Space: another HR frontier; when HR moves into office design, it can reap big rewards regarding culture, morale and productivity - Cover Story - human resource management

HR Magazine, Sept, 2002 by Robert J. Grossman

"Blame it on the silo mentality in corporations-neither group has understood the value they could bring to each other," says Becker. "What you'd like to see is HR working collaboratively with facilities, IT and the business units to design a structure that will support the organization culture and mission."

Perhaps such partnerships might alleviate the problem that is evident to Sharon VanderKaay--designer at Murphy Hilgers Architects in Toronto. VanderKaay says too often space decisions produce crowded, noisy environments that are not conducive to collaboration or private work.

Why? Because management mistakenly believes that real estate, which accounts for less than 10 percent of operating costs, has little or no impact on human resources, which accounts for 80 percent of operating costs.

The situation, she says, cries out for HR to focus on the strategic importance of the physical environment. "The payoff will be higher performance, smarter decision-making, increased informal learning and, ultimately, stronger customer relationships."

Perhaps Chuck Saylor, president of izzydesign, a design, engineering and furniture manufacturing company in Grand Rapids, Mich., best captures the folly of excluding HR from the equation. "It's not about the furniture," he says. "It's the people, stupid!"

Extra Online Resources

For more information about office design, see the online version of this article at www.shrm.org/hrmagazine.> RELATED ARTICLE: Ergonomics Equals Performance

For low-cost design interventions that can boost performance and raise satisfaction, think about health and safety, say experts. Incredibly, there are still a huge number of workers whose chairs and workstations are not ergonomically sound.

Jerome Congleton, professor of ergonomics and safety at Texas A&M University, estimates that only 15 percent of the workplace has office equipment--including chairs, adjustable workstations, document holders, keyboards and monitor stands--that meets acceptable ergonomics standards.

Creating ergonomically sound environments doesn't come cheap. A workstation with those components could cost between $2,500 and $3,000. But that investment could pay worthwhile dividends. Congleton says studies by the Internal Revenue Service and the State of Washington show productivity improvements from 15 percent to 25 percent. "It sounds too simple, but there's nothing more effective that people can do."

UPS in Atlanta took Congleton's advice, installing top-of-the-line chairs manufactured by Neutral Posture Inc. of Bryan, Texas, and adjustable workstations for their 2,000 general office staff and 4,300 telephone service center workers. The result? Productivity, including calls-per-hour, rose 17 percent; employee satisfaction surveys showed improvement everywhere; and injury rates plummeted.

"Overall, injuries are down 43 percent in the past five years," says Marenda CaIdwell, industrial engineering manager in Atlanta. "Lost workdays related to injuries are down 49 percent for the same period."