28 commercial property roundtable ... continued from previous page
demographics… where am I going to get my workforce, with the right skills, at the right price, and can I get that supplied close to my customers?”
Dean said Slough’s location was a key factor in its continuing success. Access to Heathrow and London was highly important, as was access to an appropriately skilled workforce. Locational benefits had also helped generate clustering of like-minded industries such as pharmaceuticals and automotive, with clustering bringing its own collaborative and business benefits. “Of course, if you can provide the right sort of properties, then it makes moving so much easier for such companies.”
Bates and Peacock stressed the need for the property sector to identify such clustering or demographic trends, and to provide the product required for this next generation of customers.
As occupational densities rise . . .
Bates felt the pace of workstyle change would actually become noticeable in the way space is used – less fixed desk-space, more collaborative creative areas, etc – within existing buildings, many of which would be refurbished and adapted to suit the tenants.
Dean said different ways of working, such as hot-desking were becoming more common. However, the major change was in occupational densities. “Historically we used to assume an occupational density of 1-10 sq m, that’s down to 1-6 sq m or 1-7 sq m for some occupiers. Space is perceived as relatively expensive so it needs to be used more efficiently, but then that affects building services. The building has to be designed to cope with those levels of occupational densities.
Richmond said PwC had already dramatically changed its use of workspace at its new More London site, the first major office in the UK to be awarded the BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating. This change had been led by comprehensive occupancy data gathered over many years. “Often the number of people coming into offices was half the number of desks we had.”
PwC had now cut its office working space requirements by roughly one third. “That change is driven very much by our staff. Their average age is 29 and they don’t want fixed desks, they want to work where they are, on the train or from home. When they come into the office they want a selection of space – it might be a desk, or a refreshment hub with soft chairs, or a booth for a private meeting. We provide all that. It is a tremendous lift to the spirits of our people that they can select an environment that suits them at that time to do their task.”
And it works. Richmond revealed that More London occupancy rate efficiency is 85%, and the reduction in fixed desks was saving £12 million per year. More London has 4,000 desks
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Big floorplates are phenomenal; but start a relationship
Blanchard: “For me the key driver for new ways of working is space utilisation. People take 200,000 sq ft and six months down the line it’s only 60% used. My question is: Do corporates still really need these big open floorplates?”
Simon Peacock
for 5,500 people, 80 sq ft person/100 sq ft per desk, and only partners have ‘offices’, which double up as meeting rooms.
“The thrust of More London is actually about the health and wellbeing of the people who work there,” added Richmond.
Early noted the increasing use of outsourcing by many organisations. Corporate headcounts might be lower on paper, but the combined staff and suppliers using a building placed demands on flexibility and the building itself. “How many external people you should have in your buildings at anyone time is always an interesting debate.”
Carl Blanchard stressed control of this external-internal ratio was important for buildings to work efficiently. “A push towards non-fixed headcount – people employed as and when you need them – will have a massive impact on the potential size of buildings you need and their flexibility.”
Murray added that making workplaces into attractive environments might actually promote more usage by external suppliers – a ‘these offices are better than our own’ syndrome.
Blanchard felt that an office space should be “something smaller, higher quality and used for a purpose – it’s a resource not just a destination. At the moment our offices are destinations, with thousands of people meeting at the same place at the same time, which is why we have commuting problems. If we turn that on its head, then office space can become something else.”
Hanson spoke about the new style of office interiors, enabled by telecoms and IT advances. The ability to create flexible desking systems and a variety of workpoints, has enabled occupiers to spend less time wondering if they have estimated their expansion targets correctly. As the design of the working environment includes a variety of work settings and flexible spaces, interestingly the number of people we can fit within a building is becoming more limited through the base build design of the staircases and the M&E installation rather than the space for desks.
We are now working with a lot of occupiers at the outset to influence the base build design to ensure these factors don’t limit the future workplace opportunities.
Richmond said PwC in Glasgow moved from four floors onto a single floorplate of 20,000 sq ft. “We created neighbourhoods for team working, with a central refreshment park and the difference in the ways that people work has been absolutely phenomenal. It draws people together, they can walk the floor, see and meet. That’s a very powerful environment. Over different floors, some teams won’t even know each other exist in the same building.”
Blanchard: “But, how do you adapt your organisation and the way its people work to allow for the fact that that type of building doesn’t exist everywhere? It’s clearly not sustainable to knock down everything and build sheds, so how do you consistently create that sort of environment?
Chris Richmond
Richmond said PwC managed it by engaging with developers at an early stage. “I don’t think we are unique; we are one of many occupiers who want to change the product. Why would we want to move, unless it was into accommodation that genuinely supported the needs of the business? That’s where we are at with developers. Now, when we talk about big floorplates and explain why, developers embrace it more and more. It’s about starting to create partner relationships that weren’t there before.
“And it goes on from that to sustainability. The younger our staff, the more we are being pushed on sustainability. So, from the real estate point of view we are very much fundamental to the growth of the business.”
Will refurbs be the new development?
Peacock highlighted the huge challenge that shorter leases presented to the refurbishment market. “We have a huge tired stock out there coming out of 20-year into 5-year leases, so refresh points will become more frequent, and landlord-tenant relationships much closer.”
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – SEPTEMBER 2012
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