FRIDAY MAY 21, 2021

The Upfront

Kay Sargent Addresses House Committee on Post-COVID-19 Workplace

HOK Director of WorkPlace Kay Sargent provided expert testimony to the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.

In her opening remarks at the May 13 hearing, Sargent noted that this is an important time to be examining the future of the workplace. “In my 37-year career as a workplace strategist and designer, this is the first real opportunity we’ve had to rethink how and where we work,” she said.

“The average buildings stand for 70 years,” said Sargent. “Interior spaces are typically renovated once a decade. In other countries spaces are flipped more frequently, and thus can evolve and react to changes in a more timely manner. Your decisions will determine the fate of federal work environments for the next generation of Americans.”

Sargent described the need to transform the office from a place where people have to be to an ecosystem of spaces where they want to be. By offering choices about how and where people could work, the federal workplace of the future would be highly flexible and resilient to business changes.

There are three components to this next-generation ecosystem that will support hybrid work: the Hub (the reimagined office), the Home (for remote individual work) and the Spoke (a coworking center or satellite office).

“In this new work ecosystem, overall office space per agency could be reduced while providing more enticing environments and better experiences for their people,” said Sargent. “It would help address environmental and human sustainability and well-being, which will improve productivity.”

David Edward furniture company facility in Halethorpe to close

Kimball reports that its David Edward subsiduary will close their manufacturing and office space in Halethorpe, MD this summer.

Kimball International Inc. filed a Maryland Work Adjustment and Retraining Notification on May 17 notifying the state that the 75-employee office at 1407 Parker Road will shut down. A spokesperson for Kimball confirmed that the last production day will be June 30.

Founded more than 50 years ago, the formerly family-owned David Edward Furniture Inc. was acquired in October 2018 by Kimball.

In a statement, Kimball said that despite recent investments into the facility, "the current economic landscape has driven our need to optimize our manufacturing footprint resulting in the closure of the Baltimore location."

David Edward has historically manufactured its upholstered seating — which is sold in health care, corporate, education and hospitality settings.

David Edward’s 75 employees have been offered relocation options to other Kimball International facilities and that eligible employees will be provided a severance package based on their tenure with the company. The company has also held onsite job fairs to "help support their transition."

Kimball also shuttered another David Edward facility last year. In February 2020, the company announced it would close a plant near York, Pennsylvania, that manufactured David Edward's chairs and other furniture. About two-thirds of the facility's 80 employees were given the option to relocate to Baltimore, according to an article in the York Dispatch.

At the time it was acquired, David Edward employed about 200 people, according to reporting in the Baltimore Sun.

David Pitts, president at David Edward, told the Sun at the time that he was confident the sale to Kimball would make the company bigger and more competitive, ultimately benefitting workers and customers.

Pitts left the company soon after the acquisition.

Kimball said the collection will continue to operate as it does today, and manufacturing of products for the David Edward Collection will be absorbed by existing Kimball facilities.

Can Poltrona Frau make it big in America?

More than a hundred years ago, a Sardinian-born Italian army veteran named Renzo Frau took a liking to some furniture he had seen in England, and he had an idea: Why not remake it for the Italian market? Under Frau’s guidance, the chesterfield sofa’s brass studs, typical of British construction at the time, were replaced by gentle leather folds. Everything got rounder and softer. It was the stately formality of English silhouettes, given a sensuous twist. Poltrona Frau was born.

A century later, the company is an Italian institution, employing hundreds in its Tolentino factory, operating dozens of showrooms around the world and supplying the leather interiors for iconic Italian automotive brands like Ferrari and Maserati. However, as CEO Nicola Coropulis says there’s plenty of room to grow, especially in America.

“I would like [Americans] to think of Poltrona Frau more than they do today,” he says. “We’ve had a circle of clients and connoisseurs, but we never got extensively known, because our investment in awareness was limited. We were under the conviction that the quality of our product was enough. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly like that. You need to not only have the best product in terms of quality and manufacturing, but you have to appeal to your customers.”

Fortunately for Coropulis, the company has a connection in the States: It’s owned by contract giant Haworth, which bought Poltrona Frau in 2014 as part of a luxury residential portfolio that now includes Cassina, Cappellini and Janus et Cie. “Being part of an American group gives us the possibility of looking at the American market with American glasses, not only with Italian glasses like our competitors,” he says.

“Italian glasses,” says Coropulis, implies a vantage point on the American market that can limit growth. “[It means] doing the same thing in the same way, looking at the same clients, same distribution, same advertising in the same magazines—looking at each other as if we are the major competitors,” he says. “I think that American consumers know generally little about Italian companies. We have to look at those companies that are important for American consumers, for American clients when it comes to buying furniture for their homes. I believe that we should not consider our Italian peers as the competition, but Restoration Hardware.”

It’s the biggest design industry acquisition ever. What does it mean?

It’s the surprise wedding that will change the design world forever. Last month, Herman Miller announced that it was acquiring Knoll for $1.8 billion, a merger of two giants that will create a behemoth and reshape the industry. Swept up in the union is the constellation of subsidiary brands owned by the companies, ranging from stalwarts like Maharam and Holly Hunt to upstart D2C brands like Muuto and Fully (not to mention DWR, Edelman Leather and Hay).

Somewhat lost in the enormity of the transaction is the shock factor. For decades, Herman Miller and Knoll have been heated rivals, competing for similar customers and, in some cases, bidding against each other to acquire the same brands. The merger is more than simply a strategic alignment—it’s like the Yankees buying the Red Sox.

In the commercial design world, Herman Miller x Knoll has been the only subject of conversation for the past four weeks. The residential side has been slightly less riled up by the merger—but still, it’s big news. To get a read on the situation, Business of Home spoke with seven experts from various corners of the industry about the implications of the acquisition.

Furniture designer It’s kind of amazing news. Herman Miller is definitely having a moment, given the buoyant effects of its e-commerce business through DWR and the focus on residential sales during the pandemic. I think it’s part of a global shift towards consolidation, which—unlike the telecommunications industry—hopefully makes space for more innovation by allowing brands like these to focus less on their bottom lines and more on their strengths through differentiation.

Of course, both brands are historic American companies that have built global businesses, so it will be interesting to see how the merger impacts the rest of the family of companies, like DWR, Hay, Geiger or Maharam, for example. I, for one, am hoping to see more contemporary product development!

Cincinnati startup rethinks furniture design in a work-from-home age

In January, Cincinnati natives Nick and Will Jaroszewicz launched Porvata, an online furniture retailer that provides direct-to-consumer workspace solutions.

Two Montgomery brothers endured their cluttered workspaces for most of 2020 before deciding to transform their work-from-home environments into spaces conducive to wellness, balance and productivity.

Now, they are selling furniture to people who want more from their at-home workstation.

In January, Nick and Will Jaroszewicz launched Porvata, an online furniture retailer that provides direct-to-consumer workspace solutions, including customizable stand-up desks and ergonomic chairs.

Porvata is named after the god of the woods in Polish mythology; a god with no image whose presence is felt through the woods. According to the brothers, the woods behind their childhood home have always been a peaceful, balanced place to escape the hectic aspects of life. The company’s goal is to re-create that familiar calm in at-home work environments.

“With everybody talking about what work is going to look like in the future, a lot of people are going to be working at home at least two to three days a week, if not more,” Nick Jaroszewicz said. “In that case, we're going to need more than a kitchen table.”

During the first couple of months, the brothers focused on gathering feedback and spreading the word about Porvata to their colleagues, friends and family. Now, the company is beginning to reach a larger market. In April, the company’s revenues doubled and orders have since picked up to a run rate of more than 30 orders a month.

Herman Miller Launches New Online Retail Store Experience

Herman Miller yesterday unveiled a newly renovated retail website tailor-made for customers looking for a supported and seamless purchasing experience. Using more than 110 hours of customer research, in-depth feedback, and user testing from over 200 different participants, the site delivers a consistent experience that implements key changes built specifically to make a customer's journey smooth and easy. The refresh also features additional content that answers common customer questions – all key requests from those surveyed.

"Our new physical Herman Miller Seating stores have proven to be extremely popular with customers around the world," says Ben Groom, Chief Digital Officer at Herman Miller. "They address a critical need in our society right now: how best to improve our Work from Home set-ups and prepare for a more hybrid working future. For customers unable to experience these stores in person, our new site takes the physical experience and brings it into your home virtually. Building upon our live chat capabilities, our Performance Seating Specialists can video chat with customers to demonstrate products face-to-face and help them decide which products are right for them, providing a fully robust online shopping experience."

In addition to the chat feature, the site boasts a fresh new design, and enhanced storytelling content for products, designers, and the brand. It also features powerful AI driven product recommendations and a new customer-centric website navigation, providing easier access to popular categories like gaming. Heightened browsing capabilities have expanded filtering capabilities to provide frictionless shopping experiences and a new "Shop the Room" feature allows shoppers to be inspired by photography and purchase their own versions with the click of a button. With a design that has been optimized to harmoniously transition from desktop to mobile, every customer, no matter where, when, or how they are shopping, will have the same quality of experience start to finish.

What Is (and Isn’t) Getting Employees Back to the Office?

Some people love the office. If you’re one of them, you’re likely already reading this from your office right now. Others aren’t so keen, they see fealty to the office as a drain on their time, productivity, and energy. As the pandemic is coming to an end in many places, some managers are keen to get their employees back into the office. But, for legal, ethical, and social reasons companies are not able to force employees to return—at least yet. To reach workers who want to stay home, some companies are taking a unique approach to incentivize a return to the office. Propmodo.com rounded up some of the best and worst ideas attempting to convince workers to come back in.

Is it really the end of the office?

The pandemic has prompted many questions about the future of the office. Is it dead? Is remote work here to stay? Will we go back to our old ways as soon as a vaccine arrives?

Such questions have ignited a fierce debate among experts and society at large. The news cycle is dominated with stories of companies shedding space or shifting to remote work as a permanent option.

To those who ask me about the traditional office being dead, my response is clear and unequivocal: yes, the office as we know it is dead, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be reborn in a new and better way. It is, in a way, experiencing a renaissance.

Change can be daunting, and for many, the option to just ‘wait it out’ is an attractive one, but there’s one thing we know for sure: the scale, severity and duration of the pandemic has formed new working habits, set new expectations, and cemented strong beliefs among employees that will forever alter the purpose of the physical office.

For many companies, instead of a place where employees come to perform individual and task-oriented work for over eight hours a day, the office shifts to a resilient and adaptable space. A place where employees come as needed to touch down, interact, collaborate and ideate before transitioning back to remote work and individual tasks.

This blended workplace also requires a digital work environment that integrates team culture and connects people both in and outside the physical workspace. In contrast to one centralised location, a blended workplace operates as an ecosystem of remote and communal settings, all connected digitally. The office as we knew it is a thing of the past.

Majority of employers looking to shift to flexible work arrangements

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition away from traditional workforce models, and 56 percent of companies are expecting to shift more of their roles to contingent, project or contract work as a result, according to a new report by Randstad Sourceright.

Randstad Sourceright’s 2021 Talent Trends research, based on responses from 850 C-suite and talent leaders across 17 markets globally, claims that the pandemic has led companies to increasingly adopt a more flexible approach to talent while also still maintaining key expertise and skills within their permanent workforce to better adapt to ongoing economic recovery efforts. In particular, the survey claims that 77 percent of C-suite and HR leaders say their talent strategy is now more focused on workforce agility than ever before.

“As organisations embrace a more agile way of working during the recovery and in the future, simply engaging more contingent talent may not be enough. Companies will need to look at their workforce and skills more holistically. This requires nurturing a diverse and inclusive culture, investing in a consumer-like talent experience enabled by technology, and using market intelligence and talent analytics to understand skills availability,” said Mike Smith, global CEO of Randstad Sourceright. “It’s a chaotic time, but disruption often leads to transformative results, and organisations should consider how to take this opportunity to redefine work and the use of all forms of talent.”

Let's never go back to the office

I had my first officially normal weekend last weekend. I took a trip to New York, on my own. I stayed in a hotel for the first time in 15 months. I walked the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn without a mask on. On Friday, the day after the CDC cried out "F—K IT" and gave its blessing to the fully vaccinated among us, myself included, to freely roam about the American cabin without masks, distancing or pants, I’d say the masked/unmasked split in town was roughly 50/50. Everyone was cool with everyone about it. No one gave me any death stares, and I didn’t judge every mask wearer as some kind of ultra-woke hygiene theater addict. I ate inside a restaurant. I saw old friends and hugged them. I went inside one friend’s apartment, maskless, and everyone was totally comfortable. Rejoicing in a sense of earned relief. Earned happiness.

I know that not every other state has immediately conformed to that CDC mandate (California among them), but the die has been cast. If life isn’t back to normal yet where you are, it will be soon. In my case, this was the normal that I had been dreaming about for a long-ass time. So if you’re also fully vaccinated like me, that means congratulations are in order for you as well. You made it to The After, which begs the surprising question:

What the f—k do you do now?

How Art Gensler shaped the modern office

There was a time when nobody cared what offices looked like on the inside**.** In the 1960s, America’s architects were mostly preoccupied with erecting iconic buildings along city skylines. Few concerned themselves with ergonomic chairs, acoustics, office layouts, biophilic design, or other corporate amenities that we obsess about today.

The contemporary focus on office interiors is thanks to Art Gensler. The Brooklyn-born architect, who passed away on May 10 at age 85, first gained renown as an interior architect when he opened his practice in 1965. Starting with two towers in San Francisco, he proved how designing attractive interiors could attract tenants to newly-constructed buildings. The focus on a building’s interiors, which he called “inside-out design,” eventually helped his eponymous firm become the world’s largest architecture practice. Today, Gensler has over 6,000 employees in 50 offices, working on projects in more than 100 countries.

For an architect to focus on interior design was “unbelievably innovative” in those days, explains Andy Cohen, co-CEO of Gensler. Corporate interior design even had a rather wonky name: tenant development. “It meant that you were designing for the tenants or the people, not the building. At that time, no one focused on the occupants,” he explains. “A lot of the office spaces tended to look the same—walls, ceiling, and carpet.”

Gensler was dogged about designing for comfort and productivity. For a time, he was obsessed with office chairs. Melissa Mizell, a design principal at Gensler’s firm, described his extensive process to find the perfect seating for every project in a 2014 San Francisco Chronicle profile by John King.

“He had me call suppliers to pull every single chair known to man, so the client could try them out…We had at least 50 here in the office. Art cared about the chair,” Mizell told the Chronicle.

Why Workers Are Dictating The Next Generation Of Flexible Office Design

The return to the office has become the focus of an intense debate. Influential business leaders like Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon have made definitive public statements about bringing their respective workforces back to the office by late 2021.

But an equally vociferous school of thought is asking not when, but why return to the office.

Employees have come to realize that they can accomplish their individual work remotely, avoiding the hassle and expense associated with the daily commute. Instead, they now place a premium on technology as well as in-person interactions with colleagues. The future is a hybrid of remote and in-office work. When employees are at their place of work, it will primarily be to access advanced technology and to connect and collaborate with co-workers.

Employers have taken note of the office's new purpose. More and more companies and design firms are questioning the need to allocate a desk for each staff member. Instead, the emphasis is now on flexible areas dedicated to fostering ideas and teamwork.

In other words, workers may have more control over where they sit and with whom they sit each time they go to the office. 

“We’ve seen clients put out surveys to staff asking if they will return to the office and if so, how often,” said Aimee Collins, principal of design for Unispace, a global workplace delivery firm. “The drivers for people wanting to come back to work are seamless and intuitive spaces for collaboration and camaraderie.”

how salesforce, spotify and okta are redesigning their offices after covid-19

Months of working from the couch might have erased them from people’s minds, but despite the headlines about companies breaking leases and the rise of global nomads, offices are still central to the way many companies plan to do business going forward.

The office experience is likely to feel very different, though, as more companies adopt a hybrid workplace approach, with people coming in only on some days and working from home the rest of the time. However often they come in, many employees are going to be entering office environments that are dramatically altered. In some places, new design concepts are radically reshaping spaces and furnishings, resulting in plentiful collaboration areas, technologies that can guide the reconfiguration of desk layouts and conference rooms, and other more flexible, responsive, and adaptive features.

These transformations are happening now. Companies such as Spotify, Salesforce, and the online identity-management company Okta have had redesigns in the works for months, and they’re all devising novel ways of making their spaces comfortable and seamlessly functional for people when they need to come into the office. Their innovations in a few key areas provide a glimpse of what your post-couch work life might entail.

The Price Per Desk for Flexible Workspace is Declining in Gateway Cities

The cost-per-desk for flexible workspace is following a bifurcated path, with prices declining in gateway cities while increasing in the secondary markets that are attracting businesses and people.

While New York City’s Midtown market (-29%), Washington, DC (-23%), Boston (-22%) and Los Angeles (-18%) saw a significant decrease in the cost per desk, Phoenix (39%), Nashville (14%), Denver (11%) and Austin (3%) recorded gains, according to The Instant Group’s US Market Summary.

The Instant Group’s report also shows that during the pandemic, flexible workspace is moving closer to where people live—such as in the suburbs—as opposed to inside the gateway cities. For instance, while demand for flexible office space dropped by 14% in New York City in 2020, it rose in areas of Westchester, NY, Connecticut and New Jersey.

However, there could be issues with this drift in demand toward the suburbs. The Instant Group notes that a challenge will be whether offices in the suburbs will be able to service the increased demand and provide the space and services New York City workers expect. Further, it says that New York City is home to 86% of the flexible workspace available within this area, which means that suburban supply will have to grow to keep up.

Still, The Instant Group notes that flex space provides substantial cost advantages to tenants. In Midtown New York, for instance, it says that there are minimal declines in rates being passed to occupiers.

WeWork’s Demand Surpasses Pre-Pandemic Levels, Chairman Says

Demand for coworking space at WeWork locations has recovered, according to WeWork Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure, with inquiries from potential customers exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Claure, who is also SoftBank Groupchief operating officer, made the comment during an interview at the Bloomberg Businessweek virtual summit.

“Sales are back to pre-pandemic levels, and our sales pipeline is strong," a spokeswoman told Bloomberg by email afterward.

The comments came in the wake of WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani's assertion during a May 11 Wall Street Journal podcast interview that "those who are least engaged are very comfortable working from home,” a comment that Mathrani has since apologized for.

WeWork is seeking to go public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, BowX Acquisition Corp., a process that has raised a few eyebrows. In pitching the merger to potential investors, WeWork used projections and financial calculations that reminded some of the talking points that inspired investors to reject the company's 2019 IPO prospectus when Adam Neumann ran WeWork. 

WeWork's pitch this time around asserted that the company has over 850 locations and 450,000 memberships, numbers that seem to include WeWorks in China and India, which aren't part of the entity attempting to go public. Another possible sticking point is how WeWork calculates profitability.

ULTRALEGGERA 1660 Is the World's Lightest Chair

It’s true, weighing in at a little over 1660 grams, ULTRALEGGERA 1660 is currently the world’s lightest chair. It was designed by Oskar Zięta as a response to the lightweight challenge set by Gio Ponti’s design icon, the Superleggera chair from 1957. The minimalist ULTRALEGGERA chair is a mono-object, or a piece of furniture created in response to the challenges of the modern world.

Studio BV Gives Flagstone Foods A New HQ Rich In Color And Texture

Flagstone Foods is a premier provider of nuts and trail mix for private labeling for companies throughout the country. Their products are high quality and innovative and their business is growing and are focused on whole foods and natural snacks. Flagstone Foods’ new headquarters represents their product, people and stories of the places where their ingredients originate. This allows the clients and teams to better connect to the product and the places they come from.

Focusing on domestic and international sourcing, this concept will create a story rich in colors and textures of Cashews, Pistachios, Almonds and Walnuts. These nuts are the color tones and concepts for the material used in the project. Understanding the plants and nuts and the places where they are sourced will bring a depth of meaning to the space.

The rich new brand colors are accented by a palette of camel, creams, browns, soft greens and yellows as well as neutrals and features a mix of wood tones and soft colors to connect to the origin story.

The previous Flagstone Foods headquarters was co-located in a manufacturing site and was a basic office and not a place for clients to come and interact with the product and teams. The goal for the new office was to have it reflect their new brand image and be a comfortable and soft place for staff to work and to entertain clients. The space features a large café and kitchen for staff and a series of different collaboration areas and meeting rooms. A new and critical feature was a place to engage with clients in new ways. Creating a test kitchen for customer engagement and for product demonstrations was a centerpiece of the project. The test kitchen features a custom tile installation that is reflective of the origin stories of their nut products. It’s a testing area and work area for the teams. All day work sessions are possible around the product. The space features a roasting oven and full kitchen to support that work.

Why the Hybrid Workforce of the Future Depends on the ‘Geriatric Millennial’

The first time I heard ‘geriatric millennial’ I thought it was an oxymoron. Sarcastic, even. But as I thought more deeply about it, I realized how perfectly it describes so many of us. Geriatric millennials are a special micro-generation born in the early 1980s that are comfortable with both analog and digital forms of communication. They were the first generation to grow up with technology like a PC in their homes.

If they were slightly older, they would have left college to work for a large corporate company and their career path would have been set in stone. On the other hand, if they were born a couple of years later, the window to create their company would have already passed them by. They make up some of the world’s leading CEOs including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (born in 1984), Canva’s Melanie Perkins (1987), Reddit’s Alex Ohanian (1983), Rent the Runway’s Jennifer Fleiss (1985), and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky (1981).

I consider myself a geriatric millennial. And let me tell you, we’ve seen things. We’re weathered internet veterans. We survived DailyBooth, Friendster, and Myspace friendship rankings, and yet here we are, feeling incredibly competent at the thought of creating a TikTok or a Clubhouse panel discussion.

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