Corporate world is entering space age
Shell’s pilot office redesign in Houston offers peek at future hybrid workspace
Darci Sinclair’s 16-year career at Shell has taken her around the globe, but not once did she think about the design of the corporate offices. It wasn’t until the pandemic hit that she saw what was missing from the office. Instead of working at the same desk every day, she could check email on her patio, move her laptop to the couch and then go on a walk while taking a call.
“For me, that’s the thing I really liked about working from home that I would want to be able to replicate in the office,” said Sinclair, who is based in Houston. “I’ve probably not ever stopped to think about how I use space in the office; I just sort of accepted what they gave us. I never thought, ‘How do I want to use this space?’”
That’s exactly what she and some of her colleagues are considering now. Shell is hosting dozens of focus groups for employees from Houston to Tobago as part of an effort to rethink the definition of the workplace. In Houston, Shell’s pilot program offers a glimpse into how some companies are redesigning their offices to retain employees and build corporate culture in a new age of flexible working arrangements.
Shell reopened its Houston offices in November, but adopted a hybrid model, allowing employees to split their work schedule between home and office. As part of its embrace of a hybrid culture, Shell is experimenting with new design concepts under what it’s calling its “Future of Work” strategy.
Over the next few months at Shell’s Woodcreek Campus in the Energy Corridor, construction crews will transform a floor and some common areas to reflect the new strategy. Based on
feedback from employees about this pilot design, Shell expects to expand renovation work to other areas of the campus later this year.
Lessons learned in Houston could be brought to other Shell campuses globally, which are also seeing some design changes to reflect the new ways people work.
“COVID obviously created a different set of opportunities for us as we really understood the ability for people to work virtually,” said Audrey Coe, workplace manager at Shell in Houston . “That's where we realized that the purpose of the office was changing.”
Digging deeper
While Shell was modernizing spaces before the pandemic, nearly two years of remote work gave the company a chance to dig deeper into the design process with employees and leaders from different departments. Now those plans are coming to life just as more employees start to return to campus.
To help shape its workplace design strategy, Shell has hosted focus groups to get employee feedback. Using virtual whiteboards, employees can mark up digital renderings, placing virtual sticky notes on boards and posting hearts and x marks on areas of a design that they like or dislike. As a way to generate new ideas , employees brainstorm how they might tackle a particular problem if they had no money or if they worked at Apple or Google.
Focus group participants then consider how different “personas” would use the office. Shell – which has 7,000 employees in Houston – has created more than 20 corporate personas, or hypothetical profiles of typical Shell employees.
For example, one persona dubbed “Anna” represents a millennial who works only 20 percent of the time in office and is extremely comfortable working with technology. Another persona is “Femi” a Gen X employee who spends 80 percent of her time in the office and prefers in-person interactions.
The focus group then imagines what a typical day would look for these personas – when do they arrive to work? How do they interact with teammates? How would this interaction be different online? What are the pain points in the workday?
“What I realized was how different everybody was in terms of how they wanted to use the office,” said Sinclair, who participated in the focus groups. “I want to go to the office to get to see my colleagues and have a conversation around a table, but some people want to go to the office because they have kids and they want quiet.”
Recognizing many employees aren't coming into the office to do just individual work — which could easily be done at home — the new designs play off the social connections that employees were missing at home, said Coe, the workplace manager.
Emphasis on collaboration
While there are still cubicles, the new designs lower the walls and emphasize collaboration. For example, space dedicated to individual workstations shrinks from 56 percent of a floor plan to 31 percent. That same floor would see collaboration space grow from 17 percent to 40 percent.
That means more open-office style bench seating with desks and tables where employees can work anywhere, plus informal areas where teams can quickly gather with easy-to-move furniture. A new “working lounge” and an upgraded cafe encourages employees from different departments to mingle .
An outdoor courtyard also turns into an extension of the office with shaded seating and tables — a nod to employees who worked on their patios during the pandemic, Coe said.
“We're trying to create some (places to get) people outside of their floors and their cubicles and just creating some of the more casual opportunities and other collaboration-type places,” said Coe.
Knowing video conferencing is here to stay, pilot conference rooms are upgrading technology, lighting and acoustics to improve the quality of video meetings. Phone booths are turning into video booths, featuring screens with integrated video conferencing software.
The renovated floor also incorporates phone-free quiet zones.
“It's an ecosystem now of the office and your home and the Starbucks or any place else that you feel you can do your work well,” said Coe.
The experimentation recognizes that the definition of “workplace” has changed. After surveying employees, Shell developed a flexible work policy that avoids a one-size-fits-all approach, said Trish Moore, vice president of human resources at Shell. Instead, individuals and teams create their own remote schedules.
The company is working with teams to answer: “‘What is the value of being together in the office and how do we shape that?' versus just saying, ‘Well, be in the office, full stop'” without flexibility, Moore said.
Under this approach, the office becomes a place for employees to access experiences they can't get at home, such as one-on-one mentoring, social events, food trucks, lectures and town halls.
“People want their time to be well spent” in the office, Moore said.
Some of Shell's workplace changes reflect broader design trends that other companies are embracing. Vince Flickinger, who leads the energy practice at global architecture firm Gensler, said the pandemic accelerated officedesign trends that were emerging before.
Wellness, access to the outdoors and community-building spaces are paramount, said Flickinger, who isn't working with
Shell but is helping several other energy firms develop new office concepts in Houston.
Making a ‘destination’
In the past, many energy companies placed break rooms in areas without natural light. Now they're placing them by windows where sunshine spills in. Break rooms are blending into community lounge spaces, which are blending into coworking-style benches, Flickinger said, enabling interactions hat might spark innovation and connection, he said.
Those interactions can create unique experiences — turning the office into a place where employees want to go, not just where they have to go.
“An office is not a destination (by itself ); a break room is not a destination,” Flickinger said. “But a community space where I can work, see other people, and get access to good coffee and daylight makes it a destination.”