Kimball Whitepaper
Benching–An Important Piece of Today’s Workplace
by Terry Carroll, Senior Product and Market Intelligence Manager | Kimball Office
BENCHING IS RELATIVELY NEW TO NORTH AMERICA
In fact, it’s only been around since the early part of the 21st century.
The recent recession and lingering economic challenges driving cost reductions, combined with a strong emphasis on collaboration and increased focus on sustainable office design, are all powerful forces behind the emergence of workplace benching. The convergence of these three factors has placed benching in the spotlight as an important part of today’s workplace. There are multiple benching solutions available in the market today. For discussion purposes, they tend to fall into one of three broad categories.
Factors Driving Benching
Cost Pressure: Real Estate Efficiency
Prior to the recent recession, American businesses had begun exploring and adopting new workplace strategies. A 2009 Global Benchmarking Study by New Ways of Working shows that recessionary pressures are expediting the adoption of alternative workplace strategies. “Survey participants identified the recession of 2008-09 as a significant impetus for Alternative Workplace adoption.”1 New Ways of Working defines AW as the combination of non-traditional work practices, settings, and locations that supplement or replace traditional offices. “Successful AW programs incorporate Human Resources, Information Technology, and Corporate Real Estate practices. If AW is not supported by all three domains, success is less likely.”1 Workplace benching fits well into this new way of workspace planning and its rapid rate of adoption is being fueled by cost pressures that continue to be felt across corporate America.
“The primary business drivers of alternative workplace have shifted toward ‘hard’ economic issues—cost savings and real estate flexibility—and away from ‘soft’ employee-centric ones—greater work/life balance, increased employee productivity, and improved employee attraction/retention.”1
After personnel costs, real estate is often the second largest business expense. During the recession, as companies reduced their head-count and renegotiated lease agreements, the square footage allocation to each employee declined significantly. Global real estate services firm, Jones Lang LaSalle, recently reported that tenants renewing their leases often reduce space totals by 10 to 30 percent.2 In fact, real estate research firm Reis found that since 2008, companies have given up 137.8 million square feet nationwide.3 Leading design firm Gensler estimates that cubicle sizes have been downsized from an 8-by-10 foot area to a 5-by-5 foot work space—in other words, a 69 percent space reduction.4 In 2000, annual production of panel systems products reached a peak, representing 36.6 percent of all U.S. office furniture production as reported by the Business and International Furniture Manufacturers Association (BIFMA).5 Since then, systems furniture production has continued to decline. By 2010, systems furniture fell to
27.4 percent of all production—25 percent less than it did a decade earlier. Saving money, though, is not the only reason to downsize space. According to CoreNet Global, approximately 60 percent of workstations are vacant at any given time, because workers are either in meetings or traveling.3
“Today, business success flows from intangible assets such as ideas, information, and expertise.”
Collaboration
The way people interact and work is changing. Focused work is still important, but not as important to business success as collaboration, according to Gensler’s 2008
U.S. Workplace Survey. “Today, business success flows from intangible assets such as ideas, information, and expertise.” Gensler’s research establishes new measures of performance that make the difference in a global knowledge-based economy: the power of people and place to drive profits. The survey identified four work modes—focus, collaborate, learn, and socialize—that allow the creative and innovative power of people to be fully realized. According to Gensler’s findings, average companies are centered on focus work, while top companies focus on collaboration. “Average companies spend half their week in focus mode—21 percent more than top companies.” Top companies on the other hand, spend 23 percent more time collaborating than average companies. All four work modes are critical to success, but collaboration continues to grow in importance in a knowledge- based economy.6
Knowledge worker is a term first coined by Peter Drucker in 1959.7 Today, knowledge workers are estimated to outnumber all other workers in North America by a margin of four to one.8 Today’s modern knowledge workers require new workplace solutions that facilitate the flow of information and ideas. According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, traditional cubical-based office layouts prohibit a productive flow of information, taking knowledge workers, on average, 4.7 hours to get a response from colleagues and 8.8 hours to get a response from managers.9 In a society that runs on instant access and information, these findings are key factors to why the modern, cubicle-centric office design is slowly being replaced by open benching solutions that encourage frequent communication and collaboration.
According to Sue Kerns, a Principle and Director of Interior Design at Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, many companies, before the recession, had already begun eliminating high partition cubicles and closed-in office spaces, in favor of the collaborative approach. Kerns goes on to say, “part of that movement has been spurred by younger workers. A lot of it comes from how they’re taught in school these days. They’re taught to work in teams or groups, so that’s what they’re used to and that’s what they expect when they come to the workforce.”10 In a January 2008 report by IBM, “approximately 75 percent of CEO’s say that collaboration is very important to their innovation efforts, but only a little more than half say they practice collaboration to a large extent—leaving significant room for increased collaboration in the future.”11
“windows that admit daylight and provide an ample and pleasant view can dramatically affect mental alertness, productivity, and psychological well being.”
—David Hobstetter
Sustainability
Another driving force behind the recent adoption of benching is sustainability. In particular, is the growing emphasis on daylight views which can earn companies up to three Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-Commercial Interior (LEED® CI) points, depending on the extent daylight views are provided for tenant spaces—see below for details:
- IEQ Credit 1—Daylight and Views, Daylight 75% to 90% of Spaces (1 to 2 points)
- IEQ Credit 8.2—Daylight and Views, Views for Seated Spaces (1 point)
The points available for daylight and views are cumulative, meaning if an organization meets all of the criteria, it earns three points (two points for Credit 8.1, and one point for Credit 8.2).12 Based on historical data, 64 percent of all LEED Certified projects in California achieved this credit.13 According to Kerns, “research has shown that natural light is incredibly beneficial to people who work in an office building. As a result, design professionals have been trying to maximize daylight by pulling offices off the window walls as much as possible.”10 “These days, we see a lot more natural light, partitions that are much lower or not there at all, and lots of collaborative spaces,” said Lisa Zangerle, Director of Interior Design at SERA Architects.
“It’s not exactly new. It’s just the way it is now. What that’s meant in contemporary office design has been fewer walled-off offices, more open areas where employees can gather for impromptu meetings and, in some cases, grouping employees together in shared workspaces through a design solution known as benching.”10 New research by energy efficiency building consultants, Heschong Mahone Group, asserts that, “windows that admit daylight and provide an ample and pleasant view can dramatically affect mental alertness, productivity, and psychological well being.”13 A study by Eunice Noell Waggoner supports the increased benefit of daylight for older adults, which is important given that so many baby boomers are putting off retirement due to economic uncertainty brought on by the recession. According to Waggoner, “as the eyes age, less light reaches the retina, so that aging adults receive only a third of the light exposure experienced by younger people under similar conditions.”13 And old is a relative term. According to Dr. Rajesh Khanna, an internationally recognized top LASIK and refractive vision care specialist, near sight eye deterioration typically begins at age 40.14 “According to one government estimate, 93 percent of the growth in the U.S. labor force from 2006 to 2016 will be among workers ages 55 and older.”15
In addition to LEED certification, “maximizing daylight penetration to reduce the need for artificial light, which generates heat and consumes energy,”2 is another important reason to open up workspaces.
Summary
Today’s benching solution has improved flexibility, mobility, and easy access to power and data, which make it the ideal solution for a wide range of organizations and workers. Its ability to facilitate interaction and collaboration among workers, while improving real estate efficiencies and allowing daylight to flood into the workplace, are three powerful forces that will give Benching 2.0 and the hybrid panel-based bench staying power well into the future.
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2-11-2011
End Notes
1 Ouye, Joe Ph.D., Nagy, Gabor Ph.D., Singer, Bas and Langhoff, June. “Alternative Workplace Strategies in the Current Economy: Results from New Ways of Working’s Benchmarking Study.” New Ways of Working. Web. April 2010.
2 Vincent, Roger. “Office walls are closing in on corporate workers.” Los Angeles Times. Web. December 15, 2010.
3 Shevory, Kristina. “Office Work Space is Shrinking, but That’s Not All Bad.” The New York Times. Web. January 19, 2011.
4 Chen, Stephanie. “Goodbye office space? The shrinking American cubicle.” CNN. Web. February 8, 2011.
5 “Statistics: Historical Data.” Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer’s Association. Web. August 4, 2011.
6 “2008 Workplace Survey/United States.” Gensler. Web. 2008.
7 “Peter Drucker.” Wikipedia. Web.
8 Haag, S., Cummings, M., McCubbrey, D., Pinsonneault, A., and Donovan, R. (2006). Management Systems For the Information Age (3rd Canadian Ed.). Canada: McGraw
Hill Ryerson.
9 Laing, Andrew, Craig, David, and White, Alex. “Vision Statement: High-Performance Office Space.” Harvard Business Review. Web. September 2011.
10 Bell, Jon. “Office design gets spacey.” Portland Business Journal. Web. July 15, 2011.
11 “The new collaboration: enabling innovation, changing the workplace.” IBM Corporation. Web. January 2008.
12 U.S. Green Building Council. LEED 2009 for Commercial Interiors. Washington, DC. Web. August 2011. 58-61.
13 Hobstetter, David. “Daylighting and Productivity: A study of the effects of the indoor environment on human function.” The Space Place. Web. March 2007.
14 Goldstein, Sara. “At What Age Does Near Vision Deteriorate?” Articlesbase. Web. October 13, 2010.
15 Kochhar, Rakesh and Morin, Richard. “Recession Turns a Graying Office Grayer.” Pew Research Center. Web. September 3, 2009.