JP Morgan Chase recently opened its new global headquarters on Park Avenue in New York. That’s interesting because its boss, Jamie Dimon, is perhaps the world’s best-known caller for a return to the office, five days a week. So, what kind of building might encourage staff to do that?
Well, for a start, this one offers 230,000sq m of flexible workspace, with 2½ times more outdoor space than the previous building.
There are outdoor terraces with natural planting and biophilic design elements; fresh air pumped in with continuous air quality monitoring and advanced filtration, plus 30 per cent more daylight and circadian lighting for a healthier indoor environment.
There’s also a top-notch health and wellness centre with fitness areas, yoga and cycling rooms, and meditation spaces.
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Dimon said at the launch: “By creating world-class environments where our employees can thrive, we are strengthening our ability to serve our clients and communities – locally and globally – for generations to come.”
Interestingly, one of the reasons Dimon is thought to grumble about remote working is because of the negative impact it can have on younger workers.
That’s something Conor MacCabe, managing director of Henry J Lyons Architects in Dublin, has also spoken about.
Speaking at a recent Ibec HR Leadership conference, he made his feelings on the matter clear.
The conference included talks about the challenges of managing different generations in the workplace and how AI relates to that.
The panel on which MacCabe was speaking discussed the importance of ensuring that younger generations, whose entry level jobs are most at risk of being replaced by AI, need – if anything, more than ever – to learn from their older colleagues.
“That followed on to how do we create spaces that allow people to learn, and I had a few points to make in respect of that,” he explains.
The first one was that, basically, people need to be present. “It is much easier to learn when you’re working in a team, and seeing how people deal with different situations, than it is sitting on a call, which is why we are seeing a slow but steady increase in presence, with pretty much all employers looking to further increase that, and asking us how,” he says.
Ever since the pandemic, employers have been focused on what they call workplace experience. “But people have been focusing on the stuff around the edges, the social stuff, the water cooler moments, those serendipitous interactions on the staircase. For us, what actually matters is the fact that, when you’re sitting at your desk, you can learn from the people around you,” he explains.
New offices required
As a result of what has happened since Covid-19, he believes many office environments are no longer fit for purpose.
“When we walk into an office, we can hear immediately if it’s broken or not, and the way we can tell is if it’s totally silent,” says MacCabe. “If it’s really silent that means you’re not learning. You’re sitting at your desk in silence, and you might as well be at home.”
No matter how many special spaces you designate for collaboration, an office isn’t working if the culture is such that people can’t talk at their desks without someone going shh! or tsk! tsk! he adds.
No amount of what he terms “design crimes in the name of collaboration”, such as beanbags and slides, is going to fix that. “People are treating collaboration as if it’s something you do in setting specifically designed for collaboration, as opposed to being something that you do, all of the time, in your team,” he says.
“If you can’t turn around and talk to the person beside you because somebody else has given you a dirty look, that’s partly a cultural problem and largely a physical problem, because the acoustics in your office are wrong. You need to be able to have that level of conversation without upsetting everyone else,” adds MacCabe.
He, too, believes remote working is particularly challenging for younger workers.
“When it comes down to the differences between generations and how we perceive them, what we see is that younger people all want to be in the office. They’ll never say five days a week but will often say four. Whereas older generations, initially post-pandemic, were quite self-centred. They were happy with their work-life balance. They were happy spending a lot of time at home. But that is turning too. They now realise they actually need to be in the office, because their teams need them there,” he says.
That fact is reflected in demand for office space, including a move from suburbs to city centres. “People are being drawn to places where landlords are responding to this need for experience and engagement by providing wellness facilities and baristas and event spaces, all the things that create something outside of the office experience,” McCabe says.
His own building adheres to his views, including the importance of a healthy background hum – the kind that creates a convivial atmosphere in a restaurant, yet allows you to speak without disturbing others.
“We have four studios connected by an atrium. When you come in the front door, you’ll see all our work. Most of our calls are made from our studio, because, again, that’s how people learn,” he says.
Small tweaks can help
Robert Bourke, principal of Robert Bourke Architects in Dublin, has a similarly considered view of what a collaborative workspace should look like, both for his commercial clients and in its own offices, in a Georgian building on North Great Georges Street. It too is a hive of activity, conducive to on-the-job learning.
Its fit-out also pays attention to employee health and wellness, with sitting/standing desks as standard, and partitions between desks set “high enough to hide clutter, but low enough to be able to see each other”, says Bourke.
His offices include the kind of tweaks that any small business should incorporate, which encourage staff to come into the office, for very little outlay, such as internal bike stands. “Many Gen Z staff have availed of the Bike to Work scheme, which is great. But no one wants to leave their fancy bike outside on the street,” he says.
When working on commercial office projects for clients, simply being able to open windows can be hugely appealing to staff, as is natural light.
If your budget is very small, forget the chill-out areas, snack stations and hammocks of the larger employers. Even investing in a decent coffee machine will help, suggests Bourke, who also teaches architecture at UCD.
The aim of the game is to get everyone together as much as possible. “The collaborative spirit that our space fosters feeds into our work. Our work would not be as good if we weren’t all sitting in the same rooms, around clusters of desks, being able to hear what’s going on all the time, even just passively, it makes a world of difference,” he says.
As founder of Clearspace, a provider of serviced offices across Dublin, Shane Bourke has 18 locations, ranging from heritage Georgian buildings to modern office blocks.
People still want spaces where they can make private phone calls, with zones designated for collaboration and dedicated rooms for presentations and meetings, he says. Facilities range from gyms and showers to fully fitted kitchens, as employers “really try to get their employees to come in”, he says.
In the main, that doesn’t mean going the full Jamie Dimon and commanding a five-day-a-week performance, however.
“People are finding the balance that suits them. But employers, and even employees, are now accepting that, to really collaborate, you really do need to be in the office,” says Shane Bourke.
