by Brianna Crandall — October 9, 2015—A new survey released this week in conjunction with the 2015 World Workplace show by the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) provides critical insights into the evolving state of workplace strategy. Distributed Work Revisited documents trends in on-site and off-site distributed work strategies, and highlights the increasingly important role FM and real estate professionals are playing in high-level strategic workplace decisions.
Distributed work
IFMA workplace strategy survey finds unassigned space on the rise, and demonstrates prominent role of facilities professionals in strategic workplace decisions.
According to the report, most surveyed organizations have increased the number of staff sitting in unassigned spaces when compared with the initial 2009 Distributed Work report. At the same time, survey respondents reported a decrease in the amount of space required to support unassigned staff.
“Our workplace research confirmed that distributed work strategies are here to stay,” says Gordon Wright, director of Consulting at HOK, which co-authored and co-sponsored the report. “The key for organizations across the world is to understand how to modify these workplace strategies over time to keep pace with the changing needs of their people and operations.”
IFMA has researched and reported on distributed workplace strategies since the early 1990s. This latest contribution, Research Report #37, identifies trends across industry categories primarily in Canada and the United States. During its 35 years of service to the FM industry, IFMA has observed and supported a shift in the perception of the workplace to become a tool to support organizational goals.
IFMA found that in order to help achieve these goals, more organizations are employing a “growth without growth” strategy when it comes to workspace allocation. With more people using less space, the sharing ratio has increased such that organizations are increasing their size while using the same amount of real estate.
The report also identifies social barriers — not technological ones — as the primary hurdle for implementation of distributed work strategies. For those organizations that do adopt distributed work strategies, technology and furniture are the top drivers of cost. One surprising result was the increased cost of parking, resulting from the fact that workplace density is increasing beyond the expected levels.
This report provides insights into what facilities managers can do to roll out, measure and improve distributed work within their organizations. IFMA says it will help them understand how distributed work strategies have evolved over the last five years, recognize key elements important for a successful implementation of distributed work program, and realize ways that distributed work programs might be rolled out or improved in any given organization.
Strategic FM / real estate role
The study also illustrates the increasingly important role FM and real estate professionals are playing in high-level strategic workplace decisions. Specifically, when asked who was driving workplace strategy decisions related to the implementation of distributed work, FM and real estate managers were identified in 30 percent of responses — only slightly less than senior executives (38 percent).
Report content and availability
In addition to the full results of the distributed work survey with corresponding analysis, the report includes several case studies from organizations that have found success with distributed work strategies including eBay, Accenture, Microsoft, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and the City of Calgary. Finally, the report offers an invaluable “Lessons Learned” section in which the real experiences in implementing distributed work strategies is condensed into useful guidance to help FM professionals succeed in similar efforts.
The complete version of Distributed Work Revisited: Research Report #37 is available for sale online at U.S.$95 for IFMA members and $175 for non-members. Funds raised help support ongoing and future research, along with the sponsorship from organizations like Allsteel and HOK, whose generosity supported this research.
