SMART Design: A Business Transformation Program

Promoting Communication and Collaboration

Research and case study by Work Design Magazine, sponsored by Haworth, December 2013

Copyright © 2013 by Work Design Magazine

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Photography: Francis Dzikowski for Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLPEric Laignel for Francis Cauffman

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Executive SummaryIn February 2013, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) consolidated 800,000 square feet into 208,000 while implementing its SMART Working Initiative program, which:

1. Eliminated hierarchical barriers by removing individual offices and cubicles. All 1,300 employees now share workstations, meeting spaces, quiet rooms, and social areas on open floor plates.

2. Engaged employees in a change management strategy that anticipated and respected their emotions. By creating research prototypes and a pilot program, employees more comfortably transitioned from older office buildings to the new work environment.

3. Created “energy for performance” spaces including a fitness center, rooftop garden, ergonomic benching, and a cafeteria full of fresh and healthy meal options. The staff has access to natural light; a full spectrum of color—pulled from GSK’s branding palette—invigorates the space. With these amenities, GSK increased the number of employees working on site.

4. Fostered serendipitous collisions in an open-space floor plan designed to speed up deci-sion-making, reduce email and formal meetings, and enhance collaboration and trust.

5. Decreased square footage with the optimized and increased utilization of meeting and work spaces.

6. Decreased water, energy, and paper usage with energy-saving fixtures including a heat-recovery system, efficient lighting, whole-building metering, and a building management system, all as part of their commitment to a sustainable future.

Since moving into its new 208,000 square foot office in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard, GSK has reduced energy and water costs and cut paper use by 90 percent. According to one executive, email use dropped by 35 percent because the new space allows staff to simply “turn and talk,” thereby promoting collaboration, encouraging peak performance, and ultimately enabling GSK to better serve its customers and patients.

Additionally, the building earned the city’s first, double LEED® Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council in both the Core & Shell™ and Commercial Interiors™ categories.

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introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

sMArt working: An evolution in design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Metrics: Sustainability and utilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

chAnge MAnAgeMent: Leading by example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

A syMphony of work: Technology and people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

energy for perforMAnce: Promoting well-being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

plAns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

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Introduction

“We have a saying: Challenge the norm, inspire smart design,” said John Campbell, principal of Workplace Strategy at Francis Cauffman, the interior architects for the building. “This project really exemplified that approach.”

According to GSK employees, that inspiration has been here since the building opened in February 2013, and much of the positive energy is due to the emphasis that GSK’s SMART Working initiative puts on its change management program.

The program helped employees to manage the transition from two traditional office build-ings in Philadelphia’s Center City to a new, four-story, light-filled structure designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects.

Inside, the open floor plan serves as a vehicle for connecting employees. The space promotes well-being—a major part of GSK’s larger mission. It also encourages peak employee perfor-mance, makes sustainability a priority, and increases utilization.

Fox said the project breaks all of the traditional barriers, from moving away from downtown and into the Navy Yard, to fully implementing a free address workspace. The executives are on the ground floor, where they can both see and be seen. The training rooms, which are public spaces, get the best views on the top floor.

“Big changes are a risk, and the leadership at GSK knew it,” he said. “But they made every effort to educate and communicate what was happening to the members of the staff; they were authentic, involved, and managed it very well.”

“We’ve changed the paradigm of the office. Employees are no longer tethered to a cer-tain area. Instead, they’re empowered to choose where they can do their best work. It’s a whole new ecosystem."

–Nelson Morales, Workplace Design & Change Management at GSK

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“We’re trying to match employee activity to business function—not give them one-size-fits-all.”

SMART Working: An evolution in designGlobally, GSK set out to transform its workspaces to foster better collaboration among em-ployees, lower operating costs, and become more sustainable.

Its workplace strategy team created a process for achieving these outcomes called the SMART Working Initiative, which includes a set of guidelines for approaching governance, design, change management, and technology in ways that will promote communication, collaboration, and idea sharing. The guidelines are used as a road map to deliver consistent results in GSK projects worldwide.

“The focus of the program is less bricks and sticks and pouring concrete, and more ‘What would you like your business to become?’” said Steven Bernstein, technical director at Faithful + Gould.

“It’s a business transformation program, not a rigid structure. There is a degree of consistency to it, but the framework allows you to take those settings and adapt to them. We’re trying to match employee activity to business function—not give them one-size-fits-all.”

So although the guidelines exist, there is room for deviation. For example, Bernstein said they originally slated conferencing for the first floor and leadership for the top floor. They reversed this design; today, leadership is open and accessible, and employees who gather for meet-ings in the conference room enjoy stunning views of the wharf.

It was a small change, but it yielded meaningful results. Therefore, it’s better aligned with the goals of the SMART Working Initiative.

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Said Fox, “The SMART Working approach is part of a larger trend that aims to optimize square footage rather than increase it. That optimization is the ultimate goal, and that’s what they’ve achieved here.”

SMART also emphasized GSK’s commitment to sustainability, and the Navy Yard office is now the first in Philadelphia to earn a double LEED® Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council in both the Core & Shell™ and Commercial Interiors™ categories.

“This is the first 100 percent SMART Working building in the portfolio,” said Nelson Morales of GSK’s Workplace Design and Change Management Group. “There’s a commitment from the company to take it to the next level.”

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Metrics: Sustainability and utilizationOnly six months into occupancy, GSK’s new space already is yielding interesting and unex-pected results:

Increased utilization of meeting spaces

In their former offices, digital technology enabled employees to easily book conference rooms—sometimes weekly for years—without actually using them. Utilization would drop each time those conference rooms sat unused.

In the new design, GSK made signing up for conference-room space more low-tech: they placed a sign-up sheet in each room. Employees are allowed to book the space (with pencil and paper) up to a week in advance. If plans change, they just erase the booking and others are free to use the space.

Increased number of employees working on-site

At the outset, people assumed that there would be a problem with retention of talent. The team worried that the move would force employees to decide to work from home or from another office.

Said Milora, “We have R&D facilities in the western suburbs, and some people saw the change as an opportunity to move out there. Yet, when we moved to Navy Yard, those people heard that it was such a great place that 50 or 60 of them decided to come back. We hadn’t even thought about that as a metric.”

This happened despite a wage tax of nearly 4 percent on the salaries of people who work in this part of the city, but not on those who work in the suburbs.

“The building has already done more than it was designed to do. It’s a great success story.”

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“Even with the tax and the tough commute, these employees have decided to work at Navy Yard,” Milora said.

Decreased square footage

Previously, this same office occupied a combined 800,000 square feet in two buildings in Philadelphia’s Center City. At Navy Yard, it’s just 208,000. There are 1,300 workers assigned to the building, and GSK provides desks for 1,033 (80 per-cent). In addition to other informal seating and workspaces, the building can accommodate up to 1,500 people at any given time.

Decreased water, energy, and paper usage

Energy-saving fixtures include a heat-recovery system, ef-ficient lighting, LED site lighting, whole-building metering, and a building management system.

Only six months into occupancy, GSK already is measuring its savings:

▶ Annual energy costs will drop by 30 percent

▶ Water usage will drop annually by 50 percent (1.8 mil-lion gallons) through high-efficiency low-flow fixtures throughout the building

▶ 40 percent of the rooftop is covered with vegetation, thereby reducing energy costs by providing natural insulation and absorbing storm water

▶ A “clean-desk policy” that requires employees to remove all materials from their daily workspace before going home for the day has contributed to a 90% reduction in paper use

There will be more numbers to consider once GSK conducts the post-occupancy evaluations in the fall but, according to Bernstein, the results are already clear: “The building has already done more than it was designed to do. It’s a great success story.”

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"Within two hours people, fell in to the spaces, and they were working."

Change Management: Leading by exampleThe success of GSK’s SMART Working Initiative depended largely on the change manage-ment team’s work in easing employees into a new workspace.

“What really distinguishes our change management program is that we focus on the people,” Morales said. “Employees feel such an array of emotions about the change. We have to say, ‘We hear you, we’re empathetic.’ The program deliberately makes sure that workers are ac-tively engaged in decisions; it lowers resistance. We can’t expect them to accept it right away. We’ve got to support people through it.”

So, prior to the move, interior architects from Francis Caufmann set up three pilots in the old office space. There, employees tested furniture and technology solutions in a setting much like the one that had been planned for the new building.

Said Ray Milora, GSK’s project executive, “We had to engage people more than inform them. We had to bring people into the project, and the pilot program gave employees that voice. About a third of them came to sit in chair options. They could help us make decisions about furniture and technology. Involving them in the solution helped the transition curve.”

Deirdre Connelly, GSK's President of North America Pharmaceuticals, was the first person to inform employees about the workspace change. She also was the first to try a pilot dur-ing the prototyping period. This top-down approach helped to set the tone; it showed the employees that their leaders were on board.

Morales said this engagement was the most important part of the process. He added that what distinguishes the SMART Working program from other open plan programs is the array of options that employees are given. For example, aside from the wide-open areas for

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collaboration, the design teams also created spaces where confidential discussions and more focused, independent work can take place. During prototyping, employees contrib-uted to the decisions about what furniture would facilitate these different types of interactions.

After prototyping, the next change management challenge involved managing perceptions about the new location.

“People thought we were going to be at this outpost at the edge of Philadelphia,” Milora said. “Some people thought they were leaving Philadelphia. Our job was to break down those walls.”

In the months leading up to the move, leadership became more visibly active in generating excitement about the change.

“They picked up steam at the right time last year,” Morales said. “They made sure employees knew that they were look-ing forward to Navy Yard.”

On the first day in the new office, leadership wore t-shirts to greet the employees as they walked into the building for the first time. They sat in the open, soft-seating spaces to show how people could use the open-space environments.

Said Morales, “Leadership really showed that they were a part of it. The a-ha moment for employees concerned about the move was when they walked in to the building and realized, ‘Wow, you guys weren’t kidding.’”

“There was a sort of electricity: that vibe and energy. Within two hours people, fell in to the spaces, and they were working.”

Fox said that this positive employee reaction exemplifies not only the success of the entire project, but that it is also a result of how well the team engaged the employees throughout the process.

“They seem to have done everything right here in terms of delivering this solution,” Rush said. “The team took a lot of the guesswork out for the employees. The degree to which they evolved and interacted with the end users is impressive.”

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A Symphony of Work: Technology and people“It’s fascinating to sit here,” said David Rush, a workplace strategist at Haworth. “The building is horizontally and vertically oriented in a way that you can look in either direction and see activity. It’s like a symphony of work. This kind of physical openness and transparency also tends to heighten peoples' awareness of their surroundings. It's easy to see who's nearby, what's going on, and to stay connected to others.”

Indeed, the new space transforms ideas about what it means to work in an office.

On the open floor plate, printers and other workaday tools are located centrally within the workspaces to promote physical movement and serendipitous collisions. This also helps to reduce paper usage when compared to the previous buildings, where each employee kept his or her own printer in an individual cube or office.

Said Milora, “Here’s the thread: in our former environment, everything came to you. Here, you go to everything.”

Bernstein said they took a modulated design approach to the space, which enabled the cli-ent to make technology decisions in flexible ways.

“Previously, employees were given two choices: cube or office,” Bernstein said. “Now they’ve got the rooftop, the cafeteria, and a suite of different working spaces. Every space is con-nected wirelessly, and employees can plug in from anywhere in the building.”

That connectivity is a key factor to the entire design, said Morales.

“We’ve changed the paradigm and made a new ecosystem. You no longer just have an office. You have a whole building.”

"They took a modulated design approach to the space, which enabled the client to make technology decisions in flexible ways."

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Of course, one person’s interaction on the open floor plate is another person’s interruption, and the designers prepared the space for this.

Said Campbell, “We didn’t only think about collaboration. We also had to think about the need for employees to focus on independent work, or to have a confidential meeting.”

The open space includes “quiet rooms” that can be used for focused work or confidential conversations, and the hallways are wide enough for colleagues to step aside for a quick chat.

“The quiet rooms are a subtle but powerful way to remind people that quietude is important in this type of open envi-ronment,” Campbell said.

In addition to the quiet rooms, the team equipped each employee with red, yellow, and green clips that can be at-tached to a laptop screen and act as a visual cue to indicate whether or not the employee is available to talk. Red means busy, yellow means only if it’s important, and green means able to chat.

The light-filled, four-story atrium beyond the workstations functions like an Italian piazza. It fosters the serendipitous collisions that allow for more communication and collabora-tion among employees.

“You walk in and just sense an air of collaboration and inter-action,” said Fox. “Central zones like the atrium—an informal, social setting—are part of a larger trend toward more a hospitality approach to the workplace.”

“We have this big idea about shifting culture, repositioning the brand, and a large part of that has to do with creating spaces and creating a work environment that promotes and encourages interaction at every level,” added Rush.

Milora said that in their old space—a more traditional set-ting—employees could hide.

“In this setting, you’re out in the open, and for leadership especially, it’s more difficult to lead. You’re now front and center, literally and physically.”

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"People and their well-being were at the heart of the design process"

Energy for Performance: Promoting well-being

“This is an exciting project,” Fox said. “There’s a certain quality of light—a buzz that you get—when you walk in the door.”

As a company, GSK is dedicated to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to “do more, feel better, and live longer.” By implementing their SMART Working Initiative, employees can now better connect with that mission and practice what they preach.

“People and their well-being were at the heart of the design process,” Campbell said. “At Navy Yard, everybody has access to natural light, and everybody has a view.”

Said Rush, “Direct access to natural daylight is key. Because of it, there are lower rates of absenteeism and lower rates of health and wellness issues.”

Eight-foot high windows and 10-foot high ceilings on each of the four floors mean that 90 percent of the spaces have views of the city, and the atrium draws natural light into 75 per-cent of the building. A full spectrum of color—pulled from GSK’s branding palette—enlivens the space.

The four-story maple veneer staircase in the atrium is so prominent and attractive that many employees choose to use the steps instead of the elevators.

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“GSK is all about people and health,” said Fox. “And the design of these spaces promotes that mission. When spaces are specifically designed for the wellbeing of the end user, right away you’ve got a healthier workforce. Employees taking the stairs instead of the elevator is an example of this success.”

Other “healthy workspace” moves include:

▶ “Walk station” desks equipped with treadmills where laptops can be plugged in and set up

▶ An on-site gym for individual and group workouts

▶ A free bike-share program that promotes exercise by providing bikes to employees for one-hour jaunts away from the office, as well as on-site bike storage

▶ A rooftop garden where Sodexo—GSK’s onsite food-service provider—grows herbs and vegetables for use in the cafeteria

▶ An on-site health clinic with a registered nurse—the clinic provides, among other services, chair massages for employees

▶ Lactation rooms for working moms

▶ Technology-free tranquility rooms for decompressing

▶ Adjustable work tables suitable for sitting or standing

▶ Desks with ergonomically tapered front edges and ad-justable monitor arms to ensure correct viewing angles

▶ Fully adjustable ergonomic task seating

Rush said that in addition to flexibility in the actual physical space, there is also a trend toward activity-based work where people are choosing to work in a variety of different settings depending on the nature of the task at hand. The adjustable furniture listed above, installed throughout the building, helps to facilitate this kind of work.

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ConclusionA palpable sense of achievement and relief radiates from the design and management team; only six months since occupying the building, employees seem happier than ever with their new workplace.

“In design, we set the stage, but you never know how the players are going to play,” Campbell said. “To sit there and see the people use it in the manner that you had intended is a really exciting moment.”

By all accounts, GSK’s first 100 percent SMART Working building is a huge success. The open-space program breaks down hierarchical barriers and engages employees in ways that promote collaboration, encourage peak performance, and enable GSK to better serve its customers and patients.

“At first, it seemed like the most difficult and complex project we’ve been on,” Bernstein said. “You start out with people asking, ‘What do you mean there won’t be any walls?’ And it’s a struggle to explain to people who conventionally just want to get stuff done. But at its purest, SMART Work-ing is a business transformation program. And, in the end, the transformation has been magical.”

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"But at its purest, SMART Working is a business transformation program. And, in the end, the transformation has been magical."

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Legend Amenities

Legend SMART Working

Clinic

Credit Union

Fitness on First

Kitchen

Mail/Courier

Record Management Staging

Energy Cafe

Link

Front Desk

Video Conference

Perk (coffee)

Help Lounge

Shop

Pantry

Plans: First Floor

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Legend Capability

Com Cell

Pantry

Informal Meeting

Innovation

Hub

Project Room

Plans: Second Floor

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Informal Meeting

Hub

Tranquility Room

Pantry

Legend

Plans: Third Floor

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Informal Meeting

Hub

Tranquility Room

Pantry

Conference/Training Rooms

Legend

Plans: Fourth Floor