On my bookshelf is a yellowed paperback with dog-ears, which is called Understanding officesWritten by Joanna Eley and Alexi Marmot, it dates back to 1995. It’s a handbook for anyone who has ever needed to know how to develop a workplace strategy in the early stages of a digital and cultural revolution. I used to consult it all the time, but now it serves as a reminder of how much has changed in the last thirty years, and how little.
The backdrop to these guidelines is the tension between the industrialised, hierarchical view of office work and a new age of flexibility, mobile devices, better use of under-utilised office space, increased collaboration between people, fewer distractions, a better approach to meetings, an increase in remote working, status-free working and a greater focus on wellbeing.
And if this sounds familiar, what can I say?
The book is in a state of extreme relevance and obsolescence, so we needed something that would maintain its relevance and dust off the obsolescence for a while.
And here it is. Workspace made easy by Kursty Groves and Neil Usher provides a step-by-step guide through the complexities of creating and implementing a workplace strategy, from first principles through to how a space is occupied and changed over time.
It benefits enormously from the fact that both authors know what they’re talking about. This shouldn’t need to be said, but you know why.
The authors’ experience in developing and implementing workplace strategies in large international organizations makes this book far more credible than many others that have appeared in the last four years. It also offers some tasty, anonymized (though one can make a good guess) anecdotes about where things can go right and where they can go wrong.
It tries not to get lost in the weeds of the endless debate about hybrid versus office work by offering some conclusive definitions. It’s useful to see someone trying to define a difference between flexible and hybrid work (one is about time and the other about place, according to the authors), but I don’t think they’re commonly used that way, and I’ve never been able to warm to the idea of setting fixed days in an office for everyone.
The book also lays out why people like to be together, both in space and time, and in doing so attempts to put an end to the chatter about the “death of the office.” I just can’t help but think it’s a shame that something so obvious has to be written down.
At times, the book points to these problems by listing the “things to look out for” when it comes to workplaces – these are usually mind-bending cliches that dominate conversations and, I suspect, by extension, the development of a coherent strategy.
They also advise people to expand their knowledge of the history of the office and work, as well as disciplines such as anthropology, to develop this strategy. This will at least ensure that the right questions are asked. A vision of what the workplace will look like and what it will become depends on this, they suggest.
They also advise strategists to measure satisfaction levels throughout the project. But as environmental psychologist and workplace expert Nigel Oseland points out, and the book also suggests, expressions of dissatisfaction with the office can often be an indication of other sources of unhappiness.
Another metric they provide is how much space a particular organization needs. This is the source of much tension in Understanding Offices and other publications such as the BCO Specification Manual, because the general answer is that it depends. Neil and Kursty are aware of the complexity of this issue and the number of variables that go into decision making.
The book goes into great detail about the tensions that exist between making these decisions and being able to change, and suggests that organizations should carefully consider alternatives to traditional models of real estate strategy. This includes integrating remote and coworking spaces and even public spaces. That’s why it’s so important to understand how people work and how the organization functions to determine what is needed now and in the future.
One of the most interesting points the book makes is that innovation can be based on taking things out, not just adding them. I remember Rafa Benitez saying something similar at Liverpool, but perhaps he was just justifying his unpopular decision to sell Xabi Alonso.
Innovation can be about removing things, not just adding them
This kind of insight makes the book a must-have for any bookshelf. It also includes as many details as possible while emphasizing how important those details are.
The book takes issue with the fascination we have with so-called Instagrammable offices, including the way some companies insist on adding quirky features to an otherwise mundane office that no one asked for or used.
The cliché is a slide or a ping-pong table, but one of the authors gives the example of a company that insisted on adding a 25-meter swimming pool to its office.
It was a beautiful facility. Of the more than 500 employees on site, only five used the pool. No one had factored in the nervousness of being seen in a bathing suit by colleagues. The pool was used for photo shoots and marketing purposes, but most of the day the water remained uninterrupted. It’s important to remember that there are natural boundaries between our work and personal lives.
Workspace Made Easy is available at your local bookstore or library
Mark is Editor of Workplace Insight, IN Magazine, Works Magazine and European Director of Work&Place journal. He has worked as a journalist, marketer, editor and consultant in the field of office design and management for over thirty years.
Cover photo: Sedus
