Mobility versus movability

In the third of a series of articles relating to the workplace, leading researchers at Steelcase Inc - world leaders in work solutions - share their knowledge

There are two factors in today's working world that are having a major impact on organisations and their people. The first is the trend for more and more people to spend some or most of their time away from the office. Hence, mobility of both people and the tools that support them.

The second is the rapidity of change in how organisations operate. Responding to those changes implies movability of the components of the workplace.

"In many cases the physical environment doesn't support either mobility or movability," says Steelcase Canada's workplace solutions director Barry Brennand. "Workers who are on the road or at a client site may come home to find they have no place to sit.

"On the other hand, a sudden change in organisation design or functional emphasis requires tearing down walls and/or furniture, as well as rewiring and recabling. Both situations are rough on productivity."

The ability of workers to be 'mobile' raises some tricky management questions. In the old way of working, one of the primary roles of middle management was to ensure that workers were on the job and doing what they were assigned to do. But if people are constantly getting up and wandering around or, worse yet, are out of the office a lot, how do you 'manage' them?

More power... more mobility

"People have to be empowered to be mobile, before mobility can be productive," Mr Brennand maintains. "That empowerment comes from a combination of management attitudes and a physically supportive work environment."

In practical terms, environmental support can be a hoteling system in which an individual can book a room or a workstation for an afternoon. Or a common space with chairs and work surfaces, which allow docking a laptop and tapping into power and communications.

Whatever the design and system, the message has to be: "What you're doing is just fine, and here are the tools to help you do it." A case in point is Steelcase's new Worklife Centre in New York City, where even the patios are equipped with voice, data and power connections.

Movability raises some other concerns. The ability to respond effectively to rapid change has become axiomatic in our digital economy. "Flexibility", "nimbleness", "adaptability" - all are words to describe the means of coping with shifting markets, demanding customers and competitive pressures.

An office which consists of drywall and workstations bolted to the floor doesn't lend itself to easy or affordable change.

Quick mobility saves on costly moves

Every time a workstation has to be moved or reconfigured, it can cost an organisation between $700 and $1,300, even if done by in-house maintenance or professional third party installers. Multiply that by the number of workers in many departments and it becomes something more than a trivial expense.

As companies continue to restructure, relocate and experiment with things like multi-disciplinary teams, the costs can only go up. But that's only the cost factor.

Easily as important is the ability to adapt rapidly to changing conditions. Fixed offices or sometimes even systems furniture don't lend themselves to 'nimbleness'.

"Organisations are learning how to work differently, but they're learning on the fly," says Mr Brennand. "If the furnishings are at least partly user-reconfigurable, it allows teams to form and re-form according to how people want and actually need to interact - without significant periods of downtime at intervals along the learning curve."

Both factors - mobility and movability - have to be considered in the context of how any given organisation is working today and into the likely future. Solutions, rather than being found through acquisition of this or that kind of furniture, will only emerge after some careful analysis of where the organisation is going and what it wants to achieve.

Steelcase Inc is represented locally by Domestica Limited of Valley Road, Birkirkara. More information on Steelcase solutions can be found at www.steelcase-europe.com. For any enquiries or presentations, call 2144-7604.