Nov 18 The Shifting Definition of Worker Loyalty

Is loyalty in the workplace dead? Lynda Gratton, a workplace expert, proclaimed that it was. In The Financial Times, she said that it had been “killed off through shortening contracts, outsourcing, automation and multiple careers.” via www.nytimes.com

This article isn't new — it was published in the NY Times last April when summer was still on our horizon. But I thought about it when I came across information contained in a study from Manpower called “The Role of Contingent Workers in Workforce Strategy”

Contingent Workforce — This is a fairly new term, but Human Resource professionals are very familiar with it. It means someone who performs services for an employer, but who is not technically an employee. This includes temporary workers, freelancers, consultants and other contract workers.

Over a decade ago author Daniel Pink predicted in his book Free Agent Nation that many workers will chose to go it alone outside of the corporate structure. He described a worker utopia (for some) in which you worked for yourself and sold your services to a variety of employers. You could work at home in your pajamas if you liked and then move on to another buyer when it suited you. And while many workers choose this course, for many it is no longer a choice because a growing number of jobs are now contingent positions: temporary, freelance, contract, etc.

Coming out of the recession, half of all new jobs created in the US will be contingent ones and constitute a full 25% of the total workforce. This is a US statistic, but global reports indicate that the rest of the world is moving this way too.  At Best Buy corporate headquarters, for example, provisional workers make up nearly a third of the staff.

Nov 11 Change

No, not that kind of change.  Not the loose change in your pocket or purse, we're talking about the change that is swirling around us.

Almost everybody agrees to three points regarding change:  Every wants change, nobody wants to change — and it is inevitable.

Look around you.  How much has stayed the same in the past five or ten years?  Not much.  Sure, we look as young as ever, but we're using different technology (How often do you use the yellow pages anymore?), we work with different people (Up to five generations are now in the workplace), and corporate structures — and the names we give those structures! — seem to change constantly (What is Netflix called this week — anybody know?).

Like most people, you probably have much better internet access than ten or even five years ago.  Internet access that once seemed frivolous is more and more a critical part of our daily life at home and at work. I'll bet it's much more casual at your office too.  I'm not talking about the disappearing suits & ties either.  Corporate structures are more relaxed and informal.  And our hours have changed too.  Flex time, job sharing, and mobile work is not just a passing fad.  Finally, how you receive news has changed whether it is about the debt crises in  Greece, the latest polling information about the upcoming election, or the latest news on Justin Bieber.

So, let me ask you, how much as your workplace changed as a result.  Your people are more casual, working more collaboratively and mobile than ever.  Are you supporting these needs with more "we" spaces?  And what about your workforce's expectations?  We rarely see a sea of new offices made up of 66" high panels — but what about existing spaces.  If your people cannot see each other how much can you expect collaboration?

Take a few moments tonight on your daily commute to think about how much has changed in your workplace.  Then ask yourself two simple questions: Is all the change done (I doubt it) and how well does your workplace support where you want your company to be in five or ten years?

 

May 11 And now for something completely different . . .

And now for something completely different. This phrase is familiar to those of a certain age -- and, perhaps, a certain sense of humor.  Monty Python used this phrase to transition from one sketch to another.  

But this post isn't about The Ministry of Silly Walks, lumberjacks, dead parrots or any of the other classic bits.  It is about exploring something completely different in the workplace.

Jim McDonald from our office recently told me of a website he came across called Office Snapshots that is a great source of different and innovative workspaces from around the world.

Frequently we get requests from customers expressing a desire for a "different" or more progressive workplace.  Google’s innovative workplaces are frequently cited as a reference.  But a workplace full of canoes hanging from stairwells, foosball tables at the handy, ubiquitous coffee bars, and floor-to-floor slides all too often fall prey to the relatively more mundane pressures of real-estate, limitations of budgets, and the comfort and safety provided by more traditional layouts -- and that’s really too bad.  Not because everyone should have a workstation-in-a-cable-car to make private phone calls, but because the tyranny of sameness is rarely a good idea.

Consider your own office and how creative you and your fellow employees are.  Okay, now ask yourself how appropriate that is, and, let’s keep in mind, creativity is not always the most important thing in the workplace.  For instance, if you’re in finance, creativity is probably not such a good idea.  An advertising, marketing or internet search company, on the other hand, might put a greater value on creativity.  

Now, how well does your workplace support creativity?  Are you asking for innovation, teamwork, and collaboration from a sea of grey 65” high cubicles?

Sometime you just need ideas, and remember, this doesn’t have to be expensive.  Look at Office Snapshots on the web.  This site is chock full of interesting workplaces and ideas.

 Now get back to work — after you check out those Monty Python videos.  They’re hysterical.

Feb 17 Steelcase Goes DIY With Ecovative Home-Grown Packaging (It's Edible, Too)

Next time a company brags about their sustainable packaging, ask why they aren't growing it themselves. Steelcase, a Michigan-based office furniture company, is doing exactly that as part of a partnership with packaging startup Ecovative.

The plant-based packaging foam, set to roll out this month on Steelcase's Currency line, is made up of agricultural byproducts (seed husks, cotton burrs) and bound together naturally with mushroom roots. "It has the consistency of a rice cake with a brie exterior," explains Angela Nahikian, Steelcase's director of global environmental sustainability. "Any woody, agricultural byproduct can be used as food for the mushroom root material." You could even eat the Styrofoam-like packaging--but it probably wouldn't be very tasty.

The packaging grows in ambient temperatures and requires zero energy until a drying process at the end. And perhaps most importantly, the compostable material is comparable in cost to traditional packaging.

Steelcase eventually hopes to produce the packaging regionally, with different agricultural byproducts used depending on what is available in the area. "There are piles of cottonseed hulls in the South, and they're often expensive for farmers to get rid of," Nahikian says. Instead, those hulls might be used to make packaging for, say, an office chair.

Next up for Steelcase: bringing Ecovative's EcoCradle packaging to more product lines. The ultimate goal, explains Nahikian, is to go through Steelcase's portfolio and eliminate synthetics wherever possible.

Feb 7 IDEO and Steelcase Unveil a School Desk for the Future of Teaching

[Update: James Ludwig, Steelcase's chief designer, has sent us some intriguing information on pricing and demand, added to the bottom of this post]

IDEO and Steelcase have just announced what might be a revolution in classroom design, a school desk that seamlessly adapts to whatever happens in class.

If you've spent any time in a schoolroom in the last 15 years, you're familiar with the high pitched whine of metal scraping against linoleum, as students rearrange their chairs and desks to whatever activity is going on. It seems like a minor annoyance, but it's a serious design problem: School furniture was largely designed 50 years ago for static, face-forward teaching. It isn't suited to the myriad forms of teaching that take place in the modern classroom.

Contrast that with the Node chair, which was designed by IDEO and produced by Steelcase, a Michigan-based furniture company. The details betray a remarkable thoughtfulness: The seat is a generously sized bucket, so that students can shift around and adapt their posture to whatever's going on; the seat also swivels, so that students can, for example, swing around to look at other students making class presentations; and a rolling base allows the chair to move quickly between lecture-based seating and group activities.

In group activities, the proportions are such that the chairs and integrated desktops combine into something like a conference table:

And finally, there's storage underneath the seat--but off the ground--for backpacks, while the armrests themselves have a subtle flair that allows them to become strong, convenient hooks:

Of course, it's unlikely that the chair will be appearing in your local public school anytime soon--the market seems to be the glizty new secondary schools and new university classrooms popping into existence. And you wonder whether the economics will work out, since a plastic chair probably can't last as long as bomb-proof metal job like you find in public schools.

Meaning this design, for now, will be one more reason to envy a private-school education.

For more pictures, check out The Contemporist.

UPDATE

James Ludwig, Steelcase's VP of global design, writes that the chair is $599 fully loaded with a desktop, and $399 without. Ludwig also says that he's gotten lots of confirmation from educators that the price point makes it viable in the market--and that already, there have been verbal commitments from university clients around the world.