In the early years of the 21st century, the world of office work stands on the brink of transformational change. For facilities managers, two trends are most pressing in this shifting landscape. Firstly, today’s workforce is older than at any time in human history; and, secondly, this workforce will increasingly be employed in the production and distribution of knowledge, rather than goods and services.
This combination of an ageing workforce and the rise of the knowledge economy gives rise to a growing belief that a different type of workplace will be required to accommodate these changes. The paper-shifting office modelled on the time-and-motion studies of the factory floor and geared to the dominant economic model of Taylorism (after Frederick Taylor) emerged in the early 20th century. A new, digitally-driven workplace may emerge that is more flexible in use of time and space, more welcoming to its workforce, more tolerant of the frailties of ageing and more geared to the needs of knowledge interactions. FMs are already getting to grips with the practical implications.
The ageing workforce
Changing demographics have a clear-cut, profound and entirely predictable impact on the workplace. Population ageing is a worldwide phenomenon due to falling fertility rates, better healthcare and nutrition, early childhood immunisation and improving survival rates from chronic diseases such as cancer. It is now well understood that the share of older people over 65 is increasing almost everywhere and that the pension provision for those retiring from the workplace has been hit by the effect of falling share prices on pension funds.
While we enjoy the prospect of longer lives, by pushing the limits of human longevity ever upwards, we must be aware that the ratio of potential workers (aged 15—64) to the over-65s is declining rapidly. This leaves governments worldwide with a major headache in figuring out how to pay for the welfare costs of the elderly with a shrinking workforce in a fiercely competitive global economy. Japan and Europe have the fastest ageing populations — nearly one-third of Japanese citizens will be over 65 by 2030 while one in two European adults of working age will be over the age of 50 by 2020. Other nations face the same steep demographic curve.
Rise of the knowledge economy
Why has knowledge come to the fore so strongly in thinking about the workplace? This is because the new workplace is set to run on creativity and brainpower — much of the repetitive process work that once occupied large numbers of staff in offices within developed economies is today already handled by computers or sent offshore to lower-cost economies. More organisational time and effort is being spent on what is known as knowledge work’. This type of work depends not so much on formula and process, working to a set script within a supervised hierarchy, but on independently applying formal knowledge and learning as part of a culture of collaboration, initiative and innovation.
According to Eurostat data for the European Commission, 41 per cent of the European workforce is today engaged in the knowledge economy, compared to just 30 per cent in the United States. Within Europe, Sweden (54 per cent) and Denmark (49 per cent) have the most knowledge workers, followed by the UK with 48 per cent. Greece (27 per cent) and Portugal (26 per cent) have the least knowledge workers.
OECD data indicates that 43 per cent of national income in both the US and Germany is derived from knowledge-based industries. The figure is 41 per cent for the UK and a chart-topping 48 per cent of national income for Ireland. Knowledge-based industries are classified by the OECD as medium to high-tech manufacturing, financial services, business services, telecommunications, education and health services.
Knowledge workers in these industries present new challenges to how FMs plan work environments. Many sit outside the formal hierarchies of their organisations and work on projects to their own individual timetables, setting their own deadlines and targets. They tend to be self-motivated and reliant on their own experience and expertise to undertake special-assignment or consulting work for their own employers. Clocking onto nine-to-five regimes hold little meaning for them.
Research suggests that knowledge workers identify themselves more with their professional discipline and specialism and less with their employer or place of work. They expect to work in a variety of situations and for a number of employers over their working life. The constant is their knowledge, which they want to keep updated. They require a stronger element of trust and individual control in the workplace and take more personal responsibility for the results of their work. Many knowledge workers are also de facto older workers because they have acquired their knowledge and expertise over the course of a long career.
Physical considerations
Here two trends collide: in the early decades of the 21st century, it is likely that growing numbers of older office workers, who have honed experience and knowledge over a long career, will not retire at the usual age but will remain at work for longer, many of them on a consultancy, special-project or part-time basis. But to encourage such well-qualified, mature staff to choose to stay on after the normal retirement age requires a redesign of the office environment, as older workers are likely to be compromised by the inevitable effects of ageing on vision, hearing, posture, memory, balance, muscular strength and dexterity.
For an ageing workforce, there are a number of physical requirements that form a baseline for thinking about a more inclusively designed knowledge workplace. Take eyesight, for example. Adult vision declines with age in a number of ways. The eye of a 20-year-old can admit up to three times more light than someone of 65. Changes occur in visual acuity, depth perception and peripheral vision. As a result many older workers may find glare from windows or a computer terminal affecting their sight.
Research also suggests that older workers often cannot read as well as well as they once did from certain distances and with lower levels of illumination. Personal preferences regarding lighting conditions become more important with age and people adapt less well to poor lighting. However, where good quality lighting is provided, vision changes generally have little impact on older workers.
Hearing generally begins to decline from the mid-40s onwards. Older people may struggle to hear well at higher frequencies, for example, being unable to listen to a specific voice or sound in a noisy environment. Workers may find it increasingly difficult to filter a particular voice from background noise, meaning that to address hearing difficulties consideration should be given to sound transmission can be controlled.
Consideration should also be given to physical ergonomics as signs of ageing and the beginning of loss of functional ability emerge between 40 and 50. This includes a loss of muscular strength, which on average is reduced by 15—20 per cent between the ages of 20 to 60. Ageing causes some loss of range of joint movement and flexibility, and changes in mental capacity also occur with age. Vocabulary and verbal ability remain constant or improve, but some mental processes decline, such as thinking speed and information processing.
In addition, spatial skills generally decline. Research has demonstrated that older people are less efficient at navigating three-dimensional environments and need more time and guidance in finding their way. However cognitive problems appear to have a much lower impact on well-qualified older workers, who will tend to compensate for any reduction in cognitive functions by drawing on their experience.
With an ageing workforce, it is important to consider how the office environment can help to sustain the health and wellbeing of staff. This encompasses not only the physical dimension of the workplace but also the social aspects of health. In relation to this, dignity and respect are often as important to wellbeing and productivity as physical ergonomics.
Research by the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art (Welcoming Workplace 2009) has identified that the FM community should pay particular attention to three key settings which include older knowledge workers: spaces to concentrate, collaborate and contemplate.
Focal points
This group crave quiet and privacy, and should not be required to climb inside a small cabin or cave, or to abandon the office entirely and take the work home, if they want to work quietly on solo tasks. FMs should provide dedicated concentration spaces that are governed by strict protocols for working (for example, no mobile phone calls or loud conversations, as in a library). These spaces should be located away from noisy facilities such as kitchens and cafs, print-rooms or social spaces. They should be equipped with different types of furniture and adjustable settings to allow for a range of working positions, as poor ergonomics and uncomfortable posture will adversely affect the ability to get into a flow’.
Where budgets allow, height-adjustable desks can facilitate standing for periods of the day — a healthy approach to working — and window views should be available in these spaces to connect people to the outside world, as this is an aid to concentration (completely enclosed, unconnected spaces are difficult to focus in for any length of time).
Natural light should be brought into play wherever possible, with fabric curtains and blinds introduced to diffuse light. Artificial lighting schemes should provide task lights at the desk — an important consideration for ageing eyes and for reading printouts off-screen — and a lower, more pleasant level of ambient lighting within the concentration space. FMs should also consider the use of sound-masking systems that can reduce distracting noise.
Dedicated collaboration space within the work environment should be provided so that older people who have honed their skills in the pre-digital era can spread out their sheets and data, and not worry about confidentiality or tidying away before the project is completed. This type of space should be able to be reserved by the day, week or month, and there should be a mix of digital and traditional display media. Bigger desks to spread things out and bigger backdrops to pin things up will enhance collaborative modes of working for older people.
It’s the thought that counts
Finally, it is important that contemplation spaces should be provided that give people of all ages in the knowledge workforce — but particularly senior employees — somewhere to recuperate from the stress and noise of the normal working environment; a place to go when workers are tired, or need to prepare for an energetic task; somewhere they can relax, create new ideas or simply do nothing. A contemplation space should provide a calm, inclusive environment free from distraction and surveillance.
It is a space that the office community respects, within which workers can expect not to be interrupted and people will not make phone calls or have loud conversations. It may have strong natural and organic elements, rich with plants, water, fabric banners and adjustable lighting, giving it a different feel to the office atmosphere elsewhere. There are many different ways a space for contemplation can be designed. The common denominator, however, is that it should be quiet and enclosed, with a degree of privacy. It is not a sick bay, though, and needs to avoid the stigma of illness, so that staff members of all ages and abilities feel they can use the space freely.
It is only by providing dedicated concentration, collaboration and contemplation settings for knowledge-based tasks in the office environment that FMs will able to meet the twin challenges of an ageing workforce and the rise of the knowledge economy, which are fast making the old time-and-motion office redundant.
