"Good design and good business go hand in hand," observes Rodney Fitch, founder and chairman of the U.K.-based Fitch Design Consultants Limited. Speaking during a design seminar recently in Singapore, Fitch pointed out four reasons why good office design is essential.

    The first is problem solving: good design makes things work better. Second is differentiation: good design makes things different. Third, customers identify good design with innovation, progress, and the future. Finally, design appeals to emotions: it is tactile and people react to it.

    Good design does not come cheap. Naturally, some companies balk at the idea of spending many thousands of dollars on fancy furniture. But as design consultant Francis Duffy writes in his book The Responsible Workplace, companies must not think of the money spent on planning and designing an office as "a waste of resources, but as an essential catalyst for success."

    Hong Kong-based banking group Standard Chartered and ad agency Leo Burnett think that way. Instead of the constraints of the workplace dictating the behavior of managers and their staff, both companies have risen to the challenge of creating people-shaped offices and breaking out of the office-shaped people syndrome. They used professional interior designers to analyze their workplace needs and translate these into office design. HTH命名Planning Services International (PSI) for Standard Chartered and M. Moser Associates for Leo Burnett helped create offices which work for the people who work in them.

    Gary Brown, regional media director of Leo Burnett and among those involved in the creation of his company's new office, moved with more than 200 staff to two floors of Citiplaza 3 in Hong Kong's bustling Taikoo Shing commercial and residential area in the fall of 1992. The company wanted greater integration of the work force. "We moved from an old office nearby," says Brown. "We were on the 6th and 9th floors, and in between were major competitors of ours, so we couldn't talk in the lift!" A major feature of Leo Burnett's new offices is a stunning open staircase between the two floors. Managing director Allen Chichester notes that "the stairway is one of the most important things about the design."

    Leo Burnett wanted a new environment in keeping with its creative image and "Reach for the Stars" logo. "We moved physically 5,000 yards, but we also moved into the 21st century," says Brown.

    "We thought from the beginning about workloads, processes, how departments function, and how people interact. I wanted the media department to be close to the reception area to meet media suppliers, for example. The creative department had to be near creative services. Other departments had other needs. We needed advice on how to cater to these needs." Leo Burnett chose M. Moser "because they proposed the best lobby design and created a diagramatic representation of what we needed. We spent two months just analyzing workflows."

    Moira Moser, founder of M. Moser Associates, points to the importance of these months of planning. "Many clients don't know what their needs are, even in fairly simple terms. For instance, if you have lots of managers, you need a narrow space, so you can give them windows. You can't make them sit in the middle of a room. If you have lots of general and clerical staff, you need a deep space, like a dealing room, so you can use space more economically. Most clients come to us after space has already been acquired. I wish they'd come to us first. Sometimes they take space which is too small or the wrong shape for their needs."

    Leo Burnett needed a design that would cope with change and encourage information flows. "Offices used to be planned for paper flow," says Moser. "So you had to be near the mail room, printer, and photocopier. Now, with electronic communications, offices can be planned to maximize information flow around face-to-face interaction between departments and individuals."

    M. Moser responded to the special design needs at Leo Burnett in customized ways. "The creatives need privacy, but also a place to talk and look at large format plans and mock-ups," Stephen White of M. Moser explains. "So we created special desks with a 'bull-nose' end, so you can swing around to the end of the table and confer with your colleagues."

    The firm respected the need to be flexible yet to recognize hierarchies, so senior people have two guest chairs and higher partitions. "There must be a sense of reality in the planning of an office," insists Moser. "You should give credit to the people who make the money. Why not?"

    Lionel Mee, banking services division head at Standard Chartered was responsible for coordinating the move to its new office. "We have our headquarters in Central, but this is not appropriate for all of our 4,500 staff. In addition to the staff in our 120-plus branches, the others were spread out in many pockets of space around Central. When the principal lease expired on one of our offices, I was asked to look for a bigger place," he recalls. " We wanted to bring all administrative, back-office, and personnel people together and needed around 140,000 square feet. To do that, we rented six floors in Citiplaza 4."

    Having found the new location, how would the interior be designed? "Our new London headquarters is open plan. The chairman in London said we should be open plan, too," Mee reveals. "So we have no individual offices, and lots of modular furniture, and seniority is reflected in space allowances and heights of partitions. Managers had to be around the edges, but there could be no floor-to-ceiling partitions between workstations."

    Standard Chartered wanted a central reception area, with all other doors openable only by security cards held by authorized personnel. The bank wanted a consistent corporate image: the same color on every floor, even those customers don't visit.

    "We want you to know you're always in the same company, whichever floor you're on," Mee explains. "We didn't have this before. We also wanted to create pleasant office conditions with greenery, a canteen, and an ATM. We wanted people to like being here."

    Lynne Poelmann, corporate design director for PSI saw that in breaking down the traditional link between status and having an individual office, Standard Chartered was being quite radical in putting everyone in open workstations. There would be a need to get everyone used to the idea. The bank provided several weeks for PSI to interview division heads and assess needs.

    "Clients should give time to designers," Poelmann suggests. "Some companies want their new office design in a week, but we need time to analyze requirements in detail and ensure synergies." She was conscious of Standard Chartered's needs for an efficient, flexible use of space with equally important needs of individuality in terms of personal space, and the promotion of the corporate culture so that people would identify with it. "Overall, as in many cases, we were being called on to provide greater space efficiency, but not so that it looks like a factory," Poelmann comments.

    Rising rents mean that a company may have to move, so she advises purchasing good-quality modular furniture you can take with you. "Keeping staff happy means dollars and cents in Hong Kong. There's a big turnover of staff here," continues Poelmann, "and good office design and an improved environment can help reduce this. So we need to promote job satisfaction as well as efficient access to information."

    Mee of Standard Chartered spoke of the advantages of the open plan system: "Having flexibility has really made a difference. When we need to reconfigure space, we can dismantle the system furniture and move it around."

    The new layout resulted in improvements in productivity and efficiency, according to a survey conducted after the change. "Some people worked in small and cramped areas before, with old furniture and fixtures, and poor lighting. Now they have a new place to work in which is bright and comparatively spacious," Mee continues.

    The open plan layout has increased the awareness of staff of their colleagues, with a clear perception that an opportunity has been taken to improve working conditions. Managers now do more walking about and are more visible (before, it seemed they never left their offices).

    Some staff complain of lack of privacy, but overall Mee has found that "the reduction of privacy is not a problem. Staff can use meeting rooms, and people have adjusted to what they have. Nor is confidentiality a major issue." One major disadvantage: "We can't switch off individual lights anymore," admits Mee, "but we have developed zoned floors to cope with this. However, it took six months to get the air conditioning balance right."

    Poelmann of PSI agrees that the open plan layout works well, but warns of the problem of standardizing people too much. At Standard Chartered, people have been allowed to personalize their workstations: "They're an extension of home, so it makes people feel more comfortable to have their things around them." Open plan can make everywhere look the same, but personalization helps differentiate areas, and is a guide around the maze.

    Brown of Leo Burnett also feels that his company has capitalized on the open plan layout. "We have achieved our objective of giving a spacious, cohesive feel to each department. We have actually less space per person than before, but it feels like there is more. The meeting rooms take the pressure off individuals' space caused by all the visitors' chairs. People can interact more, producing better internal communication.

    "What makes an office work is the people in it," Brown adds. "Just giving someone a new desk in a different place won't change that person, but if you take the opportunity to rationalize the design in consultation with the people, you can make a difference. I can't say that we have improved staff retention, but if we moved back to the old place half our people would leave!"

    Stephen Tung, director of client service at Leo Burnett, confirms many of these impressions. "Inevitably there's a trade-off between privacy and light and space, but staff are closer now. They are better motivated and feel more pride in the company. Productivity is greater; there is better idea generation. Clients come in and say, 'Wow!' Despite the open plan, the personality of different departments has been maintained, with the design of partitions and desks varied according to need."

    Mee of Standard Chartered describes how the strategic decision was made to get everyone involved in the development of the new office layout, before bringing in the consultants. PSI interviewed all division heads about their needs and got consensus."

    Since staff were kept in the picture throughout the process, they knew what they were moving into. Settling in was fairly easy. Some only needed to arrange their personal effects, while a few made adjustments according to feng shui (Chinese geomancy).

    Brown explains how during the construction phase of the new office "fit-out," people were brought in to see what the space looked like, with the location of partitions drawn on the floor. "This lessened the shock of the move. People could see where they were going, it was a focal point for questions, and the changes were better coordinated." But, he warns, "you can be too democratic about this. Involving people pays dividends, but you can go too far. You must have a sense of what you want to achieve, and stick to it."

    Overall, managers and staff are highly positive about the changes. Anne Lee, a manager at Standard Chartered, feels that the office looks bigger and brighter without the high partitions and separate offices, and says her job is a lot easier.

    "We can see what staff are doing more clearly now, " Lee says. "I can see when things are going wrong. If my people are having problems I can see this without them having to come to tell me."

    However, the environment can be noisy, "especially if you're in a job which demands thinking a lot, as you can hear all the phones ringing and people talking. You can easily be distracted, depending on how near you are to the next workstation. Also, if you're very busy and don't want to be disturbed, it's hard to deny people access," Lee points out.

    Helen Lang, an internal control manager at the bank, joined in choosing her area. "We were concerned with proximity to others and identifying priorities. I got what I wanted. I have a good location and adequate space, and the partitions are low, so I can see who's in and if they're on the telephone or not. It's a major advantage in being able to go over and talk to people, which I need to do in my job. I can see the pace my staff are working at, or if they're not well. They don't feel they're being spied on, but that I'm helping them more.

    "I can see if people are happy or not," she adds. "It used to be embarrassing going up to talk to people in the past and they were on the telephone, or in a bad mood."

    One disadvantage pointed out by Lang was that "you can't have private conversations very easily. Meeting rooms are there, but sometimes you may have an emergency with your children, husband, or at home which you have to sort out on the spot."

    Kenneth Lau, a production manager at Leo Burnett, observes, "People are happier and more productive now. They respond more quickly. They can see each other all the time. This helps bring out a more productive atmosphere."

    The amount of interactivity can be an advantage or a disadvantage: "It's noisy, there's not much personal space, people have to be tolerant about usage of meeting rooms, and we have to prioritize business needs. Personalities are more closely pushed together now, it's a strain on the chemistry, but it's working."

    Some people were skeptical about the office redesign, feeling a loss of personal space, but Lau says, "Now the whole system is working better than before. It took several months before everyone felt settled, but I definitely have a better relationship with my staff now. I used to have a room with a door, and I now have a small worktop like everyone else, without even a guest chair.

    "At first I felt I was being relegated to general staff," Lau admits. "But I'm getting used to it. Now, everyone's the same, layout is based on needs, not on status. People are typically very sensitive about status, especially in Hong Kong, but it's not an issue for me anymore."

    Stephanie Jones, Ph.D., is the Academic Editor of Chief Executive Asia.