beginning of the article at the beginning of the article Renner WorkCaf every morning to enter the Lauren E. Different from the traditional closed meeting rooms, which is a social environment, people here can learn from each other in a more relaxed way, and the accumulation of trust. If Renner wants to report to her boss, she will go to a personal sharing area. This is a much smaller social space where people can gather knowledge. These four kinds of spatial models are integrated in the whole office space, rather than mechanically in accordance with the plate division.
This set of theory is based on the observation on the behavior of nuanced. Heredia Jason and his colleagues need to know about all the interactions that exist between people and people in the office. "You can't let people tell you what they don't know, so we're not going to use market research, but just to look at people's behavior."
The most common way is to take the camera to the office, sitting in a corner to take pictures. Usually they visit a customer may stay for two or three days or even a week, save thousands of photos.
These photos will be printed on the table, classified according to the problems found, and one one for the reason. The role of the picture is to let people jump out of the mind set, found that the problem is usually ignored. For example on the wall of a scratch may be due to the nearby table too close to a wall, people pulled a chair to sit down when the chair back rub to wall caused by, indicating that the table may be too large, not suitable for the room. For example, no one will go to the seat back to the door, people usually choose to face the door position.
After sorting out the causes and sorting and recording it, the photos will be disrupted, and the process will be repeated. "By constantly re sorting and doing enough, you will see things that are not normally observed in the eyes. You will begin to understand why people do this." Heredia says.
An interesting finding is a wide variety of "hubs" (hub) in the office space. For example, you will find a place where the printer will often sit in different corners of the staff gathered. And people will talk to each other in the waiting time.
These hubs have become an important tool for future space design. For example, a lot of the company's customer service center and the market did not have any communication. But in fact customer service staff to know what users complain about. But if you put a coffee in between two working areas, the situation is completely changed. "Cooperation is a kind of informal communication, which is based on everyday interactions." Steelcase chief designer Barnhart-Hoffman Julie said, "office space in the aisle and restaurants can affect the success or failure of cooperation."
Another view of the hub is the central figure in the office: people tend to look for a few people when they are in trouble. These people should be put in the new staff, because they need help more. Steelcase has even developed a set of tools that can be quickly locked into these core people.
Of course, in addition to public space, can make people stop to think independently area is also very important. "The key issue is how you need to balance the scale. Do you need 90% of the private space in your office? This may not be conducive to rapid expansion. But if it is a software company may, where the employees prefer to be alone." Heredia says.
Steelcase was the first to use this model in his own body, because no customers are willing to spend a lot of money to do the experiment. Now, Heredia has been able to come up with a bunch of data to convince customers. According to statistics, after the completion of the transformation of the Steelcase headquarters, the area reduced by 48%, but at the same time, the per capita area has only decreased by 20%. Although each person has no fixed seat, but can be at any time according to their own needs to choose the office area. This is not only removed a regular table only, it is the liberation of knowledge and knowledge sharing.
Jason Heredia, now the photographs from the desk changed to the transformation of the new WorkCaf E on the wall, each passing can stop at any time to think and write in the above drawing, Tidianyixian.
Contact editor: wangqing@yicai.com