-- Intro --
Chris Moriarty
Welcome to Workplace Geeks, the podcast that is on a quest to discover, discuss and divulge the world's most exciting and innovative workplace research with the amazing brains behind it. I'm Chris Moriarty
Ian Ellison
And I’m Ian Ellison
Chris Moriarty
And we are your hosts on this workplace voyage of discovery. Now today's episode is the second of two interviews that we did at Clerkenwell Design week hosted by BVN Architects and Second Home a co-working space. Now Ian last time we spoke to Imogen Privet about co-working, why don't you let our listeners know who today's chat is with?
Ian Ellison
Okay, Chris. So, this week we are taking Workplace Geeks in a wellbeing direction with Dr. Jo Yarker. So, Jo is an occupational psychologist, she's a researcher, and she is a consultant specialising in health at work. And to do this, she basically has two main roles commercially. She's the director of an organisation called affinity health at work. And academically, she leads the professional doctorate in Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck University of London.
So, for this episode with Joe, we're going to talk about a case study that she undertook with a number of academic collaborators about essentially an organisational move to a new office for a range of declared reasons, including specifically promoting health and well-being benefits. And it's really interesting one, but just while I remember on affinity, there's a free evidence-based resource for professionals working in health and well-being so it might be very, very interesting to some of our listeners. So, I will make sure our stick that link up in the show notes, Chris.
Chris Moriarty
So now it's time to listen to our chat with Jo.
-- Interview --
Chris Moriarty
Jo, welcome to the Workplace Geeks podcast, lovely to have you here. Can you just tell us before we dive into the paper, just tell us a little bit about yourself and your role and some of the work that you do.
Jo Yarker
So, I'm an occupational psychologist. And so, my background has been very much focusing on how do people behave in the workplace and what makes them function well, and particularly around what makes them healthy and happy. In terms of the background of this paper, I think one of the things that you find from occupational psychology is you're focusing on those interactions, so much that we don’t really learn about the physical workspace and how people move around it.
And over the last five, six years, become so interested in how we can bring together occupational psychology with environmental psychology with corporate real estate, to really understand how we help people live fulfilling, working lives and thrive at work. And that's really where this paper came from was trying to think how do we bring together all of these different disciplines, all the different methodological approaches that come with that, and really try to understand the world of work better. In that way.
Chris Moriarty
The people were talking about is the evaluation of a natural workspace intervention with active design features, or movement interaction and health. So, I guess that's kind of nodding to that holistic kind of view that you've just talked about there about how all these things overlap, as opposed to I guess, other papers that might focus specifically on movement in of itself and look at some of the impacts of that. So not only did your title kind of infer that this is going to be a bit more holistic. There's also quite a roster of people to co-authored this with you. So, was that part of it as well bringing it was it other disciplines coming in and helping with this kind of research study?
Jo Yarker
Yeah, absolutely. So, I actually have a dual role as well. So that makes things even more complicated. But I'm a practitioner, I run a company called affinity health at work, which really looks at the whole workplace. And I'm also an academic at Birkbeck. And so, I have two different lenses, I suppose to every problem that we're trying to solve, and work really closely with colleagues at Loughborough University.
And that is always very interesting, I think, because we just bring different ideas to the table in terms of what might we need to better understand, but also, how can we measure those things that that we're interested in? And together with Stacey and Jen, who's also on the paper, we were just thinking, how do we look at how people change the way that they behave in new workspaces. And what could be measures that we could almost get away with, with the organisation as well. So often, you might do interviews or focus groups. But in this, in this study, we were able to be a bit more creative around the measurements that we were using.
Ian Ellison
When you say workplace evaluation. The starting point, I guess, for Chris and my thinking is when we do a post Occupancy Evaluation after a workplace move our physical space industry if you Like the starting point for us might be interested in things like how are people using spaces, which spaces are more or less occupied and seem to be more or less successful. Another thing that people are interested in is whether people are reporting whether the new space is helping them or hindering them, get their work done, stuff like that. When you say an evaluation of a natural workspace intervention, I think your starting point is different. And it’s very much health related, and it might be physical and mental well-being related.
Jo Yarker
So, I think some of the language is, you're really talking sometimes using the same words, but meaning completely different things, which I find is fascinating in this space. So, when we were introduced to the term post occupancy reviews, or evaluations, or even just the word post occupancy, I find that really strange because it's really, where are the people? And how are they working? So, the questions I'm interested in are quite different. And very much the work that I've done in the past is about how do people's experience of work change over time? How do we find ways to communicate better with our manager with our colleagues to really fulfil our obligations to work, but really manage our health and well-being and there's so many things around the way that work is designed and managed? That is challenging, that that's really where my focus has been?
So, the questions that I'm interested in is, how do we help ourselves protect ourselves from diabetes better? How do we ensure that if we have cancer, when we're going through treatment, we can still get into work and work effectively? How do we design our work environment so that if we have a mental health challenge, we can navigate that workplace in the least stressful way possible? And know that we can sustain our working life? So, my questions, I suppose, are much more around? How do we help more people work longer in a safe, safe and healthy way?
Chris Moriarty
That's really interesting. We've just we've talked, we've talked about post Occupancy Evaluation previously on this podcast where we've talked about the problematic nature of the language about and all the rest of it but covered listen to us talk about that. Your viewpoint is kind of people centred people in their lives and their experiences, and in particular, their health. And the time variable is based on them their journey through work and working life.
Whereas I guess what I heard there, when you were talking about post occupancy is, it's almost like the time variable is defined by this stage of the building, that it's very building centred. It's like, we want to measure this post occupancy in brackets of our building is suppose you're looking at, you're looking at it from a different lens. So, did you find that was that kind of how you felt then about when this sort of new terminology and language was coming your way? You're sitting there thinking? Oh, that's a bit. That's a bit odd? I probably wouldn't have looked at it like that. But hey, you know, let's go with it. Is that kind of did that kind of was that that kind of tension that you talked about?
Jo Yarker
In some ways, but to me the move is the intervention in that sense. So, the move could also be running a series of mindfulness sessions, or it could also be sit stand intervention. So, it's really thinking about what is the what is the intervention that is happening? And what's the best way to measure that in a way that really gives you valuable data, but also is practicable and executable for the organisation.
Ian Ellison
So, I think that's a brilliant way to take us back towards the paper, then now that we've sort of explored and clarified that, Joe. So, this was an organisation who were moving offices, there was an awful lot of people involved. And it was essentially a move across town, right? Doesn't matter which town doesn't matter which organisation because we need to protect their anonymity for the purposes of the paper. So just paint the picture for us then. So, what was going on? What was this context? What was the situation and then let's start talking about what you wanted to learn about it.
Jo Yarker
So, the organisation was one that had offices around different parts of Canary Wharf, which, as many people might know, was largely built in the 90s, I believe. So quite traditional office blocks with office floor plates that were large open plan, cafe areas, internal lift systems, which many of us where we've been working at home for so long have forgotten what that's like when you press the button. You have to wait for ages and ages for the lift to come. And hadn't been refreshed for a long while. And different sites were like that they had on site gyms, they had internal staircases and so on, but not in the same attractive way that we might expect from a modern workplace today.
And so, the buildings themselves had become quite dated. The work was very much different teams within the organisation will working in a hybrid way, so some of them might work at home because of capacity building capacity. They were hot desking it to some extent, although maybe more in policy than actually practice. And I think one of the things that was really interesting to see was in this move, the idea was really to engage people in more movement to embrace Healthy Working Lives to have a well-being at the core, and therefore move to a new building that brought people together and encouraged movement and connection. And so, the place that they moved to, was very much in green space, all new design with ecological wellbeing thoughts out there at the front and centre.
So, the staircases were open. And bridging the floor place, they had sit stand desks as a matter of course, they had lots of different social areas with pockets of workspaces for different size groups, as well. So, the idea was to really allow this much more agile space. And so, when we came in they, designed it already. And it would be wonderful to have a research project where we partnered with design organisations to then be able to run that through, but we came in and they were already underway. So, they'd started their consultations with staff to think about the design, they'd started that move plan, and we just nipped in at the right time to be able to, to evaluate before they got underway.
Ian Ellison
So, before we talk about the evaluation, because that's fascinating to get into what you would, how you design that to happen. The language you use in the paper, describe the ethos of the new building is, is designed according to active workplace design principles, which I don't think is anywhere near the same as activity-based workplaces talking about words that have different meanings. When Chris and I think about activity-based workplaces, they are workplaces with different types of setting for different types of tasks. What you're talking about here is a spatial design, which promotes physical activity, which gets people moving more, is that right?
Jo Yarker
That's a really interesting, an interesting question, because I suppose we knew what was happening. And we could see what was happening. And we talked about it in terms of what we were seeing. And in terms of actually specifying active work place design at the forefront, they didn't start from a theoretical point, and then move forward, what they started was, we did want people to move more, and therefore what does this look like. And I think that it's certainly coming into its own because we can see it as people with so many more mobility problems, we can see people with obesity concerns, we know that's one of the fastest growing conditions, we also know that movement, and lack of movement is a real challenge.
So actually, trying to promote movement in the workplace is so important, a massive percentage of our day, is sat our desk, and for those that are office based, it's often I think, around about 75% of our time, unless we're careful is sat on our bottoms, typing away, hopefully with an ergonomic chair, not necessarily. And so, thinking about how we can really propel people to take small micro movements during the day, but also have a reason to get up and walk and get that that foot count up is absolutely vital. So that was at the heart of it. And in terms of what that means for the workspace. There are so many different things that we can do now aren’t there.
So, we can have different workspaces across the building on different floor levels so that we can promote people to move around. We can have outside workspaces, we can have our sit stand desks, these beautiful high bench seats, all sorts of things that really prompt you or afford you if you're looking at affordance theories afford you to move as you're working, but without really thinking about it. So, the idea being low friction
Chris Moriarty
Am I hearing you right? That they had already kind of come to an idea that they would like to get their teams and their workforce to move more? And if so, what had driven them to that was it was it because they believe that would be more productive? Was it, was it a wellbeing? Was it a health kind of orientated idea, what was it that made them decide? Right, this is a central feature of this move this move is to go towards a more active workforce and a design that supported that.
Jo Yarker
So, for them and that's why it was a great fit because it was very much about wellbeing. So, well-being leads to good performance, wellbeing leads to good health, and therefore if we put wellbeing at the front and centre, we can do that by encouraging movement. We can do that through access to green spaces. We can do it through lots of different means. And so, for them, it was very much how do we support the health and well-being of our, our workforce and naturally, as a very desk-based organisation, thinking about how they prompted movement and connectivity and collaboration as well, with that was foremost of mind
Ian Ellison
When we talk about well-being it sounds like lots of those design interventions and tactics and setting up affordances for people to move. It sounds very physical was part of the move to this new office building. Was it also about new well-being? Practices, rituals, services, behaviours, that were to promote different types of well-being as well? Or was it mainly about physical movement?
Jo Yarker
So as with all research papers, you have to take the most clear story, don't you for that, for that one paper. And so, this one focuses very much on the movement, but absolutely interested in to what extent is the move facilitate collaboration, and connections and across in between and throughout the organisation, and that facilitates well-being we know that that good collaboration and good connections is linked to give a whole range of health and wellbeing outcomes.
So, in terms of what the organisation was keen on, it was the whole the whole package. So physical health, but also mental health and well-being and thinking about how that link between physical and mental health is so bi directional, that through creating these opportunities for movement, we can also promote mental health.
Ian Ellison
Okay, so let's get into the design of your evaluation then. So, talk us through kind of what you were looking to explore talks about how you then went about gathering data, finding participants that whole bit.
Jo Yarker
So, in terms of data collection, we were really fortunate because the organisation were very keen to bring us in to do that. We're also incredibly and fortunate because we had a really diverse team that had lots of experience of trying to raise participation in the organisation. And so, we worked very closely with human resources with the estates team, we had project sponsors within the organisation that helped us promote that recruitment. With all of our research, we're always keen to think how do we make it as easy as possible for somebody to take part. And so, with these survey designs, they were tested, piloted to make sure that they were quick and easy to do at the same time as balancing lots of items that we wanted to make sure we could draw on.
We also were able to, to, I suppose Springboard on some of the cons that they had going throughout the organisation, there was a lot of talk about what was coming up with the new design and how you could contribute and help understand what's happening. So that was, that was brilliant. And one of the other aspects that we looked at was offering a small proportion of the, of the sample of the participants to engage in a health check and also have this active pal sensor, which was placed on their thigh. And it meant that they would get then readings of their movement over a week before the move and after the move. And so, for some people that was really interesting and different. So, we took biometric measures, which we haven't reported in full in this paper. But we also had the movement data, where we could see how many people how many times people were transitioning over the day or night and how many steps they were taking all sorts of things like that.
Ian Ellison
So just to check my understanding then, so people were invited organisational wide people were invited to complete a survey pre and post Yeah, you had organisational literature about the move to draw upon. So, you had that sort of wider organisational narrative, I guess, qualitatively, you had essentially like a thigh-based Fitbit for a smaller group of people who fit the bill to be in that group. For some reason.
Jo Yarker
We were interested in anyone that came forward, so a random population
Ian Ellison
Okay. So, it was kind of like lots of people for the survey, a smaller group who came forward for the for the movement sensor before and after, and then also fitness screening. So, you had genuine physiological information about participants as well.
Jo Yarker
And we also not reported here, but we had interviews for this smaller sample of staff as well about their experience pre and post and we also conducted a building observation, so using the to, to understand what was in place, before and after.
Ian Ellison
So assively mixed methods, mainly quantitative but some qualitative or is it would you say equal balance? mixed method? Okay. Okay, so there were three. hypotheses you were interested in. One was the new active workplace design buildings are better than older buildings in terms of physical activity in terms of social interaction, in terms of user satisfaction, and in terms of design and outdoor spaces, so I guess that one's almost kind of validating that the new is better than the old in a way when it comes to active workplace design.
The second hypothesis was that active workplace design features will increase positive health and well-being outcomes for the users. And the third one was the active workplace design features will improve organisational health outcomes. So, things like for example, absence, engagement, job satisfaction, performance. So first one was about kind of does this thing work. Second one was about does this thing work for the users? And the third one was about does this thing work for the organisation? So, what were you able to conclude?
Jo Yarker
Yes so, for the first where we were looking at does this actually change, change the way that people are working? I think one of the things that we saw was that in many ways, the building did allow for greater physical activity did allow for social interaction. So, on many measures, that was that was great the building clearly afforded people to do things differently.
I think one of the things that was really fun, really quite interesting was that we didn't see any increased day use particularly to start with. So unfortunately, we didn't get to go back at third, fourth, fifth time, which would have been really interesting. But there was a trend towards people starting to use the internal stairs a lot more over time, once they were familiar with the workspace, but no significant impact to start with. What was quite good to see though is that it certainly generated that, that social interaction, so people were talking in different spaces, a lot more. So, from a from that that first space, it was operating in a different way.
Ian Ellison
So broadly speaking, hypothesis, one, the design features, the active workplace design, for most measures was having a beneficial effect both on movement and on social interaction, but some slightly eye raising observations along the way, like the staircases. So, what about user benefit, then.
Jo Yarker
So, in terms of user benefit, we found increased outcomes reported in terms of diastolic blood pressure in terms of mental health outcomes, which was really positive. So that was that was confirmed across a range of different wellbeing metrics, which was great to see. So, it achieved the goal of the organisation.
Ian Ellison
And then what about the third one, then the benefit to the organisation in terms of more organisation specific metrics and measures and interests.
Jo Yarker
So, we were quite interested to see whether the space afforded people to perceive their work demands in a different way, or to have more control over the way they worked, or to perceive that they had better support from their colleagues. And we actually found that those metrics were not really seemed to be shifting. And in terms of so we didn't see change in in those and job-related satisfaction. And we actually saw a slight dip in job performance rating. So self-reported job performance ratings.
And I think that's quite interesting. Because it could be related to the length of time that it takes maybe for people to settle in to feel that, that these things accrue benefits. I think, you know, with any of us, when we've gone through a period of move, we recognise there's a period of disruption while you get used to where everything is again, and you maybe don't feel that you're working as effectively. And so that might well be the case. I think one of the things on this aspect, though, is that the way that we work is so difficult to change and relies on behaviour change that it might take a little bit longer for these outcomes to be impacted.
Ian Ellison
And I think that was one of the things that was one of the big standout things for me is it was the recognition that sustainable behaviour change is a far maybe it's the aspirational goal, but it's also a far harder goal to achieve. And the things that you'd researched at this point, weren't necessarily pointing towards that yet. Would that be fair?
Jo Yarker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that aspect about the behaviour change being so much more than what the physical environment provides is absolutely key. And that's where the ecological model comes into its own because it helps us think about what are the different layers that we need to consider when we're wanting to see a change. We can't just provide people with the tools. We need to provide them with the training to use the tools, but we also need to provide the context and for them to really do that effectively. And I think that applies for the staircases. So, if your colleagues aren't using that lovely big open plan staircase, you're much more likely to get the lift when they're walking to go to the cafe or walk with them to the lift and go. If your manager doesn't really like you hot desking in different parts of the building, because it makes their life a little bit more inconvenient, they like to be able to see you, you then don't use the space in the way that you possibly would do.
Ian Ellison
Okay, so I think I'm starting to understand the ecological model now. So, the ecological model is a sort of a framework, which says, basically, any change is wrapped in maybe like an onion skin is kind of wrapped in other things which affect it, it's contextual, is that am I understanding that right
Jo Yarker
So, the ecological model talks about the individual determinants that impacts the way that you behave and the way that you feel and your health outcomes, but also the social and cultural aspects to it. And then the big built environment, and then policy and organisational factors that might wrap around the edge. And what you can do with some nifty stats, or though I'm in the team, I'm not the statistician, that you can see which aspects of these are predictive of those outcomes and which ones play a role.
Ian Ellison
So, it's recognising that any change is wrapped in other contexts, right. And they all play a role. And it's very hard to separate them out. It's quite interesting, because you know, four people in a particular industry with a vested interest, and that might be space, or it might be something else. You see, a lot of people stood on podiums claiming that if you do this x will happen. But the ecological model says, not necessarily, because these things are multifaceted workplaces can't complicated.
The two other things I was really interested in from a sort of technical research perspective, if you like Jo was one with a piece of research like this. What sort of ethical considerations when you're talking about people having health screening and wearing thigh based fit bits or whatever they were and stuff like that. The other one that I'm interested about is when you have a really large population and organisation, and you end up with a really small subset taking part in the study, or might not be really small, but small subset taking part in the study? How can you be confident? How is it that researchers are able to go, that's a finding which is valid, I can be confident that that's the case
Jo Yarker
In terms of the ethics is always at the fore and this is often a challenge, isn't it with organisational research, where you're the organisation wants to know what's going on? And if there's anything that that is perhaps unexpected or of concern. But voluntary participation, I think is always very, very important, particularly if it's not business as usual. So, I think that that aspect of should it be voluntary? Should it be part of some mandatory process is always a really difficult one. Ethically, my preference is for it to be voluntary. Although I think there are elements of work that we can gather information on that that can be done in a mandatory way.
So for this study, it was very much voluntary participation, and ensuring that everyone had confidentiality assured, so across everyone had a code that they generated themselves, to relate to the data, which allowed us to then match the data up across the different sources, we're very hot on ensuring that all of our databases have anonymous data in and were called participant details are kept there in a secure password protected files and all those little things, you have to be really very careful on and then it in terms of the feedback, I think that's important when we're thinking about ethics as well.
So only feeding back when you're looking at the group level, as opposed to individual or small groups. So those are the ethical concerns. And then in terms of is it representative, it's the Holy Grail, isn't it in terms of have we got quite enough, and I think in terms of our sample, we had a real spread of men and women, people across different age groups, people that were working in different parts of the organisation. And we're very careful to report back on the demographic of who had participated and map that against what what was done within the organisation. So is it representative and sometimes it is and sometimes in studies it's not, you can only report on what you've got and note that as a caution
Ian Ellison
And in this case, it was and so you were able to with some confidence, say hypothesis one tick or cross hypothesis to tick or cross because it represent it was representative.
Jo Yarker
Absolutely. And I think though with things like this, it's very difficult to be absolutely sure. Because if you're looking at something like movement, you can be only absolutely sure if you've got people from that same work group that are doing the same jobs, or commuting in the same distance, and so on, which is something that's too impossible to match. And so, as far as is reasonably practicable, we can make some good assumptions.
Ian Ellison
Yes, you can't have a perfect laboratory experiment in the real world and those holy grails of finding the perfect natural experiment, they are not always easy. So, you do what you can, and you use statistical methods to defy the degree to which and stuff like that things are valid, right?
Chris Moriarty
What are the bits I found really interesting is that section of the paper where you've kind of got to critically evaluate your own study and say, you know, these are some of the limitations with it that we know, and we recognise them we accept? And it felt to me that a lot of that was the fact that there was a real company with real people doing real jobs. And in particular, something like, you know, there was no control group. So, you can't say, we did this for this group, and that for this group, and this group performs statistically above the control group, therefore, we can see there's a difference, because I guess, how do you explain to an organisation that you're going to purposefully put a section of their workforce through a sub optimal experience, just to prove a point?
Because those guys have got jobs to do? So? Did you find a lot of that in there, because the other one already shouted out to me is that there's some like, really straightforward reasons people might not been so inclined to move in the old building were, to my shock and horror, I read the sentence that they had no Wi Fi in the previous building, which I could scarcely believe. But that will be a limiting factor. So, there's kind of like really obvious practical kind of reasons why moving towards a new building, even I guess, without active design built into it might have encouraged more movement. So how do you sift through that the fact that there's a study, you're trying to isolate stuff, but it's difficult because it's messy? Because it's real? And you're not in the lab? How do you kind of how do you navigate that, as a research team
Jo Yarker
I suppose to me, that's what keeps it interesting and fascinating, because you can never isolate any of these things. And you just have to think very hard about how you observe those changes. And also, how you best reflect, honestly, what you've done and what you can make assumptions on. And so, I suppose in terms of that, that question about a control group, I always have a wrestle. So, I would see myself kind of sitting in that pracademic, so practitioner and an academic, and a lot of my research is in health and well-being and they love a, an RCT, they love a control group. And in reality, that's not what you can do a lot of the time, and it doesn't feel it doesn't sit well in a practitioner point of view, to me to not afford somebody a return to work intervention, for example, or a sit stand desk, if that's available.
And so, I think that the control group is an interesting one. And increasingly, what we see from research like real world designs, when we look at process evaluation, there's a real emphasis to accept that RCTs and control designs are really valuable. But also understanding the process and understanding what works for whom, when is absolutely vital when you're looking at practice. And so that's really where I sit is trying to understand that practice element of it. And that's where mixed methods are so important. So, accompanying all of this with the interviews, which we haven't reported here, but gave such rich insights into how and when some of these things were used is really valuable.
Chris Moriarty
I guess to your point there though, the stories behind this isn't that there's kind of very real stories where some stuff might start to creep out. The one again, kind of caught my attention was this use of lifts because I remember years ago, been in the workplace of quite a well-known brand, and they were very proud of their step jockey stickers all up the stairs, and they were encouraging people to use the stairs and all the rest of it and sort of in the corner. At the corner of his mouth. The guy that ran the workplace leader there said to me, the real reason, we really want to focus on getting people up the stairs because the lifts take ages to get up and down.
So, the more people that use it, the longer that's going to take as well is slightly exacerbating the problem. Now I'm sure that there was very philanthropic views of that but really the driver initially was get people out the lifts and get them using the stairs that's a solution to our lift problem. And I kind of thought that as well. You know, you've got things like with a new building with a fresh lift in it that zips up and down versus one that might be a bit clunky and take a bit of time and might be a bit claustrophobic. Yeah, there's all these sorts of factors but I guess you that's the that's the argument for qualitative stuff, isn't it? Because it's you don't get to the kind of nuance and kind of granular stories of individuals and their real-world experience if you're just using one methodology to capture some insights.
Jo Yarker
Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose two things been to mind there is one is the qualitative stuff is so great, because it does provide that rich understanding of why things were happening. So, one of our participants we saw was walking, loads more post move, we thinking, this is great, you know, you're working, you're walking much more on your commute. And you seem to be, you know, much more mobile. And that's wonderful. And then we found in the interview that she was saying, oh, you know, I really don't like walking the route to work from the tube station, because it's just so different to how I used to get to work, the kinds of people what they're doing is much more busy and different.
And so, I navigate my way through this kind of stream of underground car parks, really thinking, wow, this is really interesting. So as a benefit to your movement, but you're not in daylight, and you're making an active choice, because to you that's more comfortable to, to walk in a different way. And I think these sorts of things are really valuable to understand, because sometimes you can think something is brilliant. And actually, it really isn't, or vice versa, you can think that something isn't useful. But actually, it's not useful in that context, because it's not being done in collaboration with something else. And so, having a process evaluation and diving deep is so important to understanding the full picture.
But I think alongside that is really important to have this broad view. So, I feel so fortunate that I bridge so many different disciplines and work with people who sit in other spaces, because then you can understand the whole picture. And if I just looked through my occupational psychology lens, it would be so narrow, and I wouldn't be thinking about a physical movement. And I wouldn't be thinking about the desk design, or the floor plate, and so on. And so, having lots of different perspectives, I think encourages you to really consider what role every element has, and try and isolate that, and the shared contribution as well.
Chris Moriarty
Having done this work, and I know it was done some time ago. So, things may have happened since but having done this work. What would you take forward? What are the ideas that kind of came out of this work that made you go, Oh, I'd like to go into that in more depth, or I'd like to try that. Somewhere else? I'd like to do a piece of research and focus fully on this bit that I haven't quite scratched it. My curiosity is up. But I haven't really gotten to it what bits really kind of piqued your interest?
Jo Yarker
Are there so many? So, I think first of all, it would be wonderful to be there at the beginning, to really understand the rationale and the different stakeholder needs. I think that when we're thinking about new building designs, there's so many voices in the room aren't there, but they're not always in the same room at the same time. And so, understanding the HR perspective, the employee voices, the designer, the contractor, that's, that's building all of those different perspectives, from the start to see how that journey wiggles to the end point of the employees moving in, and then how they use it in the long term, I think would be really interesting.
I think, as we mentioned, we only evaluated after the move once. But having an opportunity to see how that evolved would be fascinating. Do people change their habits? How does that work? And then on a more granular level, I think really diving to see how colleague interventions and manager interventions can change the way that people use buildings and use that space, and what impact that then has for performance outcomes and health and well-being outcomes as well.
Ian Ellison
Can I ask one last question is sitting the new smoking? Or not? Because I'm slightly allergic to that phrase, but is there substance in it? Is it just terribly presented? Or is it genuinely true? And do I have to eat humble pie?
Jo Yarker
So, there's, there is some growing research and some really great research that shows a relationship between the amount and I'm terrible on the detail but the amount that you're sitting and the number of transitions that you're making, transitions, transitions, yeah, getting up and sitting back down. So, it's not great for you to stand all day either. And it's not great for you to stand for long, long periods of time. But actually, those transitions and generating the movement is what's really helpful. And that movement is brilliant for your mental health and your physical health.
-- Reflection Section --
Chris Moriarty
So, we are not joined today by James because he is on a whittling course in Dumfries and Galloway. So he can't join us to give us his deep insights that we're used to but we are joined by an equal if not better replacement than James Pinder Esme Banks Marr of BVN architects, Hello Esme ow Ian and I know you very well, but for those of you don't know, you just tell us a little bit about the work you've done and the work that you do.
Esme Banks Marr
Hi, Chris. Hi Ian. Hello everybody. Um, Esme, I worked for BBN strategy director of work in place for our Europe studio. Before that, though, I worked at Leesman. Before that I worked for the work Tech Academy. And before that I worked for magenta associates who are a comms and PR agency that specialises in the built environment. And that is where I kind of started my love affair with workplace and facilities management and architecture and design and corporate real estate.
Chris Moriarty
So, you have been around, I mean, it's getting the best part of what, six, seven years that you've been, then, I think seven, in and around, so you are well versed in the world of workplace. So, having listened to our interview with Jo, what were the three things that really jumped out at you as someone in and around this space listening to an academic like Jo talk about her work?
Esme Banks Marr
Personally, I'm really interested in where theory meets practice. That's a huge part of my role at BVN part of my role is to basically listen to contribute to and share workplace intelligence with our other studios. So, we have huge studio in Sydney, one in Brisbane, one in New York. And I'm kind of the person who knits it all together in terms of the workplace intelligence and what's going on at the moment. So, I love listening to Jo's episode, the first thing that really struck a chord, but she kicked off by saying, it's all about bringing together different disciplines and methodological approaches to better understand work. And I thought we all preach this. And we've all been saying this for years, I used to write some of what people were saying about this, but like, to be perfectly honest, still haven't really seen that happening across the board. And I do think it's so key. So, it's just really great to hear a kick starting the whole thing as an occupational psychologist saying that.
Ian Ellison
So, what do you think the barriers have to that? So, if everybody talks about its value, everybody talks about his virtues? And I guess this is question for all three of us, not just not just putting you on the spot Esme, but it are the barriers, political are the barriers about connections, they shouldn't be theoretically, these days with LinkedIn and whatnot, are the barriers about, I don't know, Bubbles, that people stick within other barriers about structure in that you can't get across boundaries. Why don't we if we I mean, because it's not the first time on this podcast that we've said the virtues of interdisciplinary work. So, what's going on?
Esme Banks Marr
I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it anyway, since working for BVN, I have noticed that the well the light has been shown on how siloed the I'm gonna say European, but especially the UK Marrket is when it comes to workplace. There is a consultant for everything, which I think is a really important useful thing that you have experts. But I just think rarely, it gets translated between different parts of a project, any workplace project, and from what I've seen in Australia, and some of the projects that BVN Stan, other practices have done. It does operate slightly differently there.
There's nobody knitting it all together. And I think I don't know why. I think it's systemic, and it is political people hold on to their specialisms too much. We all preach the fact that we're co-creators, but I just, yeah, that doesn't really answer your question, though, as to why, but
Ian Ellison
Are you saying that you've seen it done in a better way beyond the borders of our little island?
Esme Banks Marr
Oh, again, that's quite tricky to say better, just different. I think architects are viewed very differently, actually, as they are in the UK
Chris Moriarty
I've got a hot take on this, right. And here's a hot take, I've got no evidence whatsoever, which is a terrible thing to say out loud on this podcast, I've got no evidence at all for this. But prior to this new world that I'm in at the moment, I spent 20 years in professional bodies. And I did lots of work with professional bodies. And I would also say that professional bodies as we know them as chartered organisations, or royal societies are quite distinctly British thing is that, you know, it's a real kind of British institution, it doesn't really translate. You know, when you go to Marrkets like America and stuff, they don't quite do it in the same way as us, and what professional bodies at their core about competencies and skills and qualifications and the various different labels and badges that they like to give themselves to say, I can do X, Y, and Z.
And I was talking to someone once. And this isn't just about the built environment, necessarily, but it's definitely focused on that. But this is the true this is true of Marrketing, where I spent a lot of my time or CIPD, or wherever it might be, is that I kind of got this sense that we spend an individual spend years upon years training and learning a very specific vertical set of skills within a professional business landscape or, or industry landscape like the built environment.
And with that, I kind of feel like you end up with like a lingo, with a kind of set of ideals and stuff that are very specific to your group. And I think it becomes cultural in that you kind of get a bit protectionist about that qualification you got. You don't get to come in here and tell me that because I've spent seven years getting all these letters after my name, you know, stay in your lane because I've trained to be in this lane. And I don't think it's conscious. I don't think people are like overtly doing that sort of stuff. But it kind of feels to me that you've got to, in some way, justify all that training by being quite closed shop in the work that you do. And I think that's always been my kind of hot take on something like that.
Esme Banks Marr
I completely hear what you're saying, Chris. But then this is not what I've seen recently. So, architects spend 7, 8, 9 years training, that's a registered profession, and they do hold on to it. And I think I'm, you know, well within my rights to say that because rightfully so. But what I've experienced recently over the last six, seven months, and in the bubble that I'm in the kind of BVN bubble, but they are big on cocreation.
And genuinely so is they're actually the ones who might do more of the knitting together, but definitely believe that they do need to pull in those experts there. Okay, holding on to their bit, but they, and by they, I mean, me as well. Dr. Jo Yaker is an incredible, hopefully co-creator or co-collaborator of ours, because we understand the value of having a psychologist in the room and beyond what it was a couple years ago, which was isn't it great to paint meeting rooms blue.
So, I completely get what you're saying. And I think there's probably something in that. But yeah, it's It shocked me recently working with architects who absolutely should feel like that, and I think they do. But they're also open to their co creation.
Chris Moriarty
The ideal would be that people are able to bring together multi-disciplinary thinking into their work, I guess, is what we're saying, you know, Jo's doing it with her research, but we're saying that how does that come to work? And, again, going back to my experience in Marrketing, one of the challenges that we saw as a profession with Marrketing, and I think this can be put across lots of different professions is that so many elements of the work that we do is become so complex and detailed that it developing specialisms within professional umbrellas, right? So, let's take Marrketing as I work, in example, you've got social media, you've got PR, you've got advertising, you've got website design, you've got all these elements, which in the past would have just been under the big broad hat of Marrketing.
But over time, they themselves have become so professionalised, that they are becoming specialisms, that people train specifically for and would say that they're in Marrketing, but they do something very specific. What the Institute of Marrketing was started to be concerned about when looking at this is what worrying about was looking at the role of generalists. And the fact that generalists were starting to disappear. And that meant that there was going to be they predicted there was going to be this talent gap, when you get into more senior roles where you've got to oversee all this stuff. Now, I know it's not like for like what we're talking about. But I just wonder whether there's, I mean, it kind of drags us closely to this kind of Chief workplace officer type idea, which was kind of a layer that sits across a lot of these very distinct specialisms and is able to stitch the whole thing together.
Esme Banks Marr
In a weird way. I don't think there's anything wrong with generalist as long as they know when to invite other people to the table. And I think the whole when we are talking about workplace when we're talking about the idea of your social contract, with work being rewritten, and the sociological, anthropological, psychological aspects that need looked at now, in a deeper way than they ever have done before, that's when you need to invite other people to the table. And even if you've got HR and FM, and IT all around that table, finally, you still need to go a bit wider. To be able to really like Jo said, understand, work and make work better. I guess.
Chris Moriarty
I'm very impressed by your pronunciation of all those logical words.
Esme Banks Marr
I thought I'd fudged that.
Chris Moriarty
But yeah no, no, that you're much better than me at that sort of stuff, I've definitely would have tripped over one of them. So, what was the second thing that stood out to you in our interview with Jo?
Esme Banks Marr
So, the second thing was the idea of we all use the same words but mean something wholly different. And I love that she said this. And it was just so interesting hearing somebody like Jo say this. And as somebody who started off in columns, at the moment, I just think we're all using the word hybrid too much and not actually explaining what we mean by it. And we all think we mean different things or understand it slightly differently. But the one that Jo picked up on, which I loved was our industry are quite obsessed with post occupancy evaluations, POE, we throw it around all the time, even the idea of post occupancy.
She said, hang on a minute, where's the people aspect and even that term, and it sounded almost quite laughable. And it kind of stopped me in my tracks. And I thought, gosh, we do this far too much that people even in her profession, and when she's lecturing and she's consulting from a well-being psychological standpoint, people are throwing terms out there, terms that they use, but they just mean something wholly different. And I think that's a challenge and probably an issue that we need to address.
Ian Ellison
James and I major on this quite a lot at the beginning of consultancy we do or educational stuff we do, and we use the term common language. So, it's quite interesting because if you have a word which has multiple meanings and workplaces is, you know, I agree with you post Occupancy Evaluation of POE is virtually meaningless beyond the small sphere of people who specialise in it. It just doesn't translate or make intuitive sense. workplace is almost the opposite end of that it's completely over traded as a term.
And it's got completely different meanings depending upon what your starting point is. And I think what's really interesting is sometimes and you witnessed this in academia, so often, you witnessed people battling for theirs to be right. But the flip side of that is to put your arms around it and go look there, all right, in different ways. And that leads back to your bit about interdisciplinary value, what do we get from all of those understandings, when we start sharing and learning together, but the key for me is then about establishing common language so that even if I might use a different term, at least you understand, what I'm talking about, whilst we're talking about it
Chris Moriarty
Is that part of that, though, the kind of I'm sure there's a campaign for plain speaking or something, there's a group of people that are kind of trying to battle and rid the world of complicated words, and just boiling it down to just tell you what it is. So, the post Occupancy Evaluation, then, like you say, it doesn't, it doesn't tell you anything about what it actually is, it doesn’t standalone, we're really what it is, is a survey after you've moved in, it's like
Esme Banks Marr
But I find people even use it even after any kind of change. And Jo picked up on this as well and talked about interventions and knowing the context of measuring something and people chuck that POE thing out, actually, we might not have even moved or consolidated or anything. Ultimately, we mean survey, but we want to throw a POe out there.
Ian Ellison
Well, you mean evaluation, whether you survey to do it, what we mean is an evaluation of whether something's working or not.
Chris Moriarty
I, I wrote an article for RIBA. And it was about POE, and it was about convincing architects that POEs were good ideas, which at the time, blew my brain cells. Because, again, as I've mentioned, I came from the world of Marrketing. And for me, I'm like, Well, if something is your product, and you could argue that the spaces that are created are products, right, you know, if an architect, I mean there might not construct it, but they ultimately are designing a space for you. And then it happens, I'd want to know if it worked. And if it didn't work, why it didn't work, so that I can make it better for the next person. But it just seemed to be such an alien concept. And it was really hard to write the article. Because I just sit there going this makes so much sense to me, why does it not make sense to you guys?
And it right now, if it didn't really go anywhere after that the you know, the article went into the outgoing president’s magazine, and we heard nothing about any sort of feedback or, or action off the back of it. So
Esme Banks Marr
I do think there's something in that. And actually, my third thing, if I can get on to it, that Jo picked up was how she explained about getting creative with how we measure workplace. And I thought that was really interesting. And again, knowing the context of whatever measurement it is that you want to do, what are you measuring for, but getting creative with that and not necessarily going right? Okay, time to do a survey, time to do some interviews, time to do some focus groups. And it picked up on something that Professor Jeremy Mycenae said in episode three of the podcast where he was talking about an approach he had taken, which was wildly creative, not something anyone had done before. And it was more around, get creative and draw basically your feedback. Was that right? Ian?
Ian Ellison
Yeah, just a really novel tool where he was just using literally one square box on a page to say, if that represents your office, if that represents your workplace, then tell us how you move how it turned, tell us how you move in relation to it. And being able to derive all sorts of different typologies of knowledge workers with respect to their movement.
Esme Banks Marr
And I just think as well, hearing Jo say that and aligning to it very much. It's actually weirdly sometimes not even about the medium. It's more about the translation and the interpretation of whatever it is you found from whichever creative medium you've used to gather feedback or measure workplace or what app or sensor or what, whichever Avenue you've gone down, or avenues, but it's yeah, it's actually about the interpretation, the translation of that, and making sure you're getting that to the right people. And you have again, the right people around the room or around the table in the room rather, to do that.
Ian Ellison
There's, there's an underlying theme to all three of your points. I wonder if there's something subconsciously going on there Esme about kind of getting frustrated with people in silos and stuff like that, because even that third point, if you think back to episode three with Jeremy, it was his co-author, Catherine Green, from beyond the profession that brought that methodology. And if James and I have seen this with our sort of teaching and some of the work that we've done, you might see something that's really common in it educational practice or in geography, and it might be quite a common research method there.
But to import it into a different discipline, it looks really ground-breaking and unique. And to be able to do that, I guess the fundamental thing is recognising that you might have blinkers on that you might have blind spots that you might have limits to your capability, which actually means you also have to recognise that there's plenty that you don't know, it's quite a, it's quite a humbling thought, to be able. And maybe it's that humbling thought, which then opens you up to the possibility of the power of interdisciplinary work, rather than making out that you've got all the answers. I think there's a politics to this, I think there's a politics of knowledge. And recognising that we have to get past ourselves to be able to do great work.
Esme Banks Marr
Yeah, I heard not to take us down a rabbit hole, I promise. But there was a webinar that happened a couple months into the pandemic. And I think it was the economist, maybe hood, who was running it, and General Petraeus was on there. And he was talking about taking a UN approach to things. And he was talking about coalition's and wars, and sometimes you are very different.
But ultimately, you're working towards the same common goal. And if you can align on what that common goal is, you've just got to take this, what he called the UN approach. And I think there's definitely something in that. And I mean, at the time, he was talking about overcoming COVID and coming out the other side of the pandemic, but obviously, he was using it as a metaphor to talk about, I guess, war. And it was actually all about leadership, this one webinar. And I definitely just think there's something in that
Chris Moriarty
Do not drag us into the murky world of Chris's pop cultural references. We talked about this before, and that it must have, you know, interdisciplinary research teams has come up a few times on this podcast, right. And it does remind me of, of those sort of sci fi movies. And the one that springs to mind is the ground-breaking work that was done on alien versus predator where a helicopter appears, and you get this kind of moment where it's like, well, what do you do I specialize in archaeology? And what do you do, I specialise in his history of mind, culture, and all this sort of stuff. And it's recognising that actually, that persons got really good insight into this, and they're actually going to solve part of the puzzle for you.
But you're right is the leadership that that requires that, and it requires that person to not only be open to it, I think that there's a kind of behavioural aspect we've talked about here, which is being open to the idea that someone else might know more about something than you, which I think is a very good lesson for any leader. But it also requires a moment in the process, where you really break down the problem, because you need to know what experts are going to come in and add value. And to do that, I guess you've got to be less prescriptive about what you think the answers are more open to the nature of the problem.
So, there is an element of being able to break down workplace challenges and going so what angle are we coming at? You know, is it behavioural? In which case we need some sociology dropped into this? Is it spatial, in which case we need some architectures, architecture dropped into this. So, we need to, there's an element of awareness and like you say, in know, what you don't know, and know what you do, you know, and there's, there's that problematic wonder of not knowing what you don't know, but we won't, we won't mention that.
Esme Banks Marr
But I feel so passionately about this. And I know so many people do. But this is basically the reason we were so keen on having you guys, part of what we were doing at Clerkenwell Design Week was because hang on a minute, there's something that's not being talked about, or a stream of academia, not even a stream streams of academia that aren't being tapped into. And it was just important that we had you guys in the room doing what you do, talking to Imogen talking to Jo, and getting under the skin of Hang on. There’re all these other things out there. Let's get under the skin of it, share it?
Because I think I mean, I don't mean to be all doom and gloom there is. I think we're on the cusp of some change, hopefully. And I think Jo said it as well. She even said it would be great to now start projects earlier working alongside design when the brief is happening. Why would she not want to be in the room as a psychologist who's supporting the organisation on the spatial side of things as well, I think that's great to hear.
Chris Moriarty
On that point, though, because I might, if I was gonna bring a sort of slightly cynical view to this conversation. I have been at plenty of events where very sMarrt people have gone on stage and said very sMarrt things. And I've seen a lot of different presentations. And to be honest, the people that we interview on this podcast, very rarely do I actually know who they are have or have heard of them before, right? There's a couple that I'm aware of. So, I use that as a bit of a kind of measurement of my personal awareness of this great thinking prior to going on this journey in interviewing these academics, right. It's nothing, nothing about them necessarily. It's more about what we're exposed to as a community.
So, there's that element to it, but the point I'm kind of drifting towards is that we go to conferences, or we go to events and evening, get togethers and seminars or watch webinars, whatever it might be. We listen to really, really intelligent people talk about really, really fascinating things. But it feels to me that too many people will enjoy that event, not along, say, oh, wasn't that interesting, and then go back to their jobs, and then either forget or feel frustrated that they can't do anything about it, or not know how they can translate something that was really interesting in a conversation into something very practical in their day to day work. And I don't know if that's just an issue in our world. I'm sure every profession has an element of that. But that's the thing I think we need to crack to make a difference.
Esme Banks Marr
Yeah, I think that's a really fair comment. And I think events and conferences do get a bit of a tough ride. But we've all been at that one. And unfortunately, it usually is only one or a handful where you've seen a session and you go holy. That's the thing that stuck with me. And I'm still thinking about it years later, or it's reminded me to always go back to this point, or whatever it happens to be. But perhaps there needs to be some new people held up on those pedestals or given a chance to be put on those pedestals whether we need pedicels in the industry or not to weighed in on the conversation, because unfortunately, a lot of the time it's the same, the same people and times have changed, and they are changing and they should change. So, throwing some new into the mix, I don't think is a bad thing, either.
Chris Moriarty
Well, look, thank you for making, making those last two interviews work. Even enjoyed it. I couldn't be there. I was gutted about that.
Esme Banks Marr
Well, thank you very much for having me, guys. And likewise, anytime you want somebody to ponder with when the Pinder ponder is away, what's he doing? He's whittling, whittling?
Chris Moriarty
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's a single day training. It didn't give us any details. I don't know if it's a single day training or a six-month course we might have to go back and demonstrate some whittling that he's done in his own time, but we will we will keep everyone posted on that front
Ian Ellison
I think its kind of I think its kind of like kung Fu. I think you go through like different belts and dans and stuff. And you're whittling skills to know where he’s at
Chris Moriarty
What can you whittle you can win so yeah, I get that. But it's you whittle things on to wood we can maybe ask him
Ian Ellison
On to you the southernly Whittle
Chris Moriarty
Right, just because I'm not fully up to date on these northern dark arts. Right. What do you whittle
Ian Ellison
Whittling?
Chris Moriarty
Because we just call it carving?
Ian Ellison
Well, yes. Okay, so whittling is synonymous with carving? You use sharp things against wood to make the wood into stuff. You don’t do it on it
Chris Moriarty
Is it like a chisel, though?
Ian Ellison
It's like a little knife. I think.
Chris Moriarty
I mean, we're getting into definitions here about when does it when does a little chisel become a knife?
Esme Banks Marr
Like a philosophical question
Ian Ellison
A chisels a different tool to a knife. It's not even remotely true. Well, it's got a blade, it's got a sharp bit, but they're different things.
Esme Banks Marr
I'm not really sure what rabbit hole we're going down now. But I just want to say it's super important what you guys are doing. So, thank you very much for inviting me on. And thank you for the interviews that you did with Imogen and Jo and joining us at Clerkenwell Design week because the design community is another community that we need to rope into this discussion. They're often left
Chris Moriarty
Where can people find out more about BVN and you and your work? Where should we point people towards
Esme Banks Marr
If you go to bvn.com.au and look for elastic work? That's kind of our headline thinking on workplace and how we approach projects and the idea of placemaking and what we even mean by workplace.
-- Outro --
Chris Moriarty
And that's that before we go a quick reminder that you can still use the promo code for Sam Connif’s Uncertainty Experts course that we spoke about in episode eight. The code for that is GEEKS, and that will get you 20% off that's valid until October 2022. And finally, remember the three R's rate review recommend it would mean an awful lot to us. Find us on LinkedIn talk about the show using the #workplacegeeks and drop us a line at hello@workplacegeeks.org Speak to you soon.
