Offices at Work: Uncommon Workspace Strategies that Add Value and Improve Performance (Jossey Bass Business & Management Series) - Hardcover

Becker, Franklin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787973300 ISBN 13: 9780787973308

Publisher: Jossey Bass, 2004

Synopsis

Most Fortune 500 companies still struggle with workplace planning and design issues. Millions of dollars are invested each year by companies with the expectation that new buildings and major renovations will help transform their culture, spark innovation, and herald new work patterns that strengthen performance while reducing costs. But, as Franklin Becker points out, popular trends do not always make good sense. Offices at Work addresses the fundamental design issues that organizational leaders confront such as:

• How do we create a low–cost flexible environment that motivates employees and stimulates learning?
• Is it worth our spending the time, money, and effort to consolidate our disparate buildings into a new corporate campus?
• How else can we address status concerns besides giving people offices?

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About this title

About the Author

Franklin Becker is professor of Facility Planning and Management and Human Environment Relations and chair of the department of design and environmental analysis at Cornell University. He is also the director of the International Workplace Studies Program at Cornell and founder and president of IDEAworks LLC, a management consulting firm that works with Fortune 500 companies to develop and implement innovative workplace strategies. Becker is the coauthor with Fritz Steele of Workplace by Design: Mapping the High Performance Workscape.

From the Back Cover

"Managers even otherwise enlightened managers are implicitly or explicitly asking the office space question in a certain kind of utilitarian way. They are essentially saying, What is the quickest, cheapest way I can get all 4,000 of my people a desk, a chair, a wastebasket?

With Offices at Work, Franklin Becker has a wake up call for businesses around the world. There are rewards to be gained from fine–tuning your office environment. Far from being a mere utility, space can be a strategic tool that influences the attitude and behavior and even the performance of your employees. Focusing attention on the final frontier of inner space will be time well spent."
From the Foreword by Tom Kelley

"Using an excellent balance of hard data, case studies, and real world anecdotes, Professor Becker takes the logistically challenging and culturally complex topic of workplace design and offers a well–written and accessible approach to creating competitive advantage. Covering topics ranging from different types of office layout to productivity, innovation, and change management, Professor Becker cites best (and worst) practices to provide new insights for experts as well as novices. This is a must read for anyone interested in workplace design, corporate culture, branding, change management, organizational dynamics, or corporate real estate."
Thomas Osmund, vice president, Goldman Sachs

From the Inside Flap

Most Fortune 500 companies still struggle with workplace planning and design issues. Millions of dollars are invested each year by companies with the expectation that new buildings and major renovations will help transform their culture, spark innovation, and herald new work patterns that strengthen performance while reducing costs. But, as Franklin Becker points out, popular trends do not always make good sense.

Offices at Work addresses the fundamental design issues that organizational leaders confront such as:

• How do we create a low–cost flexible environment that motivates employees and stimulates learning?
• Is it worth our spending the time, money, and effort to consolidate our various buildings into a new corporate campus?
• How else can we address status concerns besides giving people offices?

Using real world examples presented in a friendly and accessible style, Becker provides a broad range of insights and practical explanations for why different solutions work and make sense. He offers guidance to managers faced with the task of balancing choice and diversity with standardization and uniformity. Becker also discusses the relative benefits of an open versus closed office plan and shares the best ways to help employees adjust to a new workplace environment.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey Bass
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0787973300
• ISBN 13: 9780787973308
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224