Workplace Innovation: Changing the Rules in the Legal and Banking Industries - 28 May 2009
U.K. Firm Creates Legal HQ of
the Future
NEW YORK CITY-The London headquarters of British
law firm Eversheds LLP was co-star of a CoreNet New York presentation this past
Wednesday at Manhattan's Time-Life Building.
Titled "Workplace Innovation: Changing the Rules in the Legal and Banking
Industries," the event featured Eversheds senior partner Cornelius Medvei
showcasing his firm's headquarters on London's
Wood Street.
That firm has apparently been successful at fostering a flexible workplace
culture through what could prove to be potentially revolutionary architecture,
design and technology.
Event moderator Phillip Ross, Cordless Group CEO, said the Eversheds
headquarters represents a cultural and architectural shift that "shattered
the ceiling" of traditional legal workplace design, a workplace where
individual-traditional offices were not part of the floor-plan. Also featured
Wednesday was the Australian investment banking firm Macquarrie Group's Anthony
Henry, who provided details on how his company is establishing new benchmarks
in environmental sustainability and workplace functionality at its Sydney headquarters.
In addition to encouraging workplace flexibility, Eversheds says its London headquarters
minimizes environmental impact and promotes sustainability. The complex
includes 163,000 square feet on its seven main floor plates, and includes about
26,000 square feet of green roofing, chilled beam air conditioning, sustainable
and recyclable building materials. The building has a BREEAM (Building Research
Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) "excellent" rating.
The building uses recyclable carpet; certified timber veneer; intelligent
lighting; recyclable furniture and locally sourced products and finishes.
Last month, the building won the 2009 British Council for Offices regional
award for Best Corporate Workplace. A spokesperson from KKS Strategy, the
company responsible for the strategic planning and briefing for the firm's
headquarters plan and implementation tells GlobeSt.com that the space goes on
to the national awards finals in October.
Speaking to CoreNet through a satellite feed from London, Medvei told the story
of how and why the international law firm, founded in 1988, decided it was the
time to take what might be seen as "daring" steps into the future. He
admitted, the design proposals went against the traditional legal workplace
structure. Instead, this created a physical workplace that stressed
flexibility, openness and more team-oriented approaches to work.
"In the UK
we've had open plan for some time," Medvei told the group. Open plan is
the generic term often used in architecture and interior design for a floor
plan. Usually, open planning makes use of large, open spaces while minimizing
the use of smaller private offices.
Despite the trend toward open space, "in London, we were conscious that no
other significant law firm has been able to go with open planning, or go
anywhere near it," and no law firm had been able to successfully
"adopt a flexible plan in its work structures," Medevei said.
Perhaps more pressing, the design changes would present an obvious challenge to
traditional law firm hierarchy culture. For example, associates in the firm,
close to partnership status, would no longer be aspiring to the private corner office
with a door, since they would no longer exist.
Contacted by GlobeSt.com after the CoreNet event, Medevei says "the
biggest challenge was undoubtedly changing the culture. We did it all very
carefully, over time by relentlessly seeking feedback, listening and answering
it and slowly." He says that eventually led the key influencers at all
levels of the organization to share their views.
Medvei says that leaders in the firm realized "we had to change the
culture if we were to succeed and remain ahead of the curve, as we believe we
are, going into the next couple of decades." Once the initial design was
in place in 2006, he went and talked to a number of key influences among the
firm's partnership to find out what aspects of the plan particularly concerned
them.
Among their worries: they would not be able to have enough quiet and an
environment in which they could concentrate and work and drat; that they
wouldn't be able to be confidential, price sensitive; the worry that deals
would be difficult to conduct and close.
Medvei also points out that the firm traditionally "trains our
young," to a very large extent, by involving them in conference calls.
Historically, those conference calls have been done in a regular office space
with a group of people sitting around a conference table listening in to a
conversation, participating when it's appropriate. The new plan proposed
participating in these calls from employees' desks.
Once the concerns were noted, Eversheds worked with KKS Strategies to figure
out solutions, one by one. Upon taking the solutions to the concerned parties,
at least intellectually, the reluctant partners began to buy into the proposed
plan.
Among the solutions offered: with the conference phones, give everybody
Bluetooth headsets, which Medvei says proved very successful and popular.
People are not only able to participate in conference calls without disturbing
their neighbors, but also able to move to and from their desk and around the
area near their desks while still on the phone, he says.
Noise from neighbors, clearly a key issue, resulted in the use of studio
materials and walls, including partitioning that helps push the sound upward
into a sound-absorbent ceiling. Most importantly, throughout the building,
discreet electronic pink noise is generated. This diminishes the irritability
because although you are conscious of other people talking in the distance, you
can't distinguish the words.
Site amenities include a restaurant and café, an informal space at the center
of each floor, an information services area and collaboration bench which is
wireless, a separate meeting room on each floor with comfortable chairs instead
of the standard table and chair setting, enabling more relaxed meetings, a
support service on each floor offering business administration and a business
lounge for clients to work in.
And since law firms often demand long hours, the firm also provides "sleep
pods" for napping or longer rests. Also, Eversheds' building provides 100
cycle racks; full shower and changing facilities; hundreds of lockers and
drying for wet cycle clothing.
On Wednesday, Medvei acknowledged that a replication of its London
headquarters might prove challenging in traditional United States legal culture. But he
tells GlobeSt.com that he believes "we as a society will all be having to
work more flexibly and thus productively in years to come."
Noting books could be written on the topic, Medvei expounds "we have the
technical capability through IT and telecoms to do so. Transport infrastructure
and transport cost--both financial and environmental--is such that we have to
find alternatives to going into our office to work and for our efforts to be
assessed by ‘counting the backs of our heads, i.e. by inputs rather than by
outputs."
On the roof the Eversheds building, bird boxes and insect habitats grow. Medvei
says that the company hopes species such as peregrine falcons, housemartins and
black redstarts will be attracted. A PA system on the roof of the building will
play birdsongs that Eversheds hopes will encourage species to colonize the
space.
