by Jim Ware
It's now been the better part of a decade since Charlie Grantham and I participated in Corenet's CRE 2010 research project. That year-long effort, which involved well over one hundred real estate and workplace services professionals, produced a whole series of reports aimed at projecting how the role of CRE would change and what it would look like in the "far distant future" of 2010.
Obviously, 2010 has come and gone. And while many of the predictions that came out of the project have indeed come to pass, many have not. This is not a reprise of that study, or a "gotcha" exercise pointing out all the ideas we got wrong. Rather, I want to focus on the core message that we (the entire project team) produced: the job of infrastructure professional must become "supporting work, wherever it takes place."
Note how different that concept is than the traditional view of CRE and facilities management, which focuses on real estate, office design, and building management and maintenance. With that emphasis it's far too easy to forget about the people who use those workspaces.
Yet, as our friend Kevin Kampschroer of the GSA reminded us several years ago, the most expensive cost component of any office is the salary of the person who uses it—and that person's productivity has to be the ultimate measure of the value of the space.
Today, supporting a highly distributed and mobile workforce is actually a complex logistics function that should be managed as professionally as the military supports troops in the field. Think about it: the basic purpose of the Workplace Services function is (figuratively speaking) the "care and feeding" of the workforce. More literally, it's about provisioning the workforce for optimal performance and productivity.
I fully recognize that the physical facilities themselves also require "care and feeding," as well as specialized financial, real estate, and construction expertise. However, my focus here is on this critical workforce support and provisioning role.
And I believe those of you in that role can learn a great deal from the military logistics, or Quartermaster, function. Military logistics involves:
- Design, development, acquisition, storage, distribution, maintenance, evacuation, and disposition of materiel;
- Transport of personnel;
- Acquisition or construction, maintenance, operation, and disposition of facilities;
- Acquisition or furnishing of services; and
- Medical and health service support.
That list comes right out of the definition of "Military Logistics" in Wikipedia.
Business logistics, patterned after the military Quartermaster function, is "having the right item in the right quantity at the right time at the right place for the right price in the right condition to the right customer (that definition, too, comes right out of Wikipedia).
That perspective highlights the supply chain aspect of logistics: to most of the world logistics is about delivering physical things to where they are needed at optimum cost (think of transporting troops to Iraq and then supplying them with food, clothing, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, living facilities, and communication capabilities; or think of delivering thousands of parts to the right station on an automobile assembly line just as they are needed).
For Workplace Services I propose rewriting the business logistics definition something like this:
Workplace Services provides employees (and some non-employees) with the right work environment (physical, technological, and organizational) at the right time and the right place for the right cost, enabling the organization to achieve its business goals.
You may find it strange that I have picked a military analogy for this idea. Part of our research strategy has always been to find things that work well in other contexts and apply them to the problems our professional community faces. When we looked for organizations that face constant (and radical) change the military was an obvious source of ideas and inspiration.
It was relatively easy to see the analogies between the military's need to support and supply the front-line troops (and the behind-the-lines support forces) and the charter of Workplace Services to enable a widely dispersed workforce to get its work done effectively and efficiently.
If the proper function of Workplace Services is parallel to "military logistics," then the appropriate role in a business organization is comparable to that of the military "Quartermaster."
| Military Quartermaster |
Workplace Services |
| Subsistence (food and its preparation) |
Cafeteria, vending machines |
| Clothing and equipment | End-user computing; desks, chairs, filing cabinets; printers and copiers; AV equipment |
| Fuel and transportation; communication equipment and services | Heat, light, power: Internet access: Corporate Travel Office; interoffice mail services; contracts with telecommunications providers |
| Construction equipment | Typically outsourced to contractors and vendors; might include exterior landscaping |
| Ammunition | Generally not applicable (!) |
| Personal items | Office supplies; laptops, cell phones; employee concierge services |
| Large equipment (tanks, trucks, etc.) | Corporate buildings; company cars |
| Medical supplies | Safety equipment; first-aid supplies |
| Repair parts | Tech support; office equipment replacements |
Clearly the analogies are not perfect; there are meaningful differences between the needs of a military fighting force and a group of corporate knowledge workers. However, I actually find the comparison generally compelling, and highly suggestive of a much more integrated and more central role for Workplace Services/Workforce Support than we've seen in most of the organizations we've worked with.
Above all, both the military quartermaster and the commercial workplace services functions must be focused on end-user performance/productivity, and on ensuring that each member of the workforce/fighting force has easy access to the equipment and information he or she needs to be effective.
But how is this vision different than the traditional corporate function of workplace support and facilities management? There are several critical ideas that come to mind.
First, someone has to lead. We are suggesting that workplace services must be a highly integrated function, bringing together under one "roof" all the capabilities and processes identified in the table above even though in most organizations today those responsibilities are usually spread out among HR, IR, corporate real estate, facilities, and administrative services.
In my humble opinion the workplace services professional is in a natural position to pull these disparate areas together, and should be measured directly on workforce productivity and satisfaction.
And if you are a workplace professional I suggest you start by renaming (and rebranding) your function as "Workforce Support."
What do you think? Please send your comments directly to me, or post a comment here. I look forward to learning from you.
