My experience with organizations in a change process
I worked part-time the last three years at “Bank
Austria,” aside from attending university. The bank had a big project, the idea
was to build a new headquarters in Vienna. The concept was to combine many
buildings in different districts into one big central campus in Vienna. The
bank wanted to build a campus, where is it not only possible to work but also
to spend their free time together with colleagues and family. On this campus
they created a restaurant, daycare facility, a medical center and a hotel.
The company proposed a concept about the
relocation. They opened a small test company and evaluated how this would work
in the first week in the new place. Furthermore, they organized information
events and created networking groups. The company also offered a seminar and
workshops that gave security to the employees. Moreover, they created a travel
guide with information about the relocation process.
It was one of the biggest relocation projects in
all of Europe. The main focus was on security because the bank needs to provide
security to clients’ confidential information.
One other goal was to make it energy-efficient. They
created a team with members of the company and architectures and travelled all
over Europe to visit companies that are similar to their project and collected
a variety of ideas. They also talked with the staff from these companies and
asked them what they like about their new building and what they can improve.
Another way the company was energy efficient was
that they introduced skype rooms with a 365 degree camera. This was done so
that people could feel virtually connected without flying on an airplane. This was
another step as the company moved towards becoming more environmentally
friendly.
The change of the location also changed the
concept of working. The employees now had the possibility of working from home
to fit their preferences and had the option to come into the office only when
they had to attend a meeting. The employees now had more flexibility to decide under
agreement with their managers their work location.
They also no longer had set working times but
the same amount of hours. They were free to choose when to work. For example,
it was now possible to work the whole night instead of working during the day.
To be more environmentally friendly, the company
also initiated a paper-less office, making everything electronics-based. To be
in line with this concept, the whole building was also made wireless and every
employee was provided their own laptop.
When people come into work every morning, employees
had the option to sit at any available desk. Every team had a huge area for
flexible seating. This provided the means for them to get into contact with all
the people on their team as necessary.
The company also required employees to work in
different places. They wanted employees to change working locations a few times
a day in correlation with the work they are doing and with the people they are
working with. As incentive for this, they created a game in which the team that
changes seats most often wins a prize.
This initiative was a big change, especially for
the older employees, who were used to traditional seating, where they would sit
behind the same people every day. This system has just commenced and it is in
works to progressively get better. With this implementation, the problem of
employees not using all the space has come up. But the bank is hopeful that it
will work well going forward as it provides all employees with more
flexibility.
Another change in the company is that they don’t
have a check-in clock for work hours anymore. The company wanted to show their
employees that they are an employer who strives to trust their employees.
Furthermore, free time during work is very
important for the company. They created communication areas and people were required
to have a 10-minute resting period for every working hour. With the resting areas
being close in vicinity to the office, employees can spend their time chatting
and drinking coffee in these spaces. A garden was also provided for employees
to enjoy during their break times.
Finally, I want to point out the transaction
costs. There are a lot of unexpected costs due to the movement of the people.
These initiatives have made it so the company had to reorganize team structures
in this new building. A part of the transaction costs are also information
sessions that are necessary as guides to inform the employees who have moved in
the new building.
It is to say that the transaction costs are now
also very high because time is needed to work efficiently in the new building
and they are trying implement and follow-up with small changes for a more
efficient and bettered system. To sum up, it is an important step for the “Bank
Austria” to create a new building and make the work more efficient and updated
to the time.
Before commenting on your post, I'd like to ask a question. From your profile in Banner it seems you are visiting in the College of Business. I've had very few Business students take my class over the years. Is there some reason you chose my course? Does it tie in with the rest of what you are studying or not?
ReplyDeleteIt's been a long time since I visited Silicon Valley, but 20 years ago I did visit Apple along with a bunch of other people from campus, including the then campus CIO. (This was before Apple rebounded under the return of Steve Jobs.) My sense is that Apple then had something of a campus structure and so did many other of the big players in Silicon Valley. Whether they had all the features you've mentioned about work, I'm unsure, but I wonder where this idea to centrally locate the Bank of Austria's personnel came from. Would you know if there are other banks or other businesses that the Bank of Austria took as a role model? Or was this concept truly internally developed? It would be interesting to know that.
Now let me give a very imperfect analogy. I go to the BIF commons after class to take a break from the teaching and to have office hours if any students do show up. (So far, that hasn't happened. I sense that most of the students in our class have another obligation at 11.) In any event, I sit where I can find a space. There isn't reserved seating. In an open space like that it makes sense to be flexible and sit where there is available space. So that much I can identify with what you said.
The issue comes in when the discussion might include confidential information. While sometimes being in a crowd actually affords more privacy than when in a private space (somebody might be listening through the wall or the office might be bugged) I believe that some people are reluctant to talk about confidential stuff in a public space. So then you need a private space, which gets close but not all the way back to people working in their own offices. I don't know that there is a right answer to this. I only know that different people have different comfort zones about this sort of thing.
Near the end of what you wrote you talked about restructuring to accommodate the new space. Maybe that's the people at the Bank of Austria's way of thinking about this, but I would say here that the restructuring would come first and then the layout of the Bank would be done to match the new structure, not vice versa. At the U of I, where I've been through quite a lot of restructuring, the layout of space has never been ideal. So you learn to make make do with what's available. Having the space itself drive things seems very odd to me. The energy efficiency part makes sense. Some of the other things you described I didn't get in the same way.
Yes, I am from the college of business in Vienna and I have chosen your course because one of my major is change management and this fits perfectly.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if the other banks in Austria took the Bank Austria as a role model because at the same time another Austrian bank called Erste Bank built a new campus with the same concept. I think internationally the system with free working space seems most profitable.