8个Q&A, 专访ABW理念创始方荷兰Veldhoen + Company!

导语

本期，我们荣幸邀请到了ABW理念创始方、国际知名办公空间变革引领者Veldhoen + Company公司的亚太区合伙人—— Iolanda Meehan女士，为大家深度解读ABW办公模式，了解办公变革中的难点、误区，并为空间管理者提供大量实践经验，文末更有免费白皮书下载福利，一起阅读吧！

Q

A

DFocus

耘申科技

  

Iolanda Meehan

Veldhoen + Company

亚太区执行合伙人

01

Within the past few years, ABW has gained lots of attention in China. As the pioneer in ABW consultancy, what is your main focus when helping companies implement an ABW environment? 

在过去几年间，ABW工作模式在中国得到了广泛关注。作为此领域的权威咨询顾问，您在帮助企业打造ABW环境时的主要关注点是什么？

As ABW experts, whenever we are working with companies, we are looking at implementing a new ways of working. It starts with the “Why”. Why do people want to change the way they work? At the very core, activity-based working is basically a philosophy that drives the principles that people should be trusted, empowered and equipped to work in a way that is independent of time and location. Of course there are physical environment implications, digital implications and behavioral implications. So the main focus when we start working with an organization is to get them to understand for themselves why they would want to change the way of working. Then, once that “why” is quite clear and it is aligned with their business strategy, we can support them in their journey to uncover what would be better strategy for the work and the workplace.

作为ABW领域的专家，我们与企业合作时会重点聚焦于让他们推行一种新的工作方式。这总是从了解人们为什么想要改变工作方式开始的。ABW的核心理论是关于员工应该被充分信任和赋能去完成工作，并且不需要依赖于特定的时间和空间。这就涉及到物理空间、网络科技和员工行为这三大因素。因此，当我们与企业展开合作最初，主要的重点是让他们理解为什么想要改变工作方式，一旦弄清楚了原因并确认其与商业战略保持一致后，我们就可以帮助他们发掘更能改善当前工作和工作场所的策略。

The ABW concept study in Europe has been around for around 30 years. In the last 5 to 6 years, we are seeing more and more interest from Asia-based companies, especially China-based companies.

在欧洲，ABW的概念研究已进行了约30年；在过去的5至6年中，我们也看到越来越多的亚洲公司（尤其中国公司）对此感兴趣。

ABW的核心理论是关于员工应该被充分信任和赋能去完成工作，并且不需要依赖于特定的时间和空间。

Iolanda Meehan

02

Veldhoen + Company has implemented hundreds of projects globally. What industries are key targets for ABW Transition?

Veldhoen + Company已在全球实施了数百个项目，哪些行业是ABW变革的目标群体？

We’ve completed about 600 different projects globally in this last 30 years. I do not believe that any one specific industry is more suited to ABW than any other. Having the experience of working in various industries with organizations really allows us to demonstrate our worth when meeting  leaders in terms of their attention to their people, their talent, and level of autonomy that they give to employees and so on.

在过去的30年中，我们在全球范围内开展了约600个不同的项目。我认为没有哪个特定行业表现得比其他行业更适合ABW模式。通过与各行业内不同企业的合作经验来看，我们的优势能更好的体现在那些给予员工、人才更高关注度和更多自治权利等方面的企业和其领导者身上。

About 10-12 years ago, we saw big up-take of activity-based working in the financial services sector e.g. banks and insurance companies. And it was not because it was trendy in the industry but also the industry was facing fierce competition in regard to talent attraction. So, changing the way people work, changing the environment that you offer, giving a higher degree of autonomy to your employees became a way to attract talent.

约10到12年前，我们看到金融业、银行和保险公司大量采用了ABW工作模式，这并不仅仅是因为ABW在这些行业中很流行，还因为当时金融行业正面临着激烈的人才竞争。因此，改变人们的工作方式、改变企业提供办公环境、赋予员工更多自主权都成为了吸引人才的手段。

In the last 5-6 years, we have seen quite some interest from pharma and medical devices companies. ABW is not any more relevant for this industry compared to others, but again pharma and medical device industries were facing quite some talent competition, since they started to compete with the tech organization for talent. More pharma companies started to embrace activity-based working to attract the right talent, to retain them and to drive more innovation. Actually some of the leading pharma companies we have worked with have embraced the activity-based thinking holistically, and are currently running deep organization and culture changes fueled by the principles of distributed teams, empowered employees and trust – which are very much sourced in the activity-based philosophy.

在过去的5-6年中，我们看到制药和医疗设备类公司对ABW表现出强烈兴趣。同样的，这并不是因为它们的行业本身，而是跟之前的金融业一样，制药和医疗设备行业也面临激烈的人才竞争，因为他们开始要与科技公司竞争人才了。越来越多的制药公司开始采用ABW办公模式以吸引合适的人才、留住人才并推动进一步的创新。实际上，我们与之合作的一些领先制药公司已经全面接受了事务导向型的思想理念，并且目前正在进行深层次的组织和文化变革，这些变革是由分布式团队，赋权员工和信任的原则推动的，这些正是来源于事务导向型办公的理念精华。

We also work with government, institutions, hospitals and city councils. So I would not say there is one industry which fits activity-based working better than others. Because there is no one formula. The formula of activity-based working is very organizational specific.

我们还与政府，公共机构，医院和市议会合作过。所以我不认为有哪一个行业比其他行业更适合ABW，因为ABW方案没有统一的公式，都是针对某个企业量身定做的。

03

Speaking of the benefits of ABW, one of the major motivations for companies to pursue ABW transition is cost reduction of Corporate Real Estate (CRE). Are there any significant cost savings that have been achieved from your recent ABW projects?

说到事务导向型办公的优势，很多公司追求ABW的主要动机之一是降低企业地产（CRE）成本。在您近期的项目中，有取得这方面突出成果的例子吗？

I think you raise a very important point. A lot of companies initially think that activity-based working is just about saving space. And many clients did achieve 20-25% or even more RE reduction through creating spaces designed based on ABW principles. However, I would say that if you choose activity-based working as a means only to save cost, then you are not going choosing the path of least resistance. Because the easier journey to save costs would be either implementing a traditional open plan workplace strategy (and just give people smaller desks), or just using hot-desking approach to get people to share a bunch of desks.

我认为你提到了一个非常重要的问题。很多公司最初会认为ABW仅仅是关于节省空间，他们也确实通过基于ABW理念的空间革新实现了20-25%甚至更多的地产成本节约。然而，我觉得如果你选择事务导向型办公模式仅仅是为了节约成本，这并不是一个最少阻碍的选择。你大可以选择一些别的更简单直接的方式，例如传统的开放式空间设计（且给员工更小的工位），或者利用hot-desking（办公桌轮用制）让员工共享工位。

True Activity-based working is quite complex to achieve in an organization. It requires both behavioral change and mindset change. The transformation is more than just renovating and placing a bunch of work settings there and therefore you've got activity-based working happening. It's about what do we, as a company, think that we need to prioritize? Do we need to value more collaboration, do we value more focus time, do we value more creative and brainstorming between people? Do we value all of these? We should design our organization systems, processes, policies and workplaces for what really bring value to us. It is about, allowing and empowering people to make choice about time and location of their work. Additionally, to be  able to make a choice using different tools or to move to a different space to achieve the optimum result.

企业实现事务导向型办公转型是很复杂的，需要行为和思维模式的共同转变。ABW变革不止空间翻新或者引入一堆新设置那么简单。作为一家公司，你首先需要权衡重点，判断哪些问题的优先级更高，比如我们是否重视更多协作，是否重视员工的专注时间，是否想让员工之间有更多创新和头脑风暴等。由此，我们必须设计规划我们的企业系统，流程，政策和办公场所，以此真正为企业和员工带来价值。这样的意义在于赋予员工选择工作地点和工作时间的权力，同时员工可以在处理不同事务时选择不同的工具或者转移到不同的空间来达到最优化的成效。

So for those companies that came to us and said that they want to save costs. I asked them if they were sure that that was all they wanted to do. If they only wanted to do that, maybe it was easier to achieve that in a different way. But if they not only want to save costs, but also pursue a deeper change in ways of working to drive more innovation, more collaboration, attract more talents and increase the organization agility, then they should embrace activity-based working. This choice will support their aspirations with the right space needs and will also shift their the mindset and behaviors.

所以对于那些找到我们说想要节省成本的公司，我会问他们这是否是他们想要实现的全部，因为如果是那样，或许有更简单的办法。但如果他们不只想要节约成本，还想在激发创新、促进员工协作、吸引更多人才和增强企业的敏捷性等方面追求深度变革，那么事务导向型办公才是支持他们通过正确的空间需求达成企业愿景，并转换思维和行为模式的绝佳方案。

04

Generally, people resist change. As an expert of workplace strategy and change management, what advice would you give to facilitate a smoother ABW transition?

人们通常抗拒改变。作为办公空间策略和变革管理方面的专家，您会给出什么样的建议来帮助企业更好的推动内部ABW变革？

Yeah, you're right. People normally resist change. We're built like that. At the same time, I think people resist change if the change is ‘done to them’. So what I would advise facilities managers and workplace strategists is not to create a solution and then ‘sell’ it to the employees. Instead, involve people in defining what change will look like. I sometimes hear customers say, okay, now we've completed the design, can you do the change for us? I'm like, well, if you have already got so far in decision making and you have not created the idea with the involvement of your people, it is going to be an uphill battle because people will just see it as something ‘done to them.’ Plus you can’t really ‘do’ change to people – you can inspire, guide, support but the change needs to be taking place in the organization.

没错，人们通常不喜欢改变，人类本性如此。但同时，我认为员工抗拒改变是不愿意被动接受改变的结果，所以我给设施管理负责人和办公空间策略顾问的建议是，不要让员工被动接受改变，相反，应该让员工参与到定义“改变”的过程中。我常听客户说：我们已经完成了空间设计，你们能负责变革的部分吗？我会回答，如果你的决策制定已经到了这一步，且完全没有让员工参与到相关理念的共同发展中，那接下来的过程将相当艰难，因为员工会将其视为已完成的改变。更进一步的说，你无法“替”人们改变，你只能启发，引导或支持他们改变。但真正的改变必须发生在企业自己身上。

Firstly, I would encourage them to involve every employee and team as early as possible. Not in voting for the colours of the task chairs, but in defining the holistic concept: .why would we change? Why should we change? What are the business imperatives to change? What would be benefits? Do we see any positives? What are the negatives?  Have all those conversations very, very early on with as many representatives as possible, makes for a total different final concept and a total different discussion around the ways of working. Most of the time, even though people initially react with a bit of, ”Hmm, what is this?” or “ I don't know about that”, once they start contributing, they actually come up with brilliant ideas that make the overall work concept even stronger.

所以首先，我会鼓励企业尽早让每一位员工、每一个团队参与进来，当然我不是指参与到决定椅子颜色这类小事，而是共同定义概念，比如我们为何改变？我们为什么应当改变？哪些改变是当务之急？好处是什么？正面和负面的影响是什么？尽早与尽可能多的员工代表进行诸如此类的对话，这对最终办公方式概念的形成以及有关工作方式的讨论将产生巨大影响。通常来说，即便人们最初会对相关问题表示疑惑，但一旦他们开始贡献想法，他们真的会想出超棒的点子让整个变革理念更完善。

Secondly, in some regions, especially in the countries that we're all operating in, like China and Singapore and Japan, it is important to get the buy-in of the leaders. The leaders of workplace and real estate, can't (or shouldn’t) initiate or drive this transformation on their own. It needs to be very much anchored into the business leadership. Business leaders would be able to indicate whether the intention is to innovate more, or accelerate the launches of product. I believe the facility managers and workplace strategists should work from the very beginning with business leaders, with people leaders, with technology leaders to define that “why?”. Then the leaders become big supporters and hopefully role models of the transition that you're trying to drive and the success rate for such transformation increases significantly.

其次，在一些地区，尤其是我们目前在的地区，比如中国、新加坡和日本，得到各管理者的支持也很重要。地产和物业管理者们不能（亦不应该）独自发起或推动整个空间变革，这非常需要紧密扎根在业务管理者们的心中，因为他们能够指明其变革的意图是进行更多创新还是加快新产品触达市场的速度等。我认为设施管理经理和办公空间策略顾问应该在项目初期就与业务管理者、人事管理者以及技术管理者们共同定义为何要做变革，然后这些管理者们才能成为项目的有力支持者，甚至起到模范带头作用，这能够非常显著的增加转型项目的成功率。

The third thing would be to make sure that you have a project team formed from multiple functions, represented by multiple capabilities. You have to partner not only with facility managers or real estate leaders, but also human resource and IT at the minimum, and ideally with business, too. Because it is about transforming the way all people work.

第三点是，确保你有一个由不同职能代表组成的项目团队。你不仅要与设施管理经理或地产负责人共同合作，至少还要与比如人力资源、IT、甚至业务部门等部门合作。因为办公变革关系到每一个员工的工作方式。

Then the last one, I think you need to be very sensitive to the local culture, both national culture and organization culture. I have seen many efforts to drive change, take a rather Western world approach to change with a lot of focus on individual and individual autonomy. In our experience from working on a lot of projects in Asia, change efforts around teams and the collective values would work much better and way more smoothly. The new ways of working become THE way of doing things because team members support each other, they challenge each other and also give each other feedback. It becomes a team-gig and effort as opposed to an individual-centric approach to change.

最后，我认为企业应该注重当地文化，包括国家文化和企业文化。我见过一些企业花大力气进行变革，应用了一套以个人和个人自治为聚焦点的西方方法。但在我们很多亚洲项目经验中，我认为围绕团队和集体价值的方式效果会更好更持久，因为团队成员会支持彼此、挑战彼此，并给对方反馈，最后这种新的工作方式才会逐渐被整个团队接受。与以个人为中心的变革方法相反，它依靠的是集体的配合和努力。

05

What do successful ABW Transitions have in common?

成功的ABW变革项目有什么共同点？

I think there might be a few differentiators between successful and unsuccessful ABW transitions. One of those is having a formula that fits for that particular organization in that location. I've seen sometimes global organizations, they come up with the decision to embrace activity-based working globally – nothing bad about that. And then they come up with a fixed ‘design guideline’ that they then want to apply everywhere. But teams are different. Even if you have the same teams in multiple locations, the activities that those teams do could be quite different. So applying the same formula doesn't work all the time. We see that the physical space actually fails to meet the requirements and the needs of the local teams and their activities. The companies that do ABW transitions well really spend time in understanding the activities of the local teams.

我认为成功和不太成功的ABW转型项目之间会有一些不同的差异。其中一个是为特定地点的特定企业打造合适的变革方式。我见过一些想要在全球推动ABW策略的跨国企业。这个想法本身并没有什么错，但他们提出一套固定的办公模式设计并想将其应用到全球的每一个办公地点。事实上各个团队是不相同的，即使同一家公司在不同地点拥有一样的部门设置，这些团队的事务活动也大不相同，所以推广同一套方案很多时候并不奏效，我们会看到物理空间不能满足当地团队实际事务需求的情况。而事务导向型办公变革做的好企业通常会花时间去了解各地团队的日常活动。

Secondly, I would say the other big differentiator is the way that you're truly able to not only talk about empowerment and choice, but also allow people to really have it. I'll give you an example. Let's say that you are creating an environment that you think support more collaboration. So, you say that you want to support people to socialize more, but when two of us would try to socialize, there is the manager who passes by and sees us sitting together, and he/she says, “how come you're not at the desk? how come you're not working?”. What is that going to create? Such behavior it is only going to create the sense that we were told we have this choice but we can't really use it. We're not truly empowered because we're not trusted enough. So companies that are successful in embracing the true activity-based thinking are the ones that also empower their people with trust, where the managers, especially the middle layer managers, are confident that they can trust their people to do work and to decide on their own activities. Also, there is an open conversation between them and the employees.

其次，另一个关键点是企业并不只是口头上谈论赋能员工和提供选择，而是真正的让员工拥有相关权利。我举个例子，如果你说要创造一个促进员工社交沟通的办公环境，但当我们两人真坐下想要交流时，经理路过看到并问我们为什么不在工位，为什么此时不在工作，这些行为表现只会向员工传达他们有选择但并不能真实享有的印象。员工未被赋予权利是因为未被足够信任。那些成功进行事务导向型变革的企业，必定是能真正给予其员工信任的企业，尤其是他们的经理和中层管理人员，他们相信能够信任员工的工作，并让员工基于自己从事的事务做相关决定，同时与员工保持着开放的交流。

06

Mobility and flexibility are basics of ABW. How do you think digital transformation could help ABW in terms of that?

移动性和灵活性是实现事务导向型办公的基础，您认为数字化变革能如何在这两方面帮到灵动办公的推动？

First of all, when we try to assess what's going on within a customer’s organisation, technology plays a big role because you need to collect data around how people are currently working, and collecting data is important. You can do it in multiple ways, but obviously sensor technology and IP-based technology give you a lot of rich information. What is equally important in this data collection phase is to validate the data with employees, so that you're making full sense of what's going on. If an employee truly has a choice about where he/she work from and with whom, they should be able to have real-time data of the availability of people they wish to work with or work spaces that they wish to use.

首先，当我们试图评估客户的现状时，科技扮演了重要角色，因为你需要采集人们当前工作方式的数据, 这非常重要，也有很多途径可以实现，但我认为显然目前传感器技术和基于IP的技术能给你带来丰富的信息。在第一阶段同样重要的还有向员工验证这些数据，这样你才能弄清楚目前的情况。如果员工有选择具体在哪工作以及与谁协作的权利，他们应该还要能拿到关于其他同事目前是否可以协作或某一办公区域是否可用的实时状态数据。

Especially nowadays in the New COVID world,  a lot of people are indicating that they would like to work remotely for a number of days a week so I think technology plays a big role in figuring out if they do choose to go to the office because they are supposed to meet people there. Technology should help make an informed decision.

尤其是疫情当前的如今，许多员工表示他们想要每周远程工作几天，所以我认为科技在这里发挥着重要作用，可以让员工弄清楚是否需要为了见其他人而选择去办公室，科技应该帮助员工了解办公空间的可用情况，让他们能做知情决策。

Lastly it is about collaboration tools, and it is about shifting a lot of collaboration from potentially face to faces So we can choose to sit face to face and have discussions in the same room. We can choose to use technology to be in the same time in the same meeting, but also we could use technology to work and collaborate with everybody present there between certain hours. And if you start working in a more asynchronous way, you have to rely on technology much more. So I think technology is a super enabler and very important throughout all the ABW transitions.

第三是关于协作工具，协作工具使得员工从很多必须面对面交流的任务中解脱出来，现在他们有了选择。我们可以在同一房间坐下来面对面讨论，也可以选择利用科技在同一时间出席同一场会议，还能利用科技在特定的时间段与在场的每个人一起工作和协作。如果你想要用一种更异步的工作方式，你将更加依赖科技。如果你开始用更异步的方式工作，你就更需要依赖科技。所以我认为科技是强大的赋能手段并在整个ABW变革过程中起着重要作用。

07

Prior to new workplace transition, do you think office occupancy data plays an important role in supporting the right workplace design and high-performing activity-based transitions?

在进行新办公场所变革前，您认为空间占用数据对于合理空间设计和高效事务导向型办公变革的支持作用大吗？

For sure. I think you need to start at the very beginning collecting data and insight into behaviors of people, understand where from they carry out those activities and how is the workplace being utilized. Collecting data is very important as well as combining the data with the qualitative inputs that come from the users. I think, those two together make for a very strong start.

那是毫无疑问的，我认为企业应该在规划最初期就采集数据，获取员工行为的洞察，了解员工当前是如何处理各种事务，以及办公空间是如何被使用的。采集数据和将数据与员工的反馈相结合同等重要，这两者构筑了非常有力的开端。

For some type of data, we want it to be consistent, so we always do in depth survey of employees and occupancy studies. You, at DFocus are experts on sensor-based occupancy studies and we find it important to collect data regarding the activities and how the space is being used.

对于某些数据，我们希望它是一致的，所以我们通常会做员工的深度访谈。在借助不同的传感器来进行空间占用情况调研方面，你们DFocus是专家。这些针对员工所从事的事务和空间使用方式采集而来的数据相当重要。

08

During the past few months, COVID-19 is reshaping everything, especially the way we work. How do you think ABW can help organizations get through the crisis? And what do you think would be the new normal for post-pandemic workplace?

在过去的几个月，COVID-19改变了所有日常，尤其是我们的工作方式。您认为事务导向型办公如何能帮助企业度过这场危机？后疫情的办公场所又有怎样的新日常？

I don't think there would be one single ‘new normal’. I think that there would be multiple ‘new normals’, or we could be experiencing a series of ‘next’ and then we'll evolve from there to something else. Even before the pandemic, every organization already had its own culture and its own way of working, its own ‘normal’. Everybody had its own flavor.

我不认为只有一种新日常，我认为会有很多，或者说我们可能经历一系列的“然后”再发展到其他层面。即使在疫情之前，每家企业就已经有自己的文化、工作方式和特有的“日常”，每家的偏好都不同。

Now I think it is quite important that organizations pay attention to what their people are saying in terms of activities that they would want to continue to do from home versus go to the office versus work from somewhere else. But I also think that taking time to discuss and revisit the business and workplace strategy is important. we have seen some organizations immediately jumping to a conclusion, like cutting ‘half of their real estate in x number of years’. I can imagine that it could be the case if they have already thought about it for a few years, but taking a big decision like that in two months or three months might be a bit rushed. I've also seen companies that can't take any decision at the moment. They are more taking the approach to stay put and decide later on. And every bit of the spectrum is just ‘normal’ for that organisation. It is about the varied ways we react to the unknown.

目前来说，我认为企业关注员工想要继续在家处理哪些事务活动以及在办公地点从事哪些事务活动的意愿非常重要。也非常有必要花一些时间重新讨论并且调整业务战略和办公空间战略。我见过一些急于得出结论的企业，比如决定几年内缩减他们一半的地产，如果这是已经考虑好几年的决定，我完全能理解；但在两三个月内做如此重大的决策太急了。我也见过目前这个阶段无法做任何决定的公司，他们倾向于先静观其变。每种情况都是正常的，都只是我们应对未知的方式。

But I think in the future, we will see a much more tailored made approach, organization specific or even team specific. Again, it all boils down to the activities that you do. There is no formula that fits all. That is why I believe there will be no one unified ‘new normal’. And it is quite important to analyze it company by company and sometimes even team by team to reach the right decision that aligns with the business strategy. So it will result in quite a lot of models, but the general data seems to indicate that in many countries, especially in Asia, people do mention now that they would want to have two to three days being able to choose to work remotely. So I think that the concept of activity-based thinking and activity-based working can play a major role.  If nothing else, I think it's even more relevant now than in the future. Because if you start understanding the activities of teams and organizations, then you can design the workplaces and the third spaces in a more informed way and you can also decide on equipping your people to be able to do certain work activities from home as well in the best way possible.

但我认为在将来，我们将看到越来越多的针对特定组织或特定团队的定制方案。再次重申，这取决于他们各自事务内容，并没有统一的公式，这也是为什么我说不会只有一种新日常。按不同的公司甚至团队来分析并选择与其商业策略相一致的方案尤为重要，并且会产生很多不同模型。而相关数据也表明，在很多国家，尤其亚洲，人们想要有平均2-3天的时间选择远程工作，我认为事务导向型办公模式及其思考方式将发挥重要的作用。如果没有别的，我会认为这在现阶段比在将来更加重要。因为当你开始去理解团队和企业的事务活动，你才能以一种知情的方式去设计办公空间、第三类空间，或决定提供任何能让在家办公的员工能更好完成工作的方法。

文末福利

近期，Veldhoen + Company发布全新企业办公空间调研报告，主题为《ABW：关于可衡量成果和关键差异因素研究》，点击“阅读原文”免费获取英文原版电子书！

更多行业干货，请查看Veldhoen + Company官方网站：

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（ 该文章为作者原创内容，未经许可请勿转载。）

嘉宾 / Iolanda Meehan

访谈 / Gina & yuyuan

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