What is Agile Working?

We are all very familiar with the term flexible working, it has dominated the media we ourselves have wrote many articles covering it. Over the next coming weeks however we are going to be focusing on the new buzz word ‘agile working’ within the workplace. We think it’s a defining factor to workplace design so we want to share our understanding of it and positive effects it has on productivity and wellbeing.  

Defining Agile Working

Flexible Working is used as a general term to describe working at times and places away from the traditional full time 9-5 office based employment. Flexible Working has two dimensions of flexibility:

Time i.e. when employees choose to work. There are many examples of this dimension: employees can work at different times of day on different days of the week.

Location i.e. where employees choose to work. Again there are many examples of this dimension: – in addition to the office, employees can choose to work at, a fixed desk, at workhubs, cafes, while travelling or at home.

Agile Working introduces a third dimension of flexibility, autonomy i.e. how people choose to work. In an organisation adopting Agile Working employees are empowered to choose how they work in order to meet the goals set for them to the standards required. So by this definition a way of working that uses the same processes and practices outside of normal working hours and/or at different locations is not Agile Working as it lacks this third dimension of autonomy.

Clearly some job roles will more easily accommodate this freedom e.g. sales roles traditionally have a large degree of autonomy they are set targets and are typically lightly supervised. Whereas operational roles can be more challenging as they are often prescribed by detailed processes. It is more challenging, but not impossible, to introduce agile working into operational roles.

Flexible Working is generally regarded as largely a benefit to employees it’s a way of working that suits their needs". However, when implemented well agile working should provide benefits for both employers and employees. The goals of organisations in adopting agile working are to create a more responsive, efficient and effective organisation, which improves business performance and increases customer satisfaction. By empowering their employees to work how, where and when they choose there is evidence that they increase their productivity and provide service improvements by working in a way that suits them best. There is the very real prospect of a win-win situation. Organisations become more responsive and effective and their employees gain more control over the way they work.

Over the coming weeks we will be showing you how to implicate this way of working into your workplace by showing you how we incorporate it into our ‘Discover, Design, Deliver’ approach and what new products engage the autonomy dimension. 

Discover, Design, Deliver - Understanding the client

In a perfect world, every workplace would fit, hand in glove, with its workers: desks would be occupied in an optimally efficient way; meeting rooms would never be under- or over-booked; no one would be too hot or too cold and that statement staircase would produce those “chance encounters” to boost the productivity of collaboration-hungry knowledge workers.

It’s a great idea but is it always the truth? Outcomes don’t always match expectations, and people don’t always use buildings in the expected way. To minimise this, however, many practices like ourselves are now taking a more rigorous, practical approach to workplace design, which relies on extensive front-end research.

Hi Design, whose clients include BBA, Handelsbanken and Heathcoat Fabrics, work differently. We focus on space usage – the creation of environments for optimum business effectiveness. This is what most workplace designers mean by EBD – systematic up-front research that takes a lot longer than the typical amount of work needed to fulfil a brief, but which results in a space based on what’s actually happening, rather than what the CEO might tell you is happening, or what a designer might be able to glean from a few walk-throughs and staff interviews.

“We would normally do a study of 4 to 8 weeks, where we don’t do a single design move; all we do is assess who the client is. By the end of it we have a better understanding of how these people work than the people themselves,” says Susan, Director of Hi Design. This encompasses interviews with those at management level; an online staff questionnaire that includes questions about which of their colleagues they interact with, how much of their day they spend in meetings or out of the building; and standardised, structured observation about how many people use the tea points, for example, or are at their desks at any one time. Susan says that it was initially hard to persuade clients on tight budgets and timescales that it would take weeks just to assess their needs, but with a portfolio of successful projects our three stage approach - ‘discover, design, deliver’ simply works! 

Managing the Changing Work Environment Though Office Design

Susan Whittle, Managing Director of Hi Design explains how office design needs to adapt to change:

The pace of change to the global economy is unrelenting, and it’s now harder than ever to predict the future shape of the working environment. However what is clear is that the way we work is also constantly evolving, so office design needs to adapt to this change.

The best designs are always the ones that mould to a business’s culture and dovetail smoothly with what works efficiently already. What seldom works is a ‘one size fits all’ template design, imposed without a proper understanding of what makes the business tick.

Although office design varies from client to client and by market sector, it is fair to say there are a few key points that should never be overlooked when considering any office refurbishment:

• Need for flexibility for multi-functional spaces and furniture solutions

• Importance of controlling costs and specifying ‘best value’ products

• Need for employee and visitor comfort

• Need to attract and retain the right staff

• Need to reflect the client’s brand, ethos and vision

• Promotion of better internal team communication

• The ability to adapt to changing technology

• The environmental impact the project will have

Gone are the days when simply specifying a design because it looks aesthetically pleasing will suffice, and every product chosen must now earn its place within the design. Each must be competitively priced, flexible in use and robust enough to stand the test of time.

The need to embrace changing technology and work practices (such as hot-desking and home-working) requires offices to be adaptable and to be quickly adjustable to whatever’s coming next.

Using desks and meeting stations that can be swiftly and easily reconfigured facilitates changes to the work-space that match the business’s needs, be it growth, downsizing or other change, without having to buy new furnishings or fixtures. For example, Senator’s Core furniture range is constructed in a similar way to a Lego set. The legs and beams may start life as part of a wave desk, but can be dismantled and re-assembled to form a 120 degree cluster. This flexibility not only helps the environment but also saves clients’ money.

With the increased popularly of home-working and ‘hot desking’, bench style furniture provides the ideal solution. These large 'dining table’ style desks have set back legs and fewer dividing screens. The availability of desktop power and data along the run of desks means that staff can sit anywhere and as numbers increase, people simply move along the bench to accommodate them.

Under the prevailing economic climate, the need to keep overheads to a minimum is critical, and clever space-planning can help avoid unnecessary expenditure on additional square footage. Therefore, today’s spaces are created to be multi-use: kitchens become informal meeting areas and boardrooms become staff recreation areas. It is important that offices do not become too static and inflexible as the new age of coffee shop meetings and ultra-mobile staff becomes the norm.

When deciding how to plan office space, its important to think not just about how the business works now but how it might need to work in the future. If meetings can take place in a more relaxed environment then why not accommodate additional informal areas? With the prevalence of wireless technology, these areas become more widely usable and accessible.

The phrase “work is something that you do and not a place where you go” echoes this new thinking about flexibility and mobility. It’s about using technology to enable work from many different locations at times that suit the individual and the business. Working from home is now an everyday reality for many types of workers, including full-time employees who are positively encouraged by many business owners to do so.

Whilst working from home has its obvious benefits, it is vital that staff do not feel isolated and the need for close colleague collaboration remains. We can work from home or in a coffee shop, but it is rare that we can each do all the work alone. So the only way we can support teamwork is to create places where people can come together. The new trend in office design has seen a dramatic growth in clustered office space; rows of cubicles have been replaced with non-linear, organic layouts that group staff together.

There is a trend even for senior staff to be accommodated in such cluster layouts rather than private offices, as team-led working cultures are fostered, with companies encouraging staff to learn from and inspire each other. The main advantage of such an approach is its appeal to employees, especially younger staff members who tend to prefer a more open and collaborative workplace landscape.

High dividing panels are giving way to open environments with lower partitions that are easy to scan over and around. They help staff feel more connected with colleagues and give access to natural light and outdoor views, both of which have a positive impact on wellbeing and productivity. The direct connection between wellbeing and productivity now informs and shapes office design in ways that would have remained unconsidered until relatively recently.

However, open plan offices will not suit everyone. Some departments such as Finance or HR (or at least their senior staff), will require separation, particularly where privacy and quiet space are essential to their function. Again, by careful space-planning, a good office interior designer will ensure that each department’s needs are met and sensitive teams are strategically located.

When considering design, the emotional, physical and financial needs of a business each have to be considered carefully, and just as no two clients are the same, so no two designs are the same. Any interior design needs to be flexible, easily reconfigured, cost effective and must suit the needs of the individual business.

As a practice we always use our experience to suggest new ways of working and alternative products, but ultimately it is our client’s space, their staff and their money. We are simply the conduit to bring all of their needs and wants together in a creative way to deliver an inspiring working environment which supports the business and help it to succeed.

For more information, free downloadable guides and advice on how to get the most from your space contact click here