Market Know-how: Upgrade for an office

“Russian companies’ interest in new ways of organizing office space is explained by the necessity to do business more effectively. These new concepts are also directed on the optimization of areas used for corridors and separate offices. In other words, when you can place more people in a smaller area, it is obvious you can save on rent," says Irina Kokots, the administrative director of CB Richard Ellis.

In the opinion of Anastasia Khomenchuk, head of the office premises department at DTZ, recently the approach to the organization of the work of a company and management differs. "A roomed system and a reception through which not everyone could get to the top manager were characteristic of the old style of management. To operatively and effectively solve problems, hear suggestions from employees, for different divisions to communicate with each other, a more open structure is necessary which is reflected in the lay-out of office space," the expert says.

Open space

A popular way of optimizing office space is open plan layout. "The organization of offices in this way was used in the 1930s in many design institutes and bureaus of the USSR. Formally almost all manufacturers are organized in this way. So to call open space lay-out non-standard is not correct," says Stanislav Biryulin, head of the department for the internal furnishing of premises, at CB Richard Ellis. But it only became the main principle of organizing offices recently.

"In planning our office we always adhere to the concept of open space. An open office is irreplaceable for team work, when it is necessary to share information and be kept informed, and more quickly achieve results," says Kokots. According to Biryulin, under such a system intra-office partitions fence off only the departments or divisions of a company, and the inside space is organized without any partitions.

"Taking into account that departments are not separated, the specificity of business is that many projects are conducted simultaneously by several departments, for example the office real estate department, the department for corporate services, the consulting services department, the management of projects. The fact that they are in an open space allows for tasks to be solved promptly and effectively. Low partitions between tables allow for personal space, to give an element of privacy to each workplace that is especially useful for employees who spend most of there time in the office," says Elena Sergeyeva, head of the administrative department at Cushman & Wakefield/Stiles & Riabokobylko.

According to Kokots, "the concept of open office space is relevant for the majority of large businesses, for example consulting companies and telecommunication corporations which have back offices and call centers, businesses that depend on the efficiency of information interchange within and between various departments."

But it’s not possible not organize open space in every office. "In old class B and C Soviet office buildings, where rent is lower than in new buildings and the ergonomic norm is 6 sq.m per person, open space is not present at all. There the hall system reigns," Kokots notes. Moreover, the accommodation of employees in open space does not always lead to the best economy of space.

"The lay-out of new class A buildings is based on the concept of an open office, but are designed in such a manner that we cannot enjoy its advantages in terms of the saving of rent. New office buildings have very strict requirements to office space, the minimum is 8 sq.m per person. In skyscrapers it is not less than 10 sq.m. Such strict requirements are dictated by many factors," Kokots explains. Ventilation systems and air conditioning are calculated per certain number of people, especially when it concerns buildings with continuous glass fronts in which there are no windows that open. "Another factor is the calculation of electrical capacity as all ultramodern offices are filled with electronics and electronic devices. If you increase the number of workplaces even by 1.5 times there is the risk that there will be power supply faults, which will stop the work of the whole office," she says.

She also says fire prevention and safety regulations that demand the quick evacuation of people in case of an emergency are important. "So the concept of an open office is adopted by Russian companies not to save money, but more likely for the optimization of business processes," Kokots adds.

According to Sergeyeva, the distance between computer monitors should not be less than 120 cm, and aisles between tables should not be less than 80 cm one way and both ways not less than 160 cm. "The number of people per sq.m of office space is limited at the stage of the concept - even by the diameter of a sewage pipe from the building," adds Biryulin.

Method 1. No privileges for managers

With the modern organization of space it is rare for managers to get their own office. "We support the idea of accommodating managers in the general premise. Being at the center of events, they carry out more effective coordination and control of working processes. Separate offices are necessary only for those managers, whose character of activity demands special confidentiality," Kokots notes.

In particular, according to her, this concerns company management, including the managing director, general director, financial director, chief accountant and some other top managers. Some investment companies do not treat managers at all. "There are practically no separate offices for managers – there are no more than five separate offices in the whole company. First of all offices are for those for who a separate premises is an attribute of status, or helps to communicate with clients, for example for the head of the corporate finance department. The majority of managers sit with the other employees in the general premises," says acting HR director at investment holding Finam Ekaterina Gripas. According to her, the general director of a company does not have an office at all. Their working day is taken up with meetings with representatives of various divisions which, in turn, will be organized in their premises or meeting rooms.

Method 2. Mobile in mobile

In some companies the organization of office space is based on the principle of mobility. A significant share of employees seem not to have permanent workplaces. This principle is called hot-desking.

"Hot-desking, in our understanding, is not a workplace, but a principle of its organization. It means desks equipped with phones, and power and computer points are not fixed to a specific employee.

Taking into account the fact that all offices have Wi-Fi there is no need to have plugs," says Sergeyeva. According to her, any employee at Cushman & Wakefield / Stiles & Riabokobylko, where this system is in place, can log in into the telephone system from any telephone receiver with their own personal number, allowing them to receive calls, messages and voice mail irrespective of the location of the phone. "Laptops, personal items and documents are stored in special drawer units which can be moved to any free table, where it is possible to turn on a computer, connect to the telephone system and start work. At the end of the work day the workstation should remain free of any equipment, except for phones, documents, personal items, etc," says the expert. According to Sergeyeva, brokers and advisers who don’t spend all day at the office and sometimes don’t work from the office for a whole day use such workstations.

DTZ also has mobile workstations. These represent drawer units that can be turned into a desktop and moved around the office together with the owner. "They are intended for trading companies and service sector companies such as insurance agents, etc," says Khomenchuk.

A continuation from hot desking is so-called hoteling. "Mobile workstations are mainly used by employees who spend several hours a day or a few days of the week at the office, this may be interns, part-time employees, etc.

In an ideal situation if there are more employees wanting to occupy such workstations, it is necessary to reserve it in advance, like at a hotel. In our situation there are sufficient places and there is no necessity to preliminary book," says Sergeyeva.

It is necessary to note that not all companies have an equally positive point of view about mobile workstations. "The percentage in the total workstations at our office is small. Mobile places are used primarily by those employees who spend most of their working hours not at the central office, but at other company premises, for example on construction sites or in buildings which we manage," says Kokots.

However, according to Biryulin, to have an employee on a sofa is an unprofitable use of working space, especially if the mobile office is used in its pure state – an employee does not sit at a fixed desk, but can sit down on any free sofa. "Sofas are usually placed in waiting rooms and some meeting rooms. The area of a sofa is the same as a desk but it is much more comfortable to put a laptop on a desk than on your lap," the expert considers.

At offices of many companies both in Russia, and in the West there are so-called public areas, intended for visitors: it is possible to be connected to the Internet, to check email, including corporate. Such zones also can be used for carrying out of informal meetings, says Sergeyeva. These platforms can be used by employees of the company as mobile workplaces.

Everyone in the office

An extreme way of optimizing office space is to accommodate employees at home. "Modern communication facilities allow for work to be effectively carried out not in the office, but using the Internet, mobile phones, etc. Our company has only one employee that constantly works from home, and that is due to the specificity of their work as an editor-translator, receiving tasks by e-mail and sending completed translations back to the internal customer," notes Sergeyeva.

According to her, in the history of Cushman & Wakefield / Stiles & Riabokobylko there was a period when the company was compelled to leave its new office in connection with a fire and to move to its old office, which was smaller and could fit only a share of the employees. In this situation there was only one thing to do - for some employees to work from home. " Those employees whose constant presence in the office does not influence the overall performance of other employees or divisions can effectively work from home. Of course, for supporting divisions such as IT experts, the finance and administration department, the marketing department, the HR department, this mode of work is unacceptable, but it is quite effective for brokers, advisers, sales department experts, etc," says the expert.

At Finam only 3 per cent of staff work from home. "These are primarily translators, experts who are engaged in the gathering of information for various research, etc. They can do the work from any computer, they do not communicate with clients, so there is no need for them to be constantly present in the office. Nevertheless we prefer employees to work in the office as in most cases it allows for their activities to be organized more effectively," says Gripas.

"It is convenient to organize such work processes but not to supervise them. It is necessary to switch to a piece-rate payment, which in many cases is inapplicable," considers Biryulin.

However not all experts share this point of view. "Our designer works from home. There are no difficulties in organizing the working process, as it is always accessible by phone or by e-mail. For us the result of their work is important, whether they come to work at 9.00, whether they spend a certain amount of time at the office or not, is absolutely not important," says Ekaterina Pazyak, head of the HR department at Praedium.

A fly in the ointment

Not every company is prepared to use the newest ideas for the organization of office space. "The organization of an office ultimately depends on the internal document circulation of an enterprise. Therefore the same open space is more often preferred by western structures. Usually foreign companies are more flexible, including the way they organize their office space, as they try to reach the peak efficiency of the activity of employees of the enterprise," says Biryulin.

In Sergeyeva's opinion, the organization of office space is directly connected with the sphere of business the company is engaged in. As a result there are companies for which open space is not really suitable. "Different organizational principles of work are peculiar to different companies. For example, law firms require a separate room layout and recruitment companies prefer to have a lot of meeting rooms. The majority of companies prefer a mixed lay-out which includes large spaces for each department, offices for managers, meeting rooms, etc," says Pazyak. A classic example of a company that does not require modern ways of optimizing office space, is a development company.

"Our office is laid out in the classic "closed," office-hall system. As a rule, managers work in separate offices. Representatives of one working group or department may occupy an office.

The heads of structural divisions and senior management have individual offices," says Yuri Sinyaev, marketing director at Konti. In his opinion, such a format of organizing space is most productive from a functional and coordination point of view.

"For a person to work as effectively as possible, it is necessary to create comfortable conditions of work for them. The classic scheme of organizing space perfectly creates the demanded preconditions. The format of open space, in our opinion, reduces the overall performance as in that case lots of people are concentrated in one space and everyone can hear each other. Therefore employees are constantly in a more stressful environment. For a human it is unnatural to be constantly in an environment of such congested extraneous people. As a result instead of concentrating on work the employee is constantly distracted by a set of external irritants, and therefore gets tired quickly," he adds.

However, according to the expert, modern buildings, as a rule, already assume open layout. This quite often forces large companies to get empty shops or warehouses in which there are no load-bearing walls, and use them as an office. In such conditions, of course, it is more convenient to layout the office according to the open space concept.

New office concepts also don’t suit Vesco Group. Executive director of Vesco Group Margarita Volyanskaya says: many offices are equipped in a such manner that they are simultaneously a workplace, a zone of rest, a meeting room, and also a presentation room.

Thus, managers have the opportunity to meet VIP clients without leaving the working process, which optimizes the activity of employees and creates more comfort. "Whereas open space is optimal for companies whose product or service is produced on a big stream and the quality of service and product is approximately at the same level," the expert considers.