Soul searching
Getting new space should transcend the physical
by Beth Ewen Companies looking for new or refreshed office space shouldn’t consider walls and chairs alone. Rather, a space hunt is an opportunity to find your company’s soul, says Tanya Spaulding, principal, and David Shea, an architect and founder, of Shea in Minneapolis. The two, who “tend to fight for air time,” as Spaulding says, explain the metaphysical for Upsize.
Upsize: How much does a company’s physical space contribute to its success?
Tanya Spaulding: The approach we take is helping companies with creating and implementing their brand, and executing it through every point of contact, whether with customers or employees. Included in that is their physical space. When you walked into our space you got an impression.
David Shea: Equally important is being consistent, with the Web site, the brochure, the reception desk, the logo. Each is one of the pieces.
Upsize: What approach works for small business?
Shea: The first thing we ask is, What do you want to achieve — for example, more visibility or increased sales.
Spaulding: Better productivity, attraction of a creative workforce.
Shea: For example, we worked with a law firm that had the typical 10 partners. They were concerned about what they wanted to do next. They said they’re not the biggest. We helped them position their company. They didn’t want space too over the top that would offend the clients.
You don’t start with how pretty it is. You look at the business end of it.
Upsize: How can a business owner do what you do?
Spaulding: Your physical space has to accomplish two things. It has to be brand appropriate, and it has to provide the appropriate workplace. You have to walk the walk. If we’re telling a creative company they should have an open workspace, we can’t have lots of offices. You have to understand what makes your company different from others.
Shea: It’s also understanding your customers and where your customers are. As an example, a mergers and acquisitions firm we worked with was in a seedy building in the suburbs. But the ownership wanted to be the best, biggest M&A firm. They started with an attitude, then they searched for real estate. They wanted people to walk into their space and feel safe.
Spaulding: It smells of success. It wasn’t opulent, but it was quality.
Upsize: Is opulence in these days?
Spaulding: If you’re a smaller service provider, you have to uphold a balance. When clients walk in, you don’t want them to think that all their money is going to your overhead, to what’s hanging on the walls and covering the furniture.
Upsize: Where should a business owner start?
Spaulding: What is the heart and soul of your company? What makes you different? Every company has a different soul.
Shea: With smaller firms, there’s a different personality that usually comes from the owners. You work to get to know them and what they are trying to achieve, and how much is the budget.
Upsize: Is what we’re talking about prohibitively expensive?
Spaulding: Companies have to have the right model. There’s always a balance between what they need to do financially, and the image they want to portray.
Shea: We start with programming, understanding the physical size and the number of people. And there’s the philosophical piece, called sensing: Who are they, what do they want to do. We’d say, there are 10 locations that fit.
Spaulding: So phase one is programming and positioning: what image, what soul, and what workspace. We have a five-page questionnaire to get these answers.
Upsize: How good are business owners at articulating their company’s soul?
Spaulding: Not very good. We counsel people about this, but still it’s a challenge even for us. They don’t do the gut check often enough.
Upsize: What are some of these questions to ask?
Spaulding: Who’s your target audience? Who do you want it to be?
Shea: Where are you located? Why are you located there?
Spaulding: Who is your competition? What in one sentence would people say about your company? How about in one paragraph? What do you want them to say?
Shea: People don’t do that kind of a gut check ever.
Spaulding: Then we’ll have them ask their customers and employees those same questions, and see how they match up.
Upsize: Why should people bother to do this?
Spaulding: There’s a lot of competition. There are always 100 people who will do what you are doing, and probably cheaper. You better be able to communicate what makes you different.
Shea: Every time you’re doing this, communicate with employees. If you move across town, somebody might say, “But my bus route will change,” or “Now I have to pay for parking.”
Spaulding: The change management plan has to be there. You have to involve employees. In companies with 100 employees or less, every change in space is a huge swing. Employees have a thousand different concerns and unless you’re giving them a venue to air those, you’re creating more problems than it’s worth.
Upsize: Let’s get back to budgets.
Shea: Each step of the process includes an economic check. Where are we spending the money, on buildout, on new furniture, on technology?
Spaulding: We’ll say, what are the 10 most important things in this space. It might be technology, it might be lighting, it might be chairs. Then we identify the things where we can compromise. You say what you can budget-engineer and what you cannot.
Your office space can be a key driver to do an analysis of your company. It doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money, but you spend a lot of time talking about it.
Upsize: What trends are you seeing in companies’ workspaces?
Shea: You see the downsizing in scale of offices; less pretension; more focus on conference rooms and other public areas; more interaction between support staff and partners. As for high tech, storage areas are much smaller, because electronic archiving has changed storage needs. Power Point is being brought in, so that conference rooms need to be equipped.
Spaulding: Five to six years ago, the trend started toward being wired for technological needs, and toward more open workplaces. That’s now translating to firms that weren’t doing it before. So if they still have the offices lined up around the perimeter, they’re putting in glass walls.
Firms are allowing employees more creativity and individuality. For one client, for example, we’re trying to help incorporate individuality under an umbrella of certain color palettes.
Shea: People appreciate the little things. Companies are not hiring, so employees are putting in a lot of overtime. Companies also are creating flexible workspaces, to accommodate people taking leaves, or for independent contractors that come and go.
Upsize: What about trends in physical space for customers?
Shea: A lot of our companies say, we only see six customers a month, so our office space doesn’t matter. But we ask, how much do those customers do in sales, and it’s a lot.
Spaulding: It doesn’t cost a lot of money to provide a point of differentiation, to show you’re different. You’ve got a captive audience, you might as well communicate with them. Put a display up on the wall of the projects you’ve done. Put up a plasma screen. Engage them.
Your space has to achieve two things: it must foster employee productivity, and it must convey the right message from the receptionist to the back wall. Your space is a communication opportunity. Whether you use that opportunity or waste it is up to you.
