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December 2018 — Office Properties Quarterly — Page 15 www.crej.com W ork is not working. A recent Gallop survey estimated that 70 per- cent of employees are not engaged and are sleepwalking through the day. Pre- senteeism, being at work but not really engaged or committed to it, is rampant today. For organizations to be successful, we cannot afford to have productivity and employee engagement diminished. The fact is we work differently today than we did even five years ago. What we do day to day, or even hour to hour, can vary significantly. We need to give people options. The notion that one solution fits all, or even exists, is false. What should drive the solution is not what is “in” or “out,” what is trend- ing or what a benchmark says. What should drive the solution is what people need to effectively do their jobs. And that should be based on who they are and the specific DNA of their organization. How we work depends on the unique organizational DNA, which is mainly comprised of six fac- tors: corporate culture, work styles, worker demographics, organiza- tional structure, regional influ- ences and the industry they are in. Understanding these key elements of an organization will determine the solutions that are needed and help define what the right work- place solution is for an organiza- tion. As organizations are develop- ing and evolving, creating solu- tions that adapt and are flexible is imperative as well. Today, companies thrive on being adaptable and agile, and they want their envi- ronments to be flexible too. But the most flexible thing in any office is not the walls or the furniture, it’s the people. So why are so many offic- es still designed to support sedentary behaviors? Instead of designing space as if they were a one-room efficien- cy apartment where you sit in one place all day, we need to give people choices that meet the needs of the various activities they perform dur- ing a typical workday. We need to design spaces for different func- tions, the way a house has a room focused on the task at hand – be it for cooking, dining, sleeping, etc. The new workplace needs to be human-centric and accommodate a variety of work styles and a diverse demographic. So how do we design spaces that address a wide spec- trum of people and address life stages instead of stereotype genera- tions? We create flexible, agile envi- ronments that give them choices and we empower them to pick the spaces that work best for them. • Activity-based workplaces. ABWs are designed around the tasks people do, not assigned spots for individuals. Unassigned seating encourages movement and people can select the right setting for the task at hand. • Neighborhood-based choice envi- ronments. NCE embrace the notion of activity-based space but work points are created in neighborhood zones that enable people to nest, huddle and feel a sense of belong- ing while still having access to diverse work settings. • Agile environments. Agile envi- ronments aligns with the “agile methodology” approach and are designed to support cross-func- tional project-based teams working in close proximity so they can ide- ate, collaborate, track and deliver projects at increased speed. • Maker environments for mobile occupants. MEMO spaces take the concept of “scrum” spaces and agile environments and extend them across the whole office to create a scrappy, entrepreneurial Human-centric design for the modern workplace Design Kay Sargent ASID, IIDA, MCR.w Senior principal, director of WorkPlace, HOK Please see Sargent, Page 21 Motivated by the desire to create an agile and collaborative workspace for its creative teams as well as attract and retain talent, CarMax’s digital and technology innovation center in Richmond, Virginia, totals 34,000 square feet and has 200 employees.