What happens when a company gets too big to be an exclusively virtual company?
I recently came across an article on inc.com: 4 Tips on Managing a Virtual Workforce, which featured Michael Sappington, CEO of gloStream, a company that provides software solutions for electronic medical records. In the piece, Michael notes some of the obstacles to maintaining a virtual environment as his compnay grows as well as the decision to move to physical office space.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Michael to dive deeper into the pros and cons his company is seeing as they transition from a virtual office to a physical office. Michael was gracious enough to answer my four questions below.
1. As your company grows and you shift your strategy related to flexible work hours and a virtual workforce, have you encountered any personnel issues with new ways of working and, if so, how are you managing this change to keep employees happy and engaged?
Overall, the shift from a virtual electronic medical records company to one operating out of a physical office has gone very, very well. Our team members have welcomed the change and they are much more productive since they can find each other and quickly meet face-to-face, instead of having to spend time tracking each other down before finding a time for a meeting. Our team members are happy to be in an office and really excited about our new work environment.
2. What workplace trends (i.e. technology, furniture, new ways of working) do you feel [...]

For several years our industry has pushed for the shift from ownership of space – as in your own office / workstation or your department’s conference room – to the sharing place.  In large part, this has been driven by the need to reduce the cost of real estate for organizations by trying to increase the utilization of  space used.  However, in my experience, there’s been significant reluctance due to our culture of ownership(especially here in the U.S.) . 
Last May at TEDx Sydney Rachel Botsman presented “The Case for Collaborative Consumption” and how several factors, including the proliferation of sharing websites, are having an impact on shifting our behaviors  from individual ownership to sharing.  She identifies 4 key drivers that are “fusing together and creating the big shift towards collaborative consumption”

A renewed belief in the importance of community
A torrent of peer-to-peer social networks and real-time technologies
Pressing unresolved environmental concerns
A global recession that has fundamentally shocked consumer behaviors

She also attributes the increase in this phenomenon to the “digital natives or Gen Y” and the ease of mobile collaboration – “they are growing up sharing…it’s second nature to them…moving us from a culture of me to a culture of we”. 

Her talk makes a strong case (using several internet examples like Zipcar, Swaptree and Landshare) that our consumer behaviors are changing due to the 4 points listed above that are being enabled by technology, mobility and a younger generation where sharing is second nature.
I believe Rachel’s presentation provides our industry with a few related examples, benefits and ideas for future opportunities around the idea sharing in an effort to reduce real estate, space and resource consumption faced by many [...]

I recently had the opportunity to write a guest blog for Virtual Office. The blog focuses on personalization of the workplace, and how new workplace trends could potentially limit our sense of individuality. With more and more mobile work styles emerging, and less and less people “living” at their desks in a traditional 9-to-5, forty hour work week, I question whether the or not people will also start ditching all of their personal knick-knacks in favor of  more streamlined, flexible work environments. 
Check out the full blog post here: A Home Away From Home Away From Home. The blog even makes a brief Office Space reference. Enjoy.

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Remote…work? A recent article in the NY Times describes a new trend in working remotely: funerals.

With more than $290 billion in assets and approximately 55,000 employees, PNC is one of the largest financial services companies in the country. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, PNC also has more LEED certified buildings than any other company on Earth. When it opened in 2001, PNC’s Firstside Center in downtown Pittsburgh was the nation’s largest corporate green building at 650,000 square feet. And with the recent opening of PNC Place in Washington, D.C., PNC currently has over 100 LEED certified projects in its real estate portfolio. Gary Saulson, Director of Corporate Real Estate for the PNC Financial Services Group, is responsible for the direction of PNC’s sustainable strategies. Overseeing approximately 30 million square feet of commercial real estate, Saulson has impressively helped transform PNC into an industry leader in corporate sustainability. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Saulson about PNC’s sustainable and workplace strategies.  
“Our simple task is to build environments where employees can thrive and customers can do their business”, says Saulson, who explains that PNC has an internal Product Review Committee that tests and reviews all products that go into their offices. The Product Review Committee is represented by people from across the bank: including people involved in Operations, Energy, Sustainability and Finance. They also work with manufacturers to beta test products, including conference tables, chairs, light fixtures, restroom faucets and hand dryers.   
Saulson believes it makes good business sense to “do our homework” on the products they purchase and implement into their workplace standards. He explained to [...]

10 Workplace Trends to Watch for in 2011
Telecommuting and worker mobility make the list of 2011 Workplace Trends supporting the business case for a workplace strategy that enables a mobile workforce.  High-tech communication tools and a surge in the quest for hiring “new blood” aka recent college grads also make the list of trends we should expect to see in 2011. 
To read the full list of trends click here http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/01/04/workplace-trends-for-2011/

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FastCompany’s Co.Design recently posted a great essay, Frog Design: The Four Secrets of Playtime That Foster Creative Kids, part of a series produced by Frog Design.  What I like about the essay is that all the ideas about play and creativity apply just as well to adults as to kids and to most aspects of life, including the workplace.  Play becomes more of an attitude rather than a designated time, place or activity. The essay explores what play really is – “A playful mind thrives on ambiguity, complexity, and improvisation—the very things needed to innovate and come up with creative solutions to the massive global challenges in economics, the environment, education, and more.” – and is not - ”we have unknowingly created a society of more game players rather than game designers“  The author talks about how important an open environment is in fostering creativity, open in the sense of unstructured.  (Does this remind anyone of design thinking around open and flexible office space?)  As with everything else, a balance between structured and unstructured is the key but this piece argues that as a culture we’re leaning a bit too far toward the structured, especially in the environments we create for our children.  After all “Play is our greatest natural resource.”  The series is based on Frog Design’s Design Mind.
 

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Welcome to the next installmentof our work+place history. Today’s feature is by our own Jim Rice.  Back in 2007, Jim contributed to a great article for Buildings Magazine: Using the Workplace to Facilitate Change.
Back at the beginning of the Millenium, the General Services Administration (GSA) began a new workplace program: Workplace 20|20.  The purpose of Workplace 20|20 was to research and develop a program that focuses on helping agencies use the workplace as a strategic resource: realigning work settings so they make sense for the modern workplace.  As part of this program, GSA hired HOK Advance Strategies (as well as a number of our competitors); the goal was to have the best and brightest minds come together to develop the most robust process, methods, tools and training to implement this new program.
Workplace 20|20 has evolved and is now referred to as GSA’s workplace program.  For more information on GSA’s Workspace Delivery, please visit GSA’s website.
So, back in 2007, Jim, along with some of the other WP 20|20 teammates were asked to share their thoughts on workplace (why does it matter, how do you do it).  Read on to see what they had to say….
If you have some time to read some more HOK workplace history, check Work+Place History (2): The Leader.

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Angie Earlywine, Senior Workplace Strategist for HOK Advance Strategies, Rich Smith, Director Science + Technology-Higher Education, and Tura Patterson, HOK Director of Project Development, made a presentation at the University of Minnesota entitled, “Crossing Over: Space Utilization Best Practices Enhance Space Planning in Higher Education Institutions” on October 15, 2010. The presentation explored similarities between the corporate sector and institutions of higher learning to promote understanding of trends in officing and workplace strategies.
Universities are focused on optimizing utilization and doing more with less, just as in corporate organizations.  There are common demands for:

Demand for agile, efficient processes
Flexibility
Strategic investment in technology
Highly functional, comfortable, and welcoming  places for learning
An emphasis on collaboration and innovation
A need to contain costs while improving performance
New focus on sustainable design solutions and operations
Leverage learning environment to attract & retain talent

In summary, the model for aligning space, technology, and space use strategies with university goals would also hold true in the corporate environment.  View this presentation that includes results of the IFMA Distributed Work Survey and HOK case studies of Butler University College of Education Building, Maryville University School of Health Professions and the University of Southern Indiana College of Business & School of Engineering.
Interested in learning more?  Contact angie.earlywine@hok.com  or rich.smith@hok.com.

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I recently met some representatives from SERVCORP, a company that rents office space to individuals and organizations that are looking for an office presence but do not want to commit to their own costly lease. Having a strong personal interest in workplace trends, I decided to check them out. SERVCORP is an Australian company that recently broke into the U.S. market by setting up shop in a few cities, including two suites in high profile, class A buildings in downtown Chicago. Recently I had the chance to tour one of their suites and I have to say their operation is very well put together. They offer rentals of both Executive Office and Virtual Office space. Their tagline “Everything But The Office” seems to sum up a growing trend in where the future of physical office space is headed. I found this succinct promo video for the company which highlights the idea of having a “big business infrastructure, without the associated costs”.
Two of the more prominent workplace trends these days are the continued growth of a mobile workforce (less people in offices) as well as companies reducing their overall real estate portfolios (less space being rented). This recent Wall Street Journal article is just one of dozens of recent articles reporting the reduction in office footprints in this country.

That being said, what will eventually become of all the corporate real estate out there? Will the soaring skyscrapers, the greatest of corporate status symbols, be reduced to nothing but ghost towns? In ten years will my corporate headquarters simply be [...]