At Ernst & Young, the workplace is crucially important because people are paramount. That’s where Trex Morris and his team come in.
For eight consecutive years, Ernst & Young in the United States has been named one of the FORTUNE “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Why?
Here’s one big reason: The workplace stresses inclusiveness and flexibility in a team environment that strives to help employees manage their personal and professional lives.
Playing a key role in that ongoing success story is Trex Morris MCR, Americas Director, Real Estate Services. “Our people are the most important asset that we have in the firm,” he says with conviction. “That is why it is so fundamentally important for us to come up with creative real estate solutions that take care of our people’s needs.”
Ernst & Young, of course, (www.ey.com) is a leading professional services firm providing auditing, accounting, tax, transactions and other services. It employs some 107,000 people around the world, and FY2005 revenues reached US$16.9 billion.
The company has a worldwide portfolio of 18 million sq. ft. (1.7 million sq. m.) in 140 countries. Morris oversees the Americas portfolio, covering 8+ million sq. ft. (650,000 sq. m.) in some 125+ locations. Owing to the firm’s partnership structure, the entire portfolio is leased.
Until just recently, Morris was U.S. Director, Real Estate Services. But now he and his team have been given additional responsibilities for Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. “Our portfolio continues to expand,” he says.
Leader met with Morris—engaging and quick with a smile—on a winter morning at his office in Atlanta. Joining him for the interview are Samuel (Sam) Unger SLCR, Director, Americas Real Estate Services, and Judy Barth Bowles BCCR, SLCR, Assistant Director National Real Estate. In addition, Los Angeles-based Bob Wright, Director of Design and Construction, joined in via conference call from a vacation spot in snowy Lake Tahoe. At Ernst & Young, it seems, work-life balance is not just a goal but a reality.
Ernst & Young’s Atlanta office currently is in the Bank of America tower, one of the city’s signature office buildings, just north of downtown. But a brand-spanking new facility is under construction a few blocks away. It’s slated for completion in 2007 (see sidebar article).
That new facility will incorporate all of Americas Real Estate Services’ knowledge about the workplace and how to make it effective. And over the past decade they’ve learned a great deal, always focusing on providing not the workplace of today, but the workplace of the future.
“Ernst & Young employees need a work environment that fosters teamwork and enables productivity,” Unger says. “The issue for us is our ability to enable teaming environments because this is really a matrix organization of professionals, with people of all ranks working on projects together. So the opportunity to be as productive as possible from a real estate and technology perspective is very important, and we strive to enable those solutions.”
Adds Bowles: “We have a very mobile work force. It’s important that we have evaluated their work styles and provided a workplace that lets them be effective.”
For Ernst & Young, as with growing numbers of companies today, the workplace is wherever people find themselves and wherever it needs to be to get work done. Morris sums it up this way: “You don’t have to come in to the office to be productive at Ernst & Young. We try to create an environment where work can be done anywhere and everywhere.”
A Lean, Strategic Team
With just 10 players on the in-house team, Americas Real Estate Services runs a lean, highly leveraged operation.
“We’ve got a very small, seasoned and professional group of individuals that supports our workplace requirements in the Americas,” Morris says. “Our focus, when we put the model together back in 1997, was on bringing in talented, individuals that could collaborate with the highest level professionals in our organization, as well as external service providers. Our people really are strategists, integrators, communicators, and facilitators of real estate or workplace solutions. They’re not necessarily the doers of workplace. We utilize tenant rep firms to help us, we utilize architects to help us, and we utilize outside project management resources. We even outsource some of our legal services in support of what we call our overall workplace process.”
Americas Real Estate Services reports up to the CFO. “So we are kind of the bridge, if you will, between the dollar sign on one side and the people who actually get our work done on the other side,” Morris says. “Being in that position is sometimes, well, interesting,” he chuckles. “And enlightening too.”
Team members have vertical responsibilities as well as geographic assignments. “For example, our guy in New York, because of his relationship with our Tax leadership there, manages the relationship with the Tax business unit in addition to managing three or four geographies,” Morris explains. “Judy also has a vertical relationship that she manages. Some companies are big enough where they’ve got real estate people who do nothing but transactions, or they do nothing but manage client expectations. Our folks have to do both. I think our team does a great job of communicating and staying focused on strategic issues.”
Early Beginnings
The team’s intense focus on the workplace began taking shape some nine years ago.
“We began taking a strategic focus back in the mid-90s,” Morris recalls. “We took a look at our portfolio and saw that a large amount of our space was going to be rolling over. New leases would give us an opportunity to really change how we worked and how we did things. That really was when we started creating our real estate group and started formulating our Workplace of the Future model.
“We made a recommendation to management, proposing a new approach to the workplace. They basically said, ‘We buy into this. We agree with it. Now you go sell it.’ And we did. We conducted surveys of our people, finding out how they worked, and talked with our leaders and asked them how they wanted their people to work in the future. It all came together and became our new workplace model.”
Back in 1997, consistent design was lacking. “We had some standards, but they weren’t fully implemented across the board,” Wright says. “And there were two very different models for our workplace. We looked at those two models and decided neither made sense alone. So we melded them together and we created what we call the workplace of the future. We’ve had a consistent design of our workplace model ever since.”
The Current View
Today the Workplace of the Future model is at the core of what Americas Real Estate Services is all about. To be sure, the model is not the same as it was in 1997. “It if were, it would be the workplace of the past,” Wright exclaims. “But because it is the workplace of the future, we’re always driving to understand how our business is changing, how our people work, and what’s coming next.”
One key change—a paradigm shift, as Wright calls it—is that the workplace is no longer viewed as an entitlement. “Now we view it as a productivity tool,” he says, “and a way to gain a competitive edge.” Flexibility is also a top priority.
As an example, Partners’ offices are no longer just offices. “Now we call them conferencing offices,” Wright says, “and they’re multifunctional. When a Partner is out of town, for instance, and isn’t using it for an office, that space can be used by a manager or senior manager as a small conference room.”
That kind of thinking has helped drive dramatic improvements in space efficiency. Back in 1997, Ernst & Young’s portfolio included some 230 sq. ft. (21.4 sq. m.) per person. Today that figure is less than 200 sq. ft. (18.6 sq. m.) per person. And newly built space is based on less than 150 sq. ft. (13.9 sq. m.) per employee – a 35 percent reduction from 1997.
It’s an approach that works well for a company whose employees are often traveling and working in remote locations – people for whom the office is defined more by access to a laptop and Blackberry instead of a desk and chair. It’s also an approach that pleases our CFO, because each square foot reduction per employee translates into roughly $1 million in savings.
“Our workplace model allows our people to be both flexible and productive,” Morris says. “It gives them the elements of support that they need when they need to be in the office, yet liberates them to do work anywhere, anytime.”
Strategic thought about the workplace also extends into the location arena, Morris adds. “Where do we locate offices? You’ve got the right workplace, but is it in the right location? It’s there that our people do such a wonderful job, I believe, of having a good understanding – by working with our business units – of who our clients are, how we’re supporting those clients, and where our clients of the future are going to be. Moreover, where are our employees going to live? Where are we going to draw resources from? As the market for talent continues to heat up, having the right location and having the right amenity base in a location allows us to be, we think, an employer of choice. It’s one of the things that we believe will make us more competitive.”
Connecting with the Business
Developing a close working relationship with the business is paying big dividends for both Americas Real Estate and the company overall.
“I work for the CFO, so we have a seat at the table,” Morris says. “There’s no excuse for us not being able to communicate an action plan, and also not to get the feedback that we need to have. Every month I sit at the CFO Operating Committee meeting, and each business unit reports in. I hear from each group firsthand and when I bring suggestions to the table, I get immediate reactions.”
At least once a year, the team’s area directors of real estate sit down with the key leaders in each business unit. “We review what their commitments are and look at what’s going on in the marketplace,” Morris says. “So we’re anticipating, not reacting. The firm gives us great access to the knowledge we need to be strategic and effective.”
The market has been “extremely friendly” recently, Bowles says, enabling the team to restructure leases early and take advantage of favorable conditions. “If things are in our favor, we’ll jump on it,” she says. “We have capitalized on some opportunities that have been real home runs.”
Visioning Sessions
On the Workplace
Another form of outreach that sets the team apart is biennial visioning sessions on the workplace, led by Wright and his group, which bring together key leaders from all the major business units.
“We use those sessions to review our workplace model, look at what’s new and innovative out there in terms of design and workspace and get our clients’ feedback,” Wright says.
But the sessions do much more than just explore the leading edge of workplace, Morris explains.
“Bob and his group will tell our business leaders, ‘If you change this element, this is the type of impact it will have on the workplace, both from a dollars-and-cents perspective and from a productivity perspective.’ So it gives them the full framework from which they can make decisions. He does an amazing job presenting it, and it’s just amazing the kind of dialogue you get into.”
Those business leaders, Bowles says, “really care about their people. In one recent situation, the business opted against the lowest-cost alternative because it just wasn’t right for our people.”
In fact, Morris says he’s never seen the company take the lowest-cost solution due solely to it being the lowest cost. Our process is focused on taking the best real estate solution which might not be the lowest cost. The emphasis is always on all the factors that we use going into making a real state decision. And our people come first.”
CoreNet Global Connections,
The Personal Side
Morris and his team have been extremely active in and supportive of CoreNet Global, often participating in Discovery Forums and other educational events in addition to serving in various roles with their local Chapter. In fact, Morris, Unger and Bowles collectively have roughly 40 years’ experience with the association. “We don’t want to get into the exact numbers,” Bowles jokes.
Morris, an Atlanta native, worked for IBM for some 16 years before joining Ernst & Young. “It was probably the best move I ever made,” he says. “I just celebrated my 10th year with the firm and have been absolutely delighted to be part of this wonderful team.”
He enjoyed playing sports in college, and still does. He’s married, with two boys. “They’re my pride and joy,” he says proudly. “One is a sophomore in college. The other one just went off the payroll,” he laughs. “He’s graduated from college and has a job.”
Unger, who’s been with the company for the past six years, has been in the field of corporate real estate management for about 10 years. He holds masters degrees in architecture and landscape architecture and planning. “I’ve been a practicing architect for over 10 years and was involved in both development and construction management,” he says. “So I’ve worn a lot of hats in the real estate process. Being in corporate real estate now allows me to use all of those hats in coordination with the rest of the folks on our team.”
| Under Construction: Ernst & Young’s New Atlanta Office |
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Ernst & Young is building its workplace of the future in more ways than one. Now under construction just a few blocks from the firm’s current Atlanta office is its new Atlanta base: Allen Plaza. Named for former Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr., Allen Plaza is a $300 million development featuring three new office buildings (including the tallest structure built in downtown Atlanta in years) and a 250-room hotel. Ernst & Young will take some 160,000 sq. ft. (15,000 sq. m.) in a 14-story building (55 Allen Plaza) that will be ready for occupancy in 2007. “Our new office space fits into our overall strategy,” Morris explains. “It’s a commitment to our employees for a dynamic office environment in a quality building, with room to grow.” Allen Plaza is being developed by Atlanta-based Barry Real Estate Companies. |
Unger has two boys and enjoys tennis, biking and gardening. “And I love a good bottle of wine and sharing it with my friends,” he adds.
Bowles, like Morris, is a native of Atlanta. She’s been with Ernst & Young for the past eight years. “I started out in brokerage and design and construction, and then worked for a couple of major insurance and financial services companies,” she relates. Bowles is married, with three step-children and one granddaughter, and golf, tennis and gardening are some of her favorite interests.
Wright grew up in Chicago and went to the University of Illinois (“We were just one game short of winning the NCAA basketball championship last year,” he happily reminds the group) where he earned a degree in civil engineering. After working in construction roles in Chicago and Los Angeles, he joined Ernst & Young about nine years ago to head up design and construction.
Wright also holds a masters degree in divinity. “I guess that’s a little strange, for someone in a corporate real estate organization,” he concedes.
“It just makes construction materials that much easier to move,” Unger jokes, to the hearty laughter of the whole team (including Wright).
As the interview winds down, the team shares decidedly high praise for Morris. “Not only is he a great leader, but he’s a friend,” Wright emphasizes. “He is close to all the people in the group. He cares not only about what we’re doing in our work life but what’s happening in our personal life. And when you have a leader like that, you’re going to go above and beyond in everything you do for that person.”
Ernst & Young at a Glance
| Revenues (FY2005): | US$16.9 billion |
| Employees: | 107,000 |
| Real Estate Portfolio: | 18 million sq. ft. (1.7 million sq. m.) worldwide, with 7 million sq. ft. (650,000 sq. m.) in the Americas region |
| In-House Real Estate Staff: | ___ |