Mace Group

Leveraging value from the workspace

Macro has extensive experience in the design of flexible working. We are working with a number of organisations to deliver a new 'smart' way of working. A powerful current example of our experience in this area is a commission where we are responsible for the design of an office rationalisation programme which is to provide 210,000 sq ft of new office space and a training facility of 57,000 sq ft.

The design is based around the introduction of a 'New Ways of Working' programme to help the client meet their aims of improved customer service and better work life balance for their staff. By utilisation survey studies and categorisation of staff work styles associated with the occupied service departments we have designed the new offices based on an average ratio of 3 people: 2 workstations. We will reduce the overall space footprint for the client by 27%.

The design philosophy is based around a corporate space planning guide that we developed and is in direct response to their outlined business case. The design model also provided a means to ensure a consistency in approach, not only for this programme but for future projects. The starting point was to fully understand how the various departmental business centres functioned and how effectively the existing space was utilised. This was assessed by categorising staff work styles, space utilisation surveys and interviews with senior managers. The study was used to assess the space requirements, including area per workstation, area per person housed, meeting room requirements, specialist areas, collaboration areas, printing requirements, work settings etc. This information was then used to develop a corporate space planning model, which provided a guide for office space design.

In our role as design manager, we are responsible to co-ordinate, from a design perspective, the outputs of each of the workstreams below and to incorporate the requirement into the design philosophy.

Workstreams include: Property, Change Management, ICT, FM, HR, Comms, Records Management, Business Continuity, H&S, Environment, BPR and Finance together with the Service Departments. We worked very closely with workstream leaders to understand in minute detail the requirements that stem from Business re-organisation, whether it is through the benefits of a shared workspace, maximising the use of technology or a more consistent approach to FM.

From a design perspective, the output and influences from the change management programme are directly related to the principle of shared workspace between different departments and a more collaborative approach to service delivery.