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First Impressions
Interior designs give companies a competitive edge
By Jennifer Pfaff
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| The
interior office spaces in HGA's new Milwaukee office offer a sense of privacy
for designers and project managers while also promoting a team concept. Photo by John J. Korom Photography |
A long day of work can leave even the most committed employees searching for a break from the grind.
Maybe they just need to sink into a soft leather couch and sip a cup of quality coffee. Some might head to the fitness center for a professionally led spinning class.
Others could choose to skip the workout and head straight for the massage.
Whatever they choose, employees can see it as a small reward for a job well done. And, at Acuity, A Mutual Insurance Co., they can reap their reward without ever leaving work.
Employee amenities aren’t hard to come by at Acuity’s Sheboygan headquarters, especially since the firm doubled the size of its building in 2004.
In 2005, the company recorded its best year, and voluntary turnover dropped to 2 percent, said John Signer, Acuity’s vice president of human resources. That’s down from percentages in the high 20s in the 1990s.
While the physical work space can’t account for all that success, Signer is convinced it’s a key factor.
“If you show you respect your employees, they will do great things for you,” he said. “The proof is in the pudding.”
The pudding, in this case, can
be measured in many ways — dollars earned, deadlines met and even in the
stack of unsolicited resumes sent to the company each year.
The company acts
as though it’s competing for employees — even for those it already has.
 |
| The
interior of Acuity Insurance's Sheboygan headquarters features an 80-foot glass
gallery that provides a central gathering space for Acuity's staff. Photo courtesy of Eppstein Uhen Architects Inc. |
“What better message can you send to your employees about growth and stability?” Signer said of Acuity’s 280,000-square-foot addition, which is loaded with communal spaces, places to get away from work for a bit and artwork of every kind. “It sends a message. We offer stability. We offer security.”
With employees spending the majority of their waking hours in the building, Acuity officials strive to provide a welcoming, comfortable work environment, Signer said.
The headquarters sits on 115 acres of landscaped grounds with ponds and waterfalls. A seemingly endless supply of windows bathes the interior in natural light. Stone and wood accents fuse the natural world to the corporate.
Milwaukee-based Eppstein Uhen Architects Inc.’s interior designers helped Acuity carry its culture into the expansion and magnified that culture by providing needed space and updated aesthetics.
Sandy Weber, Eppstein Uhen’s principal and senior interior designer and president of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers, said the marketplace understands the importance of the physical work environment, and that understanding translated into an interest in interior design that skyrocketed in the last decade.
“It was not at all as important 10 years ago,” Weber said. “It is within the last six to eight years where people have recognized that the environment is a tool for recruiting and retaining workers.”
Acuity saw the relationship between desirable physical surroundings and the ability to recruit and retain.
“When we have candidates through our building, it is one of our selling points,” Signer said. “We don’t have to advertise openings in the paper anymore. Employees recruit, people watch our Web site.”
When it comes to competing for the best professionals in the field, companies are realizing that the more nontraditional perks they can offer, the better off they are.
Particularly in suburban or rural corporate campuses, amenity spaces are becoming more commonplace within a building’s design. Branch banks, dry-cleaning services, ATM machines, fitness centers, cyber cafes and restaurant-quality dining areas are supplementing traditional health, dental and retirement benefits, said Jodie Thill, associate and interior designer at HGA Inc.’s Milwaukee office.
“Clients are really starting to realize the importance of the physical environment,” she said. “It’s not keeping up with the Joneses; it’s trying to attract and retain young workers.”
Function meets form There’s more to interior design than simply making an office look pretty. The total concept of interior design offers solutions to functional concerns as well as aesthetics. For example, dealing with work flow — that is, moving employees into proximity with others they work with — is a major marketplace concern, said Stephanie Anderson, co-owner of Creative Business Interiors Inc. of West Allis. “There’s a lot more interactive work going on, with a number of minds coming together,” she said. When co-workers are on different floors, the separation can limit the amount of work accomplished. Arranging work areas so those who work together frequently are adjacent to each other is an ideal solution. Creating common work areas where teams can come together before returning to individual work stations is another. Mobile
storage carts and desks on wheels are perhaps the most flexible options of all.
They let employees change work locations as often as needed without But with team-oriented work philosophies and open-office concepts comes a greater need for privacy and a quiet environment. Acoustic tiles, cubical partitions and other barriers can be incorporated into a design, but sound masking is often necessary, Anderson said. “When you are in an area adjacent
to another area, and you don’t want others to hear your conversations, there
are a number of ways that is handled,” she said. — Jennifer Pfaff |
Today’s work force has different expectations than workers of the past, she said. Younger workers, in particular, are resistant to working in an outdated or unattractive environment.
And cutting-edge interior design gives the new generation of workers a wider base for comparison.
“You have a lot of people who aren’t just going to the same corporate home they’ve been going to for 20 years and will go to forever,” Thill said. “The work force, even college interns, has had a lot more exposure to different corporate cultures.”
Thill’s own office recently moved, opening the opportunity to newly design HGA’s work spaces. Like many businesses, HGA’s motivation to reconsider its surroundings was the need for additional space to accommodate a growing employee base and work load.
The engineering and architecture firm’s Milwaukee office added employees throughout the past decade and found desk space for them in piecemeal fashion. Over time, the work flow became disjointed as employees were spread between two floors despite their need to work together, Thill said.
“When we went through our process, our No. 1 goal was to get enough space that we were all on the one floor,” she said. “We looked at making a sweeping change but found that we didn’t really need one.”
But there was a desire for the company to do a better job explaining itself to clients and prospective employees.
“We wanted people who come into our office to understand what we do,” Thill said. “We’ve created a situation where work can be pinned up for everyone to see and comment on.
“It’s an updated look. We wanted to create a design laboratory feel, a backdrop to our work. We are admitting that we are experts.”
Helping companies communicate is where interior designers excel. They’re skilled at relaying these unspoken messages to employees and clients, said Stephanie Anderson, co-owner of Creative Business Interiors Inc. of West Allis. Materials used, colors selected and the furniture that’s displayed help companies put forward an identity, which is as important as functionality.
“The environment can make a significant impact on the culture of the company,” Anderson said. “If someone is trying to change what is going on in the company, the environment is a really good place to start.”
Easy as 1 2 3 Looking to make a change in your office? Sandy Weber, principal and interior designer with Eppstein Uhen Architects Inc., Milwaukee, offers three inexpensive ways to give your office a minimakeover. 1.
Hold a cleanup day and implement standards for individual workstations. Although
employees appreciate and are 2.
Reorganize. Periodically check the location of employees 3.
Paint. A fresh coat of paint, potentially in a new color |
Unfortunately, many companies find themselves sending an outdated message or the right message through outdated means.
“We’re creatures of habit,” Anderson said. “We get used to things, and we don’t see what’s wrong with what we’ve got.”
Companies looking to shed their skin can do so in dramatic or subtle ways, but they should keep their culture in mind.
“If they understand their corporate culture, it can really make a difference for them,” Thill said. “For instance, if you have a conservative culture but want to stay modern, you can use traditional materials like cherry or mahogany in a new way.”
Even the warmth or brightness of wall coverings can help brand a company’s work place and help with first impressions for interviewing candidates.
The staff at Acuity is counting on it. The company hopes to nearly double its Sheboygan-area work force in the next decade. And its commitment to its environment — everything from the massage room to the glass sculptures — is part of its strategy.
“It’s that attention to detail that really makes a difference,” Signer said.