CREJ - Office Properties Quarterly - June 2016
Here come the workplace millennials, raised during technology booms, they are a tech-savvy generation. With experiences of 9/11, the Great Recession and natural disasters, they grew up not trusting the traditional systems and now want to be associated with causes of value. As a result, millennials cling to social groups, and they work collaboratively when and where they wish. Their preference is to be unconfined and mobile. Their requirements to be satisfied are different from preceding generations. Millennials are projected to make up 75 percent of the workforce by 2025, and they made up 34 percent of the workforce last year. According to a Gallup Poll, many millennials say they are dissatisfied with their work environments, and said they would prefer to accept lower wages in exchange for being happy at work. As unemployment is projected to drop to under 5 percent in 2016, businesses are experiencing an urgency to hire and retain millennials. They are looking to the built environment for solutions. Businesses are trying to bring in the same “tribe” lifestyle at work that millennials seem to crave in their social lives, and embrace technology that must work and be connected around the clock. Following is a translation of the millennial built environment. Encourage collaboration and fun. Use of open planning with pod work areas that are wired to promote immediate collaboration reduces time, eliminates waste and moves business faster. Central meeting rooms that are colorful and connected should be in core areas with movable walls for replanning. Creative play such as ping pong, pool, and darts are popular. Bring in the outdoors and use green construction. As an example, Google incorporates “green walls” with live plants. Millennials use less on-site parking, so maximize motorized transportation through carpooling and light rail. As a result, offices may find they have a larger need for bike stalls, lockers, showers and electric auto chargers. Maximize natural light through tall windows and strategically placed signature pieces that act to reflect light. Make it as green and clean (air) as possible. Provide greater mobility, connectivity. Provide connectivity by allowing 24-hour access. Systems should support team communication through impromptu meetings and video conferencing and cloud-based applications. Google has tackled the mobility challenge by allowing work from home two to three days per week. Embrace amenities. If you aren’t Google, Apple or Microsoft and, therefore, don’t have cafeterias with gourmet made-to-order menus, make sure that certain healthy, gourmet-style foods can be ordered online and are nearby. Also, it is wise to provide fun on-site snacks and beverages, and a workout area is a bonus. Productivity Now that millennials have what they want, this should be a slam-dunk, right? Not so fast. As millennials push for more open space, many wonder if productivity diminishes. While there have been great advances for collaboration in new technologies including videoconferencing for open-space work environments, the answer still is yes. Open environments seem to be exacerbating employee productivity challenges by limiting private conversations, normal conversation levels and concentration, said Joey D’Angelo, open-space planner specialist and vice president of Charles M. Salter Inc., in a Sound and Communications article. A productivity test on a group of 600 programmers from different work environments, companies, experience and pay showed, among other things, the highest productivity did not reside with the highest paid or the most experienced. Interestingly, the test reported that employees who could control interruptions in quieter environments were the most productive. Millennials are the most educated of our generations, however, employers struggle with how to engage them. High-tech spaces with user-friendly, cloud-based applications are here to stay. But, as many businesses apply considerable resources in open-planned environments, the opposite desired outcome can result – reduced productivity. The solution? It is time for the pendulum to swing back to a balance between collaborative and quiet work environments. In the speed to find a solution, perhaps the design phase has been limited. The built environment is called to collaborate with technology and business units at the earliest planning stages. Implementing integrated project delivery methods with focus on design may just lead to the acceptable millennial environment that remembers and successfully incorporates business intent: productivity!