The new prototype: Execs in the middle, conference rooms
April 28th, 2009
The days of the big executive office are long gone. Now those offices have been replaced by more functional and flexible gathering spaces for employees to collaborate on projects in a faster paced business world.
While executives haven't given up all of their perks for a cubicle, most companies, like the Memphis branch of Deloitte & Touche, Deloitte Services have reserved the prime corner office space -- previously the domain of managers, presidents and vice presidents -- as a place for employees to get together. In the company's offices at Peabody Place, the managers have been moved to the center of the office with employees in their particular departments surrounding them.
Henrietta Vaskin, Memphis office manager for Deloitte & Touche, says their 18,000-square-foot office, which the company has been in since August, 2003 and houses 130 employees, has perks ranging from an OSHA required "quiet room" for nursing mothers to conference rooms with white board walls, allowing employees to literally jot ideas down on the wall as they think of them.
Other amenities of the office includes subtle white noise piped in to provide for a little privacy in the more open, glass-walled office environment, motion detecting lighting in offices to conserve energy and even a bank of over 30 spaces for "hoteling."
"We have a lot of visiting employees coming in for a few days or hours, and if they need a desk to plug into, they can reserve one of these spaces," Vaskin says. "We can always tell when one is available, and they can use it as long as they're in the office."
In addition to hoteling, Deloitte also offers "touchdown" areas for executives who are in the office just long enough to return calls or e-mails. Vaskin says the concept of the Memphis office, which was designed by SOM architects out of New York, has served as the prototype for other Deloitte offices, including those in Nashville, Birmingham and Atlanta.
"They're learning from what didn't work here and standardizing the plan," she says.
The concept is not exclusive to Deloitte, says Scott Messmore, president of office furniture dealer MBI. Messmore says more and more of their clients are looking at different concepts for their offices besides the traditional giant office for executives, a conference room and stationary, drab cubicles.
"The executive office of old time was very institutionalized in terms of the bias toward ego, size and aesthetics. It was the place where
CEOs presented themselves with a big desk, meeting spaces for meet and greets and a sofa, two chairs and a coffee table," Messmore says. "We're now bringing in an aspect of technology, and that's where I think the future is going. The executive can now have technology at their desk or in a conferencing setting."
Messmore says that technology, modeled at the FedEx Institute of Technology's executive office, includes flat plasma screens that can either serve as a regular television or as a giant screen to share information as a giant monitor.
"The real estate is geared toward the common worker and when we do evaluate what the client needs, we try to establish where the most important work is going to occur," Messmore says.
First Tennessee Bank, which is currently renovating its Downtown office has chosen a more conservative approach than Deloitte, still having the corner offices for executives, but also adding meeting space and technology so executives can be mobile. Sometimes it works too well.
Greg Olivier, executive vice president and credit risk manager for First Horizon National Corp. says he spends more time at the meeting table in his office on collaborations than at his actual desk, even though it is a couple of steps away. Also, technology has enabled him to do work from anywhere, but that's not always a good thing.
"I can say that, because of technology, I definitely find myself working more at home during nights and weekends," he says.
Larry Judkins, senior vice president of corporate real estate and administrative services for First Horizon, says the company's recently redesigned conference rooms were planned to balance cutting edge technology and user friendly technology.
The main conference room has a screen that can be used for television viewing; PowerPoint presentations or online access and conference calls can be broadcast throughout microphones in the ceiling instead of being limited to one island of speakers. The room is completely controlled by one wireless remote control, which he says was set up so anyone can use it.
"We designed this room to be idiot-proof, and I'm the idiot," he says. "We didn't want to do something that would require us to train someone on it every day. Now it's always booked."
He says when the renovation is complete, there will be five more rooms like it in the building.
Also getting involved in the new office aesthetic are the Memphis Grizzlies, whose space at FedExForum is completely open, says Andy Dolich, president of business operations. The Grizzlies offices were designed with the employees in mind, not only for morale purposes, but because the employees spend so much time there. Because of that, the team wanted to have the most inviting and aesthetically pleasing space possible.
"The less glamorous thing about sports is the amount of hours you spend on the job. People don't see that, nor should they," Dolich says. "There are people here from seven in the morning to ten at night, and they're back at it the next day."
Because of that, Dolich says, the team's offices, while possessing the typical cubicles and corner offices, has numerous comfortable spaces for employees to get together and work on projects. The antique pinball machine in the office lobby lets visitors know the theme of the office.
"A lot of collaboration with us is people walking into offices for two minute meetings instead of formal meetings," he says.
Dolich says his time spent working for Madison Square Garden in the '80s included an executive office that only granted entry to employees wearing suit coats and ties. That space featured an antique table "from some British sailing ship from the late 1700s." Times have changed.
"That wasn't a super relaxed atmosphere, but that's not saying we don't get intense here," he says. "We're in the smiles and fun business, and my space is my own toy store."
msheffield@bizjournals.com | 259-1722